The Collected Poems of Bertolt Brecht

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The Collected Poems of Bertolt Brecht Page 4

by Tom Kuhn


  There will be light. That time will come.

  There will be light then or God can’t exist—

  If only when they die, at the very last:

  The dark room will open and one will shine

  Solidly, brightly, full in their gaze.

  His chair is vacant. His place is laid.

  He breaks them bread and he passes them wine

  And they smile in their dying, transfigured, freed

  And enter into heaven lightly, with ease.

  Serenade

  Now nothing wakes but the moon and cats

  Already asleep all men and women

  Then across the town hall square trots

  Bert Brecht with his lampion.

  And when the youngster May has woken

  And all’s in bloom for evermore

  Then through the night, the drink taken

  Bert Brecht sways with his pet guitar.

  And when you rest in peace and well

  Contented with the rewards of heaven

  Then through the furnace heat of hell

  Bert Brecht will stumble with his lampion.

  Song of the tree of vultures

  From cockcrow to midnight

  The vultures fight like demented things with the solitary tree.

  So many wings darken the sky, for hours at a time he cannot see the sun.

  The space around him sings with the rushing of wings of iron.

  And the wings lifting like whips, when they fall on him

  They hack at his body, it trembles, they gash every budding limb.

  When their wings explode in his branches

  Rip his bark, peck his crown to pieces

  He stands hunched, cowering down

  Forlorn and bloody, cut to bits, all awry and as though

  Thrusting with swords their steel wings pierce him through

  Tottering and dark in the ploughlands in the twilight.

  The throttling of wings is so strong in the torn web of his branches

  He has begun trying his roots in the ground—will they hold?

  And deep down, deep, deep, far underground

  The roots quaked but still he braced himself into the earth, he,

  Not resisting the heavens, braced himself and held.

  True, he dreams midday and evening and midnight as a dark dream.

  But he stands. It is true, he lifts up his lacerated brow

  The weight of it, only by force, high into the air, and tottering

  And loudly in the night he mocked the laborious vultures, deriding the lot of them.

  But wearily the birds in the moonlight rocked on their wings and filled the air

  With screeches, the rush of their wings faltered and the tree was aware

  That his immortality filled the vultures with horror

  And he spread his branches wide, wide in jubilation for it was a night of spring.

  Yes, this mortal tribe are tired now and the tree, hacked and awry, will blossom.

  Today, he would begin to blossom—then the tree laughed. But the vultures

  Rocked more wearily in the moonlight and the air was filled with their iron screeching.

  They heard him in his dream, softly laughing, not groaning.

  Next morning it would astound them to see how he bloomed and was splendidly free . . .

  Their plumage weighed heavier, they were tired and sad

  Rose heavily into the air and fell with the weight of lead

  On the wounded tree so that it became like a hill of iron.

  For crowded in their sleep they squatted on every branch

  And sleeping with dead-weary talons held tight

  Every twig and shoot and bud.

  Curved their wings like shields of bronze and from top to bottom

  Covered the astounded tree with brazen wings.

  Trembling beneath the wearying weight

  The tree fell dumb.

  From midnight only until cockcrow

  The sleeping vultures with shuddering wings and occasional

  Hoarse cries squat woebegone on the groaning tree.

  Their talons are blunted, their wings in ruins

  And they dream of the tree, that he is immortal.—

  When at red daybreak with a painful soaring

  Sleepily they rise into a brightening spring morning

  Their weary wings fill the air with a clang of iron

  And from above they see like a ghostly dream, like a phantom

  Below them the tree

  And the tree is dead.

  Romanticism

  One day in spring a ship hove into sight

  From distant shores and as the ocean blue

  With flapping sails and hatches battened tight

  Unaccounted for, and not a soul for crew.

  It lay there rocking many sun-drenched days

  And many watched it from the sunny shore.

  It lay so long it faded in the haze

  And no one saw its blue hull anymore.

  Only drunkards reeling through night’s chill

  Would hear strange music echo from the rig,

  And yet: not one of those who listened still,

  And yet: not one who saw the sails fill,

  Took courage in his hands to board the brig.

  It followed on a foreign star

  To seek its rest on distant sands—

  For, come the spring, the ghostly ship was far,

  Drifting to the shores of blue-hazed lands.

  Caspar’s song with the lone refrain

  Cas is brave. Cas shoots big guns

  At enemies he might have once befriended.

  His fists, where gentle souls might dwell

  Are swollen dangerously and distended.

  But at night Cas sings all like a maid forlorn

  Caspar’s song with its lone refrain:

  Oh, that the war were done and I back home!

  Cas is angry, for the war goes on and on

  And just so long as Cas is angry that will be the case

  He casts his weapons away but oh, he casts

  His bayonet in his enemy’s guts.

  But at night Cas sings all like a maid forlorn

  Caspar’s song with its lone refrain:

  Oh, that the war were done and I back home!

  Cas has eyes, blue like the sky

  Fat fists and a heart that’s big and brave

  When he drinks schnapps he trots off smiling

  Like a fat white horse off to his grave.

  But at night Cas sings all like a maid forlorn

  Caspar’s song with its lone refrain:

  Oh, that the war were done and I back home!

  Cas is growing huge amongst the guns

  Fat and lumpy like a pig in clover

  That might be of use to get him home

  But, back home, the use will soon be over.

  But at night Cas sings all like a maid forlorn

  Caspar’s song with its lone refrain:

  Oh, that the war were done and I back home!

  Cas is invincible and so he goes on

  Trusting in fate and harmony

  Cas knows he’ll get home all right, but

  He doesn’t know how, and nor do we.

  But at night Cas sings all like a maid forlorn

  Caspar’s song with its lone refrain:

  Oh, that the war were done and I back home!

  Cas is happy. Cas fired his soul

  Up to the blue skies high and higher.

  With or without a throat you still might sing

  But not without a purpose or desire.

  But at night Cas sings all like a maid forlorn

  Caspar’s song with its lone refrain:

  Oh, that the war were done and I back home!

  The heaven of the disappointed

  1

  Halfway between night and morning somewhere

  Naked, freezing cold, on stony ground

  Under a cold sk
y as though concealed there

  The Heaven of the Disappointed will be found.

  2

  High in the sky once every thousand years

  White clouds. For a thousand more years: none.

  High in the sky though every thousand years

  Always. White and laughing. Them again.

  3

  Now and then though from the lower heavens

  Voices singing solemnly and clear:

  Out of the Heaven of the Admirers hymns

  Rise and gently penetrate up there.

  4

  Always silence over massive stones

  Not much brightness but always a sheen

  Sad souls who feed themselves on moans and groans

  Sit without tears or words, very alone.

  Hymn to God

  1

  Deep in the lightless valleys the hungry are dying.

  And you—show them bread and you let them die.

  And you—rule eternally and invisibly

  Radiant and cruel over the eternal plan.

  2

  You let the young die and those enjoying their lives

  But those who wanted to die, you would not let them . . .

  Many of those who by now have mouldered away

  Believed in you and died in the certain hope of your heaven.

  3

  Left the poor to be poor for many a year

  Because their longing was finer than your heaven was

  Dying before you arrived with the light, alas

  Still they died blessed—and rotted at once.

  4

  Many say you are not and that it is better so.

  But how can a thing not be when it so deceives?

  When so many live for you and cannot otherwise die

  Tell me, what good does it do to say you are not?

  The legend of the whore Evlyn Roe

  When spring arrived and the sea was blue

  And she could find no rest

  Young Evlyn Roe, she came aboard

  And the ship she boarded was the last.

  She wore haircloth on her body.

  Her body was unearthly fair.

  She wore no gold or jewellery

  But her wondrous rich hair.

  “Let me sail with you, Captain, to the Holy Land

  I must go to the Lord Jesus.”

  “Woman, you shall sail, for we’re fools to a man

  And you are so glorious.”

  “Christ thank you for that. I’m a poor woman.

  My soul belongs to Lord Jesus.”

  “Give us your sweet body then!

  To the lord you love it is no use

  For he’s long dead and gone.”

  They sailed away in the sun and the wind

  And they loved Evlyn Roe.

  She ate their bread and she drank their wine

  And she wept while she did so.

  They danced by night. They danced by day

  They let the rudder go.

  Evlyn Roe was so shy and so soft

  And they were harder than stone.

  Springtime passed and the summer too.

  She ran at nights in clapped-out shoes

  From stem to stern and far away

  For a quiet shore out there in the grey

  She stared, poor Evlyn Roe.

  She danced by night. She danced by day.

  She was wisht and wan, she was sickly

  “Captain, Captain, when will we come

  To Lord Jesus’ Holy City?”

  The Captain lay in her lap. Said he

  With a kiss and a laugh: “We know

  Who’ll be to blame if we never get there

  And that is Evlyn Roe.”

  She danced by night. She danced by day.

  She was wisht and wan, she was corpsy.

  From the Captain down to the cabin boy:

  “We’ve had our fill,” said they.

  She wore silk on her body that now

  Was sick and full of wheals.

  And she wore over her spoiled brow

  Hair that was matted and foul.

  “Lord Jesus Christ, I shall never see you

  With my body so full of sin.

  You are not allowed to go to a whore

  And I’m such a poor woman.”

  So long from stem to stern to and fro

  Sore at heart she ran on sore feet

  Till she went one night when nobody saw

  She went one night in the sea.

  That was in cold January

  She swam far far away

  And it’s not till March or April

  Blossom comes to the tree.

  She gave herself to the dark dark waves

  They washed her white and pure

  Now she’ll likely be in the Holy Land

  Before the Captain’s there.

  In spring when she came to Heaven’s door

  Peter shut that door on her

  “God said to me: I’ll not have here

  Evlyn Roe, the whore.”

  But when she came to Hell’s door

  They bolted that door too.

  The Devil yelled: “I’ll not have here

  The pious Evlyn Roe.”

  She went in the wind through the realm of stars

  Ever onwards she must go.

  Late evening once in the fields I saw her:

  Tottery. Resting never.

  That poor Evlyn Roe.

  Song of the saved

  When you die, heaven will open its arms to some of you.

  It won’t come as much surprise, and it won’t be anything new.

  There’ll be murderers and drunkards in amongst the throng.

  If you can’t love them, you haven’t got a song.

  To anyone who struck his brother the pearly gates will open wide

  Street drinkers too will stumble their way inside . . .

  If ever you lay in the gutter and gazed at the starry sky

  You’ll be raised up and ready when your final hour draws nigh.

  Only those will ever see heaven who once were blind

  If you’re on your own you’ll be left behind.

  There’ll be griefs there too, you won’t be spared

  But all the burdens will be shared

  Children and fools will make it to the sunlit land . . .

  Murderers and their victims walk there hand in hand.

  And as they go they wipe the blood and tears off

  Brother Baal and Brother Karamazov.

  Fairground song

  Spring leapt through the hoops

  Of heaven to the green ground.

  With calliopes and pipes

  The bright fair came to town.

  And there I saw a child

  A girl with golden hair

  No girl ever had eyes

  That better suited her.

  And there the carousels

  Stood turning in the sun—

  And when they came to a standstill

  My head turned on and on.

  At night the carousels

  Like milk-glass lamps are still

  Every night is lit with starlight:

  Let things be as they will!

  And now I’m drunk, my darling.

  And I’m a sight to see

  For I carry a brand-new lampion

  Where my old skull used to be.

  And spring may go her ways now

  I’ll see her for evermore

  Because in spring I saw a girl

  A girl with golden hair.

  Dolly Little, the layer-out

  Dolly Little, the layer-out

  She does the job just right

  Washes your dirty body clean

  Gives you clean to the earth again

  Clean as you were in your mother’s womb . . .

  A painter

  Neher Cass rides on a camel through the desert and paints a green date-palm in watercolours

  (Under h
eavy machine-gun fire)

  There’s a war on. The terrible sky is bluer than usual. Many a man drops dead in the swamp grass.

  Brown men can be shot dead. In the evening you can paint them.

  Often they have remarkable hands.

  Neher Cass paints the pale sky over the Ganges in the early-morning wind.

  Seven coolies support his canvas; fourteen coolies support Neher Cass, who has been drinking.

  Because the sky is beautiful.

  At night Neher Cass sleeps on the stones and curses because they are hard.

  But he finds even that beautiful (including the cursing)

  He would like to paint it.

  Neher Cass paints the violet sky over Peshawar white:

  Because his tube of blue is used up.

  Slowly the sun is eating him. His soul is being transfigured. Neher Cass keeps on painting.

  On the sea between Ceylon and Port Said he paints on the inner wall of the old sailing ship

  His best picture, in three colours, by the light of two hatches.

  Then the ship sank, he escapes with his life. Cass is proud of the picture. It was beyond price.

  Oh you can’t know what I suffer . . .

  Oh you can’t know what I suffer

  When I see a woman who

  Sways her yellow silk-clad bottom

  Under skies of evening blue.

 

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