by Tom Kuhn
An altar? A shop counter? There’s a question.
Was it the body of Christ that was sold here? His blood
Dispensed? Or was it linen that was celebrated and boots?
Was the profit here earthly, or heavenly?
Was it priests doing the selling, or merchants the preaching?
God’s own lovely creations, the pine trees
Are flogged off by the metalworker next door.
On Germany
Oh you friendly Bavarian forests, oh cities of the Main
Spruce-lined hills of the Rhön, Black Forest rich in shade
You must endure.
Thuringia’s rusty slag heaps, the sparse scrub of Brandenburg and
You black cities of the Ruhr, criss-crossed with steel barges, why
Should you not remain?
You too, many-citied Berlin
Your bustle beneath and above the asphalt, you too can stay and you
Hanseatic ports shall stay and Saxony’s
Teeming cities, you stay, and you Silesian towns
Veiled in smoke and looking to the East, you too must stay.
Only the scum of the generals and gauleiters
Only the factory bosses and stock exchange speculators
Only the junkers and governors must disappear.
Heaven and earth and the wind and all that is made by man
Can stay, but
The offscourings of exploiters, they
Shall not endure.
Many spoke of the war . . .
Many spoke of the war as of a tempest or flood tide
A firestorm, wreaking destruction! or of a cleansing gale!
After their kind and education, one or the other
Differing too in suffering: though not all suffered the same way
Yet they all spoke of the war as of a force of nature.
Out of the substance of man they sought to explain what happened.
Man was by nature warlike and ever bent on destruction
And this urge, they said, would break once more to the surface
Even though ordered times might contain the destructive spirit!
When the war was over and those who’d survived came home
Many were heard, those who once had marched to war
Indifferent, joyful even, now speak of the war in anger.
Never again, they swore, would they be drawn from their houses
By marches and the cheerful blaring of military bands
Now, they cried in anger, they’d seen through the whole deception
Some were just missing a hand with which to strike their brows
In emphasis—for that they’d left rotting in foreign earth.
So perhaps they had learnt, and could be changed after all?
War itself was now ostracized? And never to return?
If the nature of man was changed, that had before
Given rise to war, then war was surely now vanquished?
Oh, but the uniform was not yet musty in the cupboard
That once in rage they had torn off, but that they began again
And spoke of new wars, and the old arthritic veterans
Sang the praises of war to the young with fevered shining eyes.
So brief was the passage of time from cursing to praising
Not even time for a youthful pear tree to grow to maturity.
Is then war eternal? And human beings by nature
Of such wild and warlike spirit that time and again
This madness will break through? Perhaps then it is no madness?
If war is dependent alone on spirit, and spirit so mutable?
Address of the dying poet to the young
You young people of times to come and
Of new dawns over cities that are
As yet unbuilt, and you too
As yet unborn, hear now
My voice, who am dead
And without renown.
Rather
Like a farmer who has not tilled his field, or
Like a lazy carpenter who has wandered off
From the uncovered roof truss.
So have I
Squandered my time, wasted my days and now
I must ask you
To say all that has been left unsaid
To do all that has been left undone, and as for me
Swiftly to forget me, I beg, lest yet
My poor example lead you astray.
Oh why have I sat
At the table of the unfruitful, sharing the meal
They had not prepared?
Oh why did I throw in
My best words to their
Idle chatter? When outside
The ignorant went their way
Thirsting after instruction.
Oh why
Do my songs not rise up from the places where
The cities are nourished, where they build the ships, why
Do they not rise up from the swift
Locomotives like smoke that
Hangs in the sky?
Because my talk
For the useful and for the creators
Is like ash in their mouths and a drunken mumbling.
Not one word
Do I have for you, you generations yet to come
Not one pointer with a trembling finger
Can I give you, for how
Should he point out the way, who has
Himself not travelled it!
So to me there remains, I who have
So wasted my life, only one thing, namely: to exhort you
Not to attend to a single precept that dribbles from
Our sluggard mouths, and not to
Accept a single piece of advice from those who
Have fallen so short, but rather
Only to determine for yourselves what is
Good for you and
Helps you to cultivate the land that we let fall into neglect, and
The cities that we polluted
To make them habitable.
Note of what’s needed
I know many who run around with a slip of paper
On which is written what they need.
Whoever gets to see the slip says: that’s a lot.
But he who wrote it says: that’s the least of it.
Some, however, show off their slips proudly
On which there is but little.
Li-gung’s great speech about the punishment the gods decreed for the not-eating of meat
The struggles for food
Brought forth terrible crimes. Brother
Drove sister from the table. Husband and wife
Tore the plates from one another’s hands. For a piece of meat
Son betrayed mother. And so a sect emerged
Who looked for salvation from fasting. It was said
Only by renunciation could one preserve humanity. Anyone
Who wanted to eat would slide ineluctably down to the animals. For a time
The very best looked upon the good things of the universe
As on poisonous rubbish. But then the gods intervened.
Enraged that their gifts were so despised, they decreed a penalty of death
For self-denial. People saw
How those who did not eat shrivelled up and were ugly
And those who wouldn’t eat meat died off. To escape the terrible sickness
People once more threw themselves all the more hungrily on their food.
And the crimes multiplied.
A question
Shall it one day be said:
In this house we do not speak of this son.
He started out well and it was hoped
He might do things that are difficult and useful. But
Now he just sews sacks.
He sits amongst those who stole out of hunger. Yet
He does not belong with them. There are those sitting there too
Who fought against theft; to these too
&
nbsp; He does not belong. He
Is just a thief.
Questions and answers
“Can truth be mortal, and deceit eternal?” —“Without a doubt.”
“Where on earth does injustice go unrecognized?” —“Here, in full view.”
“Who has ever achieved fortune just by force?” —“They’re all about.”
“Then who in such a world could fell the oppressor?” —“You.”
Intervention
That morning, by the gun emplacement
Next to the shot-up tree appeared
Three old women. They stood
One metre above the ground in the half-light
And said: Don’t shoot! Over on the other side
Lie our sons. Instead, give us
Your socks, so we can darn them.
And take off those steel helmets, so we can see
If you’re clean behind the ears. And one of them
Had brought a loaf of white bread and asked to
Borrow a knife. And in that moment
The slaughter started.
Praise of doubt
Praise be to doubt! Take my advice, and greet
With good cheer and respect the man
Who tests your word like a bad penny!
I would that you were wise and would not proffer
Your word with all too much assurance.
Read in your histories and see
An invincible army, now in headlong flight.
All around
Impregnable citadels fall to the ground and
As for the Armada, when it set out it may well have been unnumbered
But the ships coming back
Could very easily be counted.
So one day it came to pass, a man stood on the unconquerable summit
And a ship reached the end
Of the infinite ocean.
Oh that beauteous head-shaking
In the face of indisputable truths!
Oh the brave doctor’s treatment
Of his incurable patient!
But the most beautiful of all doubts is this:
When the downtrodden and despondent raise their heads and
No longer believe
In the might of their oppressors!
Oh how arduous was the acquisition of the new teaching!
What it cost in sacrifice!
That things are like this, and not like that
How hard that was to see!
With a sigh of relief someone, one day, set this down in the book of knowledge.
It will be there a long time perhaps, and many generations
Will live by it and see it as an eternal wisdom
And all the knowledgeable will despise those who are ignorant of the new teaching.
And then it may come about that distrust begins, for new experience
Has cast suspicion on the established truth. Doubt lifts its head.
And one new day another comes, takes up the book of knowledge and
Thoughtfully, strikes it out.
Barked about by orders, examined
For his battle readiness by bearded doctors, inspected
By gleaming creatures with golden flashes, admonished
By solemn priests who beat him about the head with a book written by God himself
Instructed
By impatient schoolmasters, the poor man stands and hears
That the world is the best of all possible worlds, and the hole
In his roof is planned by God himself.
Truly, he has a hard time of it
To doubt in the world as it is.
Dripping with sweat the man strains to build the house in which he will never live
But it’s sweat-dripping labour too for the man who builds his own house.
There are the thoughtless who never doubt.
Their digestion is perfect, their judgement infallible.
They don’t believe in the facts, they only believe themselves. If it comes to the crunch
It’s the facts that have to die. Their patience with themselves
Is limitless. They listen to arguments
With the ears of a police informer.
The thoughtless who never doubt
Confront the thoughtful, who never act.
They do not question in order to come to a decision, but rather
In order to avoid the decision. They employ their heads
Only to shake them. With troubled expressions
They warn the passengers of sinking ships about the water.
Under the axe of the murderer
They ask if he is not also a human being.
With the mumbled observation
That the matter has not been thoroughly thought through, they go to bed.
Their only action is vacillation.
Their favourite phrase: it’s not yet certain.
So granted, when you praise doubt
Do not praise
The doubt that is despair!
What use is doubting to him
Who cannot make up his mind!
He who is content with too few reasons
May well act falsely
But he who needs too many
Will linger inactive in danger.
You who are a leader of men, do not forget
That you have this part because you doubted the leaders!
So permit the led in turn
To doubt.
Bad time for youth
Instead of playing in the bushes with others his age
My young son sits hunched over his books
And most of all he likes to read
About the fraudulence of the money-men
And the bloody campaigns of the generals.
When he reads that our laws
Forbid both poor and rich alike to sleep under bridges
I hear his happy laughter.
When he discovers the writer of some book or other has been bribed
His eyes light up. I applaud that
But I would rather I could offer him
A childhood in which he
Could go playing in the bushes with the others.
On luck
He who would escape, needs luck.
Without luck
No one can save themselves from cold
From hunger or indeed from their fellow human beings.
Luck is our help.
I have had a lot of luck. That is why
I am still here.
But looking into the future I recognize with a shudder
How much luck I still need.
Luck is our help.
He is strong who has luck.
A good fighter and wise teacher
Is one with luck.
Luck is our help.
Little clouds from time to time . . .
Little clouds from time to time go drifting
High across the blue blue sky
Down below we easy-going folk lift up
Our gaze to follow them as they sweep by.
And we see it clearly: all is rosy! And we offer
Happy thanks from little men.
If we counted every little cloud we’d never
Ever get back home again.
It’s your affair—so just don’t have a say
Don’t only hold to your beliefs!
For god’s sake don’t be earnest because the times are tough!
When the reckoning is made, why then you’ll pay
No question, you will step up soon enough!
Leave politics to the intriguers
Our politicos are so well versed
You needn’t think yourselves, don’t be so eager
Just look to your future, and see the worst!
Now we are refugees in Finland.
Now we are refugees in Finland.
My little daughter
Comes home in the evening and complains
No child will play with her. She is German and bor
n of
A tribe of brigands!
If I converse loudly in the tram
I am told to be quiet. Here they don’t like
Loud words from a man
Who is born of a tribe of brigands.
When I remind my little daughter
That the Germans are a tribe of brigands
She is glad with me that she is not liked
And we laugh together.
Weigel’s props
See here the stool and the old mirror
Before which she sat down with her part on her knees
And see the make-up stick, the tiny pot of colour
And here the net she worked in her fishwife days.
But see too from the years of flight the five-øre coin
With the hole in, the worn shoes, the shallow copper pan
In which she boiled up blueberries for the children
The wooden board she kneaded the dough on.
Things she in good and bad times, yours and hers
Was busy with, now show them in this place!
Such valuables that never put on airs!
Actress and refugee, the maid, the woman of the house.
Over a bottle of wine
Over a bottle of wine
Our Finnish friend described to us
How the war had laid waste her cherry garden.
The wine we are drinking, she said, comes from that garden.
We drained our glasses
In memory of the shot-dead cherry garden
And to reason.
This is the year . . .