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The Collected Poems of Bertolt Brecht

Page 58

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 . . .

 

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