The Collected Poems of Bertolt Brecht

Home > Other > The Collected Poems of Bertolt Brecht > Page 8
The Collected Poems of Bertolt Brecht Page 8

by Tom Kuhn


  Slept—

  She had much work on her hands out of which the children

  Snatched food and drink. Later, in the afternoon

  The tree of her destiny rounded its crown up higher

  But the wind continuing strong it was often not easy to stand.

  Then when the children, grown up and already hardened

  Went from her like birds into all the four quarters

  Over the land and the lands and over the sea

  The old woman learned to look further:

  Over the land and the lands and over the sea.

  Years went by. Already the children’s children were growing

  Distant family over lands and over seas

  Who bore in their bones her marrow and her blood in their veins

  And in the storms of life, again and again fought through

  They, far away, revered her, mother of the mothers.

  At last at evening she went, she who had borne them all

  Alone through the house by the market, upright, unbowed

  Whilst in lands become darker pulpit and trumpet

  Parted the grandchildren. She however

  Above the quarrel prayed for her grandchildren this side and that.

  And they in the struggle surely thought of her always

  In their separate camps and that in the house by the market

  Beds were made up for them and the table already laid.

  Half in my sleep . . .

  Half in my sleep in the pale beginning light

  Against your body, many a night: that dream.

  Ghostly highways under evening-pale

  Very cold skies. Pale winds. Crows

  Screaming for food and in the night comes rain.

  With clouds in the wind, years following on years

  Your face washes away, my Bittersweet, again

  And in the cold wind with a shock of fear I feel

  Your body lightly, half in my sleep, in the beginning light

  Still with a trace of bitterness in my brain.

  Ode to my father

  Under the spreading roof of the house on the marketplace

  Growing in the citron light of the early morning

  Child among many children—with joyful limbs.

  Over the childish brows anxious shadows came early.

  Strictly ruled though they were, joy in life never left them

  So in their seriousness there was always a gaiety.

  Earlier than others they stood, still trembling

  On their own two feet. But the will

  Drove him into the struggle. In years of work

  Looking ahead and boldly he fought his way forwards.

  Owing all to himself: nothing was given him.

  Then the family and children! In a strange town

  He founded a home where over the well-built house

  The winds and the rain could pass.

  Not always free himself, he gave the children their freedom.

  Showed in example, not by talk, simplicity

  Stature and courage.

  And the healthy law of an honourable struggle.

  Cautious and bold, knowing his own strength

  He fought without rest, astutely, for what was possible

  And what was achieved, that he made use of with thanks and correctly.

  Never did he combat the natural, rather

  He put it to use for himself and for others.

  We in silence, all of us, bowed to his influence—never

  As it felt to us, to power.

  A thousand years from now when this land long since has gone under

  Never to praise the loud-mouths who vainly by speeches or battle

  In the pealing of bells and the roar of the canon destroyed it—no!

  Let the singer’s song be sung in praise of the good men

  Who built it in sweat and tears, who were bold and far-seeing

  Knowing their strength and simple men in their greatness.

  The old man in spring

  Oh back in my day when I was a youngster

  Spring was lovelier than it is today

  And that the lovely girls back then were lovelier

  Is the only thing that cheers us old men on their way.

  Ask your mother: she thinks the same as I do

  Nobody knows what’s what before they’re old.

  The old have seen a lot and I can tell you

  Yours is the age of iron and ours was gold.

  It must be true that corn and meadow now

  Are not so green and gold as they were then

  For if it isn’t true and if they are, how

  Would I be able still to visit them?

  But that the sun today is ever colder

  Than were the splendid suns of yesteryear

  Is not a good thing for as you get older

  Each year you love the sunshine more and more.

  Back then our lives and loves and poetry

  Were something else—not what they are today

  We’re the only thing that’s still the same. Well, tell me

  Who likes you changing once your hair’s gone grey?

  The virginia smoker

  The doctor said to me: Smoke your virginias by all means!

  Everyone croaks in the end whether they smoke or not.

  For example, I’ve got yellowish lines in my pupils’ mucous membranes.

  Sooner or later I’ll die of that.

  Of course, that’s no reason for a man to lose heart.

  He might live for years yet. Who knows?

  He can stuff himself full with capons and blackberry tart.

  Of course, it will hit him one of these fine days.

  Nothing anybody can do about it, not with dodges, not with schnapps.

  A cancer like that grows in secret so you’d never know

  And there you are, already deleted perhaps

  And only yesterday you stood at the altar and said: I do.

  My uncle, for example, kept his trouser-creases

  Long after he had the mark on him.

  Roses in his cheeks, but they were hectic roses.

  He had no health in any part of him.

  There are some people, they have it in the family

  But they won’t admit it. They’d never

  Mistake say a pineapple for a sprig of parsley

  But tell themselves their cancer’s a hernia.

  On the other hand my grandfather knew exactly what he’d got

  And lived with painful care according to prescription

  And reached fifty, then he was tired of it.

  Really, no dog would live a day in that fashion.

  But our sort say, Who’s well? Nobody is.

  Do what you like, we all have our crosses to bear.

  Myself I’ve got a problem with my kidneys

  And haven’t been allowed a drink this many a year.

  The mother

  When she was finished then and all was given away

  The abundance smilingly shared and lavishly spent

  In her who had been so rich

  Very small strength remained. She gathered it up.

  All her strength and held her hands as steady as iron

  Still and looked at those to whom she had given.

  Then it was as if her hands

  Never weary of giving

  Her cool and caressing hands

  As if now on an impulse

  She wished to give them away too. So she held them fast.

  When she was finished now and passed over

  Softly with such light feet as though she feared

  To wake children and so light as though she were floating

  Since now it was off her, the weight that had been immense.

  And all rose up and looked over

  Those still suffering, those still so in despair

  But also those who had passed through such darkness

  That now they had scarcel
y any sensation of light

  And were now beyond wondering, those and those

  Who had once been powerful and raised above many

  They looked across in amazement:

  For however much they in their time had given

  She

  Had given everything and withheld

  Nothing for herself.

  My dear Bez

  And Thursday morning: the shop

  Yawned greyly and stank of soap.

  She was very sad and had some secret trouble.

  I said such things were quite beyond my ken

  And that, as always, I worried for you all.

  With a smile she said, when I did not begin:

  Yesterday evening I could find no peace

  So that I did what I’ve never done before and won’t again:

  Went round that very evening to his place.

  You’re laughing. But it’s not an exaggeration:

  I was missing him and I knew I shouldn’t be.

  Nor did I know he was so keen on me.—

  With a wooden smile she was looking through the window

  At a hunchbacked very old woman

  Throwing street muck into a wheelbarrow.

  Leaving, I noticed that her hands are red

  And motherly—I expect they’re very good

  At gently stroking hot things, someone’s brow

  Or the tea-machine. I smiled, no more to say

  I pressed her hands in mine and went away.

  (One cannot always, when one wants to, kiss.)

  Hm. My mother is coming on for fifty

  And of that tally she has been ill thirty.

  And yesterday she laughed and said, Alas

  Our girls will never meet with much success:

  Before he left he said—and was more serious

  Than I in all my dying days have ever been—

  Today, no ifs, no buts, he must get through

  A novel to the very end. I ask you!

  He said that to me, an old woman!

  And I, I don’t know why, laughed too.

  And looked, as you did, like an idiot.

  And now the days are sunny and I’m fine.

  The nights full of starlight and of peace and quiet.

  And all the fountains bow to anyone

  Who in the evenings is livelier than dry rot.

  For many weeks the woods have lain in wait.

  Music in the ploughlands, naked in the sun

  And loud above all earthly things into

  The blazing skies of youth from brash

  And brutal drums, divine cymbals

  The fairground rises with its drunken beat.

  O blessed home of homeless trash:

  Villains, poets, women of ill repute

  Your children seized by all the miracles

  Soldiers’ song

  Brothers we in the dark factories

  Must choke in the dirt of the earth like fishes.

  By day we are beasts that wade into darkness

  But come the evening, then we are soldiers.

  We, brother, walled in the dark over here

  You, brother ploughman, in the light over there

  By day, we can’t take time off for the kermis

  But come the evening, then we are soldiers.

  We play the accordion appassionato

  And sharpen the knives as soon as we’re told to.

  We roll around like pigs in clover

  But when we are dying, then we are soldiers.

  We labour like angels and dance like the heathen

  We get the women with very fat children

  We clench our fists and we sing and sing—

  But we’ve dropped and are dead, come the evening.

  When at her look the violet light had fled . . .

  When at her look the violet light had fled

  I went downstairs with severed knees, an alien

  But sleep that would have been my salvation

  No longer bides for me in bed

  So I wrapped my body in the fresh linen.

  The sky like milk. I thought coolly.

  And laughed with my limbs that were quite worn out.

  Then there was nothing to do. Early till late

  I floated down the Mississippi.

  Towards evening I could not keep

  From crying. The tear-flow

  Bloated my shroud

  And instead of between her legs I fell asleep

  On cold stones naked under the Plough.

  The negroes sing chorales over the Himalayas

  Two hundred negroes with wooden sailing ships

  From out of the black waters of the shark seas

  They stand high up above the Himalayan cliffs

  Sozzled to the gills on schnapps and tears

  And for days they have been singing chorale upon chorale over the Himalayas.

  May the Lord God hear their prayers!

  Dear God, hear them!

  And you also, Blessed Virgin Mary, hear them!

  Even at the stake their singing will not cease.

  Monstrous winters threaten them

  With blue knives of ice.

  And yet like children

  They wear shirts that reach only to their knees.

  With their children, rats and rotten fishes

  That they coaxed along with them out of the quiet bays:

  They pray to God for help and even as they pray

  Their shirts are dropping off them into the blue crevasses!

  Dear God, hear their plea!

  And you also, Blessed Virgin Mary!

  God Almighty! Now in telegram after telegram

  They report that they are standing above the Great Himalayas

  With their children and their children’s nurses

  And do not dare to drink the restorative dram.

  What shall they do? What undertake, now having gone

  Beyond the help of anyone?

  But God, hear their plea!

  And the Blessed Virgin Mary!

  My mouth is trembling. I collect tears in all my trilbies.

  They should drink, if you ask me

  Schnapps, schnapps, schnapps till they follow their shirts into the crevasses.

  God sleeps in bliss and the negroes are freezing to death in their nakedness.

  Over the Himalayas in April the final commission in search of God’s mercy . . .

  My lips tremble at the immensity

  Of the outcome. For it is now or never!

  O God on High, hear their prayer!

  And you also, Blessed Virgin Mary!

  A song of praise

  (After ‘Commit thou all thy griefs . . .’)

  1

  O you in need of helping

  Commit your griefs and ways

  To Him who tends the grieving

  Or will one of these days.

  But he who fills his vision

  With clouds and winds and air

  He will not be dejected

  When they all disappear.

  2

  For nothing can befall you:

  In your own self abide

  In weal and woe and always

  Refrain from suicide.

  And though you lie in darkness

  Night will abide with you

  And speak to you of starlight

  As only she can do.

  3

  For nothing can befall you:

  But you in rain or shine

  Stand your ground and see the sky

  As it has always been.

  And if you’ve done no evil

  To clouds and winds and air

  They’ll find nobody willing

  To cast you out from here.

  On vitality

  1

  The main thing is vitality

  A slug of brandy, and you’re sorted

  Any wench, law of causality

  Must bend to vitality, even court it.
/>   2

  Women may lie in knots on your bed

  Take your whip and not your morality!

  Or do it outside, that’s just as good

  As long as you have vitality.

  3

  Vitality will always ease

  Your path with any dumb angel. Vitality.

  She’ll see the Judgement and beg on her knees

  For rites of bare legality.

  4

  Vitality can fully dispense

  With soul or intellect

  It’s more concerned with a sixth sense

  And women you can disrespect.

  5

  Vitality couldn’t give a fig

  For responsibility, consequences

  Take Baal, for example, he was a pig

  And a bundle of offences.

  (So, morning and night to God I pray

  For vi-tal-i-tay.)

  Through the room the wild wind comes . . .

  Through the room the wild wind comes . . .

  As the child lay eating plums

  Then she offered her pale self

  To the pleasures of the flesh.

  Showed him tactfully how to take it

  First insisting he go naked.

  Apricots as sweet as these

  Can’t be fucked in dungarees.

  And however wild our games were

  Nothing was too much for her.

  Afterwards she washed it nicely:

  All just as it should by rights be.

  Down in the willow grove . . .

  Down in the willow grove

  Wind blowing wild

  She, ’cause her mother called

  Did it and smiled . . .

  Wild the wind overhead

 

‹ Prev