by Tom Kuhn
“He’ll know all the holes in the mesh of the law.” The laughter
Was echoing still, when, from the darkest corner
Came a cry: “Hey you, do they know
Your verses by heart? And those who know them
Will they prevail and escape persecution?” —“Those
Are the forgotten ones”, Dante said quietly
“In their case, not only their bodies, their works too were destroyed.”
The laughter broke off. No one dared look over. The newcomer
Had turned pale.
The Buddha’s parable of the burning house
Gautama the Buddha preached
The doctrine of the wheel of greed to which we all are bound, and taught us
To cast off lust and so
Without desire, to enter that nothingness he called Nirvana.
Then one day his disciples asked:
What is this nothingness like, master? We would all
Cast off lust, as you advise, but tell us
Whether this nothingness which we then will enter is
Something like the unity with all creation
When you lie in the water, light of body, at noon
Almost without thoughts, lie lazy in the water or fall into sleep
Hardly knowing as you pull the sheet to rights
Sinking fast—in other words, whether this nothingness is
A happy one, a good nothingness, or if
This nothingness of yours is simply nothing, cold, empty, meaningless.
For a long time the Buddha was silent, then he said lightly:
There is no answer to your question.
But in the evening, after they had gone
The Buddha still sat under the breadfruit tree and told the others
Those who had not asked, this parable:
Lately I came upon a house. It was on fire. Up to the roof
The flames licked. I went nearer and noticed
There were still people inside. I went to the door and called to them
That the roof was on fire, exhorting them
To get out at once. But the people
Seemed in no hurry. One of them asked me
As the heat scorched his eyebrows
What it was like outside, whether it was raining
Or if a wind was blowing, if there was another house to go to
And more in that vein. Without answering
I went back outside. These people, I thought
Must burn to death before they stop asking questions. Truly, friends
To him who does not feel the ground so hot underfoot that he’d gladly
Exchange it for any other rather than stay, to him
I have nothing to say. Thus spake Gautama the Buddha.
We too, no longer concerned with the art of forbearance
Rather concerned with the art of non-forbearance, making
All sorts of proposals of an earthly kind, and teaching humanity
To shake off its human tormentors, we too would say that to those who
In the face of the approaching bomber squadrons of finance capital go on asking
What precisely we had in mind by this, how we envisage that
And what is to become of their rainy-day savings and their Sunday suits after a revolution
We have not much to say.
The carpet weavers of Kujan-Bulak honour Lenin
1
Often has he been honoured and lavishly:
Comrade Lenin. There are busts and statues.
Cities are named after him, and children.
Speeches are held in many languages
There are gatherings and demonstrations
From Shanghai to Chicago, in honour of Lenin.
Hear now how he was honoured by
The carpet weavers of Kujan-Bulak
A little village in southern Turkestan:
Twenty carpet weavers rise every evening
Shaken by fever, from their ramshackle looms.
Fever is in the air: the station
Is filled with the buzz of mosquitos, the thick cloud
Which rises from the swamp behind the old camel graveyard.
But the railway, which
Once a fortnight, brings water and smoke, brings
One day also the news
That the day in honour of Comrade Lenin is approaching
And the people of Kujan-Bulak decide
Carpet weavers, poor people
That in their village too a plaster bust
Of Comrade Lenin should be erected.
Then, when the money is collected for the bust
They all stand there
Shaken by fever, and count out
Their hard-won kopeks with swift hands.
And the Red Army soldier Stepa Gamaleev, the
Diligent accountant and attentive observer
Sees their willingness to honour Lenin, and is glad
But he sees also their unsteady hands.
And he makes a sudden proposal
With this money for the bust to buy petrol and
To pour it on the swamp behind the camel graveyard
From which the mosquitos come, which
Breed the fever.
So to combat the fever in Kujan-Bulak, and so
To honour the departed, but
Not to be forgotten
Comrade Lenin.
Thus it was decided. On the day of the celebration they carried out
Their dented buckets, filled with black petroleum
One behind the other
And poured them on the swamp.
Thus they helped themselves by honouring Lenin and
They honoured him by helping themselves and had therefore
Understood him.
2
We have heard how the people of Kujan-Bulak
Honoured Lenin. Now in the evening
That the petrol had been bought and poured over the swamp
A man stood up in the gathering, and he demanded
That a plaque be erected at the station
With the report of these events, including
Precisely the changed plan and the exchange of the
Bust of Lenin for the barrel of fever-blasting petrol.
And all this in honour of Lenin.
And they did this too
And put up the plaque.
The invincible inscription
At the time of the World War
In a cell in the Italian prison of San Carlo
Full of arrested soldiers, drunkards and thieves
A socialist soldier scratched in crayon on the wall
Viva Lenin!
Right up high, in the half-light of the cell, hardly visible, but
Written in huge bold letters.
When the guards saw it they sent a man with a bucket of whitewash
And with a long-handled brush he painted over the threatening inscription.
But because he simply followed the outline with his whitewash
On the cell wall it now said, in whitewash
Viva Lenin!
Then a second painter painted the whole thing over with a broad brush
So that for several hours it was gone, but towards morning
When the whitewash dried, the inscription re-emerged:
Viva Lenin!
Whereupon the guards sent a builder with a chisel against the inscription
And he laboured for an hour scratching the letters out one by one
And when he was done, high up on the cell wall, in no colour now
But scratched deep into the wall, the invincible inscription:
Viva Lenin!
Now remove the wall! said the soldier.
Coals for Mike
1
I have heard that in Ohio
At the beginning of this century
A woman lived in Bidwell
Mary McCoy, widow of a tracklayer
Mike McCoy by
name, in poverty.
2
And every night, from the thundering trains of the Wheeling Railroad
The brakemen threw a lump of coal
Over the fence slats into the potato patch
Calling out in haste, voices gruff
For Mike!
3
And every night, when
The lump of coal for Mike
Slammed against the back wall of the hut
The old woman got up, pulled on
Drunk with sleep her housecoat, and cleared away
The lump of coal
Gift from the brakemen for Mike, departed but
Not forgotten.
4
But she roused herself so long before the dawn and cleared
Their offerings out of sight, so that
The men should not get into trouble
With the Wheeling Railroad.
5
This poem is dedicated to the comrades
Of the brakeman Mike McCoy
(Who died of a weak lung
On the coal trains of Ohio)
In comradeship.
The breaking up of the ship, the Oskawa, by her crew
“Early in the year 1922
I put on board the six-thousand-ton freighter OSKAWA
Built four years previously for two million dollars
By the United States Shipping Board. In Hamburg
We took on a cargo of champagne and liquor for Rio.
Since the wages were bad
We felt the need to drown
Our troubles in alcohol, so
Several cases of champagne found
Their way into the crew’s quarters. In the officers’ quarters too
Even on the bridge and in the chartroom
Just four days out of Hamburg you could hear
The clinking of glasses and the singing
Of sailors with no care in the world. Several times
The ship veered off course. Yet still
Favoured by all kinds of lucky circumstance, we reached
Rio de Janeiro. When we unloaded, our skipper
Counted out one hundred fewer cases of champagne. But because he could
Find no better crew in Brazil
He had to make do with us. We loaded
Over a thousand tons of frozen meat for Hamburg.
Just a few days back at sea we were overcome once more by our troubles
The bad wages, the uncertain provision for old age, and
One of us, in his despair, poured
Too much oil in the furnace, and the fire
Burst out of the funnel all over the decks, so that
The boats, bridge and chartroom were destroyed. So as not to sink
We helped put out the fire, but
Grumbling about the bad wages (the uncertain future!), we didn’t take
So much care to salvage what was left of the decks. That would be
Easy to rebuild, at some expense, and they had
After all, saved themselves enough on our wages.
Too much exertion in midlife
Ages a man quickly and unfits him for life’s struggle.
So one fine day, because we needed to conserve our energies
The dynamos, which need the sort of care
That apathetic folk cannot render, burnt out. Now we were
Without light. At first we used oil lamps
So as not to collide with other ships, but
A tired mate, discouraged by thoughts
Of a joyless old age, threw the lamps, to save work
Overboard. About this time, just off Madeira
The meat began to stink in the refrigerated hold
Because of the failure of the dynamos. Regrettably
A distracted crewmember, instead of the bilge
Pumped out nearly all the fresh water. There was enough to drink
But no longer enough for the boilers. So we had to
Use saltwater for the engines and that in turn
Blocked up the pipes with salt. Cleaning them out
Took quite a while. And it had to be done seven times.
Then there was a breakdown in the machine room. Grinning
We patched it up. The Oskawa
Limped slowly into Madeira. There
There was no facility to undertake repairs on the scale
That were now already necessary. We simply took on
Water, some lamps and a little oil for the lamps. The dynamos
Were, it appeared, completely ruined, and consequently
The cooling system didn’t work and the stink
Of the rotting meat became intolerable for our
Frayed nerves; the skipper now
Only walked the decks armed with a revolver—a symbol
Of hurtful distrust! One of us, finally
Enraged by this unworthy treatment
Diverted a shot of steam into the refrigeration pipes, so that the damn meat
Would at least be cooked. That afternoon
The whole crew sat down and painstakingly worked out
How much this cargo would cost the United States. Before the end of the voyage
We managed to excel ourselves: off the coast of Holland
We suddenly ran out of fuel oil, so that
At considerable expense, we had to be towed into Hamburg.
The stinking meat caused our skipper a load more trouble. The ship
Went straight to the boneyard. Any child, we thought
Could see that our wages had
Really been too niggardly.”
The Moscow workers take possession of the great Metro on 27 April 1935
We heard tell: 80,000 workers
Built the Metro, many working on long after their daytime labours
Often through the night. All through the course of this year
Young men and boys, women and girls could be seen
Laughing as they climbed from the shafts, and proudly
Showing off overalls, muddied with clay and wet with sweat.
All the obstacles
—Underground rivers, the pressure of buildings above
Collapsing earthslides—were overcome. And in the fitting out
No effort or pains were spared. The best marble
Fetched from afar, and the finest woods
Carefully worked. Almost soundlessly then
At last the splendid carriages ran
Through the brightly lit tunnels: for exacting clients
Only the best.
Now that the railway was built, following the most consummate plans
And now that the owners came to see it and take possession
And to travel on it: the owners were revealed
As those who themselves had built it.
They came in their thousands, walked about
Viewing the vast halls, and in the trains
Great crowds rode past, their faces
—Men, women and children, and the old as well—
Turned towards the stations, beaming as in the theatre, for the stations
Were all of different construction, and of different stone
Built in different styles, even the light
Coming always from another source. Those who climbed aboard
Were pushed to the back of the carriages by the happy throng
For the front seats were, of course, the best
For viewing the stations. At every station
Children were lifted aloft. Whenever they could
The passengers rushed from the trains and with joyful rigour
Surveyed what they had created. They felt the pillars
Appraised how smooth they were. With their shoes they
Felt their way over the stone floors, checking the stones
Had been fitted flush. And streaming back to the carriages
They checked the wall coverings and ran their fingers
Over the glass. Time and again
Men and women pointed out—uncertain if they recalled correctly—
Places where they had worked: the stones
Bore the imprint of their hands. Every face
Clearly visible, for there was plenty of light
From many lamps, more than in any other railway I have ever seen.
The tunnels were lit too, not a single metre of their work
Went unlit. And all this
Had been built in a single year and by so many builders
Unlike another railway in the world. And no
Other railway in the world ever had so many owners.
For this wonderful construction saw
Something not one of its predecessors in the countless cities of many centuries
Had ever seen before: as masters and owners the builders themselves!
Where indeed had that ever been heard, that the fruits of their labour
Should fall to those who had laboured? Where
Had they not been driven out of the building
Those who had raised it?
As we watched them riding in their carriages
The work of their own hands, we knew:
This is the great vision, that the classics once
In wonder foresaw.
The pace of socialist reconstruction
A man who came in the year 1930 from Nikolayevsk-on-Amur
Said, asked in Moscow how things were back there:
How should I know? My journey
Lasted six weeks and in six weeks
Everything changes there.
The great October
On the twentieth anniversary of the October Revolution
O great October of the working classes!
That final rising up of those who had so long
Been bent low! O you soldiers who
At last turned your guns against the real foe!
Those who had prepared the fields in the spring
Were not working for themselves. When summer came
It bent them lower still. The harvest
Still went to the barns of their masters. But come October
The bread was, at last, in the right hands!
Since then
There’s been hope in the world.
The miner in Wales and the Manchurian coolie
And the Pennsylvanian labourer who lives like a dog