by Tom Kuhn
Poems on Señora Carrar
The actress in exile
for Helene Weigel
Now she puts on her make-up. In the white cell
She sits bowed on the simple stool
With light movements
She applies the make-up in the mirror.
Carefully she washes away from her face
All that is particular: the gentlest sensation
Will transform it. From time to time
She lets her frail and noble shoulders
Fall forwards, like those who have to
Work hard. She already has on the rough blouse
With patches at the sleeves. The bast shoes
Stand on the make-up table.
When she’s ready
She asks eagerly if the drum has arrived
On which the thunder of guns will be made, and whether the great net
Is in place. Then she stands, a small figure
Great warrior
To put on the bast shoes and represent
The struggle of the Andalusian fisherman’s wife
Against the generals.
Description of H.W.’s acting
Although she showed everything
Necessary to understand
A fisherman’s wife, yet she did not transform herself entirely
Into that fisherman’s wife, but acted
As if she were also still occupied with thinking
As though she was always asking: how was that again?
Even if one could not always
Guess at her own thoughts about the fisherman’s wife
She still acted in such a way as to show
She was having such thoughts, and so invited us
To have such thoughts also.
The second beat
I speak my sentences before
The spectators hear them; what they hear, will be
A thing already past. Every word that leaves my lips
Describes an arc, then falls
Into the ear of the listener, I wait and hear
The beat. I know
We are not feeling the same thing and
We are not feeling at the same time.
Deliberation 1
Of course we would, if we were kings
Conduct ourselves as kings, but in conducting ourselves as kings
We would conduct ourselves other than as ourselves.
Make up
My face is made up, cleansed of
Every particularity, made empty, to mirror
The thoughts, henceforward changeable like
Voice and gesture.
Loose body
So, my body is loosened, my limbs are
Light and discrete, all attitudes that are prescribed
Will be comfortable to them.
Absent mind
So, my mind is absent, what I have to do
I do by rote, my intellect
Goes about and tidies up.
The representation of past and present in one
Whatever you represent, it is your custom to represent it in such a way
As if it were happening right now. Enraptured
The silent crowd sits in the darkness, transported
From their everyday life: Now
Back to the fisherman’s wife they bring the son whom
The generals murdered. Even what happened before that
In this very room is now extinguished. What happens here, is happening
Now and just this once. That is how you are accustomed
To play. And now let me counsel you
To add to this custom another. In your manner of playing
To express simultaneously that this moment
On your stage is oft repeated; only yesterday
You played it and tomorrow too, if
There’s an audience, there’ll be another performance.
And you must not, in this Now, let
All the Before and After be forgotten, nor even all those things
That are happening right now outside the theatre and bear comparison
Nor even things that have nothing to do with it all—don’t
Let them be completely forgotten either. You should only
Pick out the moment and not conceal
All the rest, against which you pick it out. Lend to your playing
That one-after-another-ness, that demeanour of
Processing what you have taken in hand. In this way
You show the course of events together with the progress
Of your work and you allow the spectator
To experience this Now in its complexity, proceeding from the Before and
Issuing in the After and having all sorts of other matter
In attendance. Your spectator is sitting not only
In your theatre, but also
In the world.
Sending her son off fishing . . .
Sending her son off fishing, when the generals
Had resolved to root out
All things living, baking her bread
Under the thunder of the guns, she seemed
Well out of the war;
Only her hands
Tirelessly knotting the net, betrayed both
A fierceness and a fear. Her acting
Showed two sides: mixed with the rage at the heedlessness of her sons
Was also a pride in their heedlessness, and she showed
Courage when she kept her one son from the war. And when she
Tore up the little flag which had been hidden with the guns
Under the flour bin, bending down, she slowly
Collected up the pieces, in one movement:
Tearing and picking up. And when she
Finally cursed her son and forbade him ever
To cross her threshold again, thinking he had taken up arms
She had scarcely spoken the sentence, that he who lives by the sword
Must die by the sword, when her voice failed
And her eyes opened wide in white horror.
And the neighbours had not yet arrived, to fill the poor hovel
With their mutterings, they had not yet, as they had once with the fighter
Now laid out him from whom the fight had been taken, out on the floor
Wrapped in the sail. Or else
She seemed not to know why she was carrying the dead man’s cap
So to the fore, showing it to the neighbours. As if
Something had struck her about it, but as if she didn’t yet know
What that might be, she looked at the dead man’s cap
Borne to the fore on her two hands, and only when she was there
Did she say quietly: the cap was to blame. It’s
Shabby. Not fit for
A respectable gent.
And in response to the angry cry: surely they couldn’t
Kill all those who wear shabby caps, she said
Only after a pause for reflection: they could. The fisherman who
Taking leave, said, the dead man’s boat
Lay moored at the bank, she thanked with a
Silent nod of the head, over the shoulder, so not forgetting
The everyday. And slowly, in the linen cloth
Before she went off into battle with brother and son
With infinite care, she wrapped
The sandwiches.
Uncollected Poems
1937–1938
Washing
for CN
When years ago I showed you
How you should wash in the early morning
With pieces of ice in the water
Of the little copper bowl
Dipping your face in with open eyes
And drying yourself with the rough towel
As you read from the paper on the wall
The hard lines of your role, I said:
This is something you do for yourself, make it
Exemplary.
Now I hear you are in prison.
The letters I wrote on your behalf
Remain unanswered. The friends I approached about you
Are silent. I can do nothing for you. How
Are your mornings now? Are you still able to do something for yourself?
Hopefully and responsibly
With good movements, exemplary?
The dispatched
Once you had beaten to death those who had warned you
You were freighted into ships with other military hardware
To lend a hand to the slaughterous enterprises
Of the foreign oppressors.
Across the seas
They lend each other their slaughtermen
Haggling over the price.
I won’t be getting them back, says the haggler
So what can you offer?
But you, for a scrap of meat and a pair of boots
Leave the land which didn’t belong to you
For a land which will never be yours
Butcher and meat stock in one, dying
As you had lived: despised.
The virtues of the Chancellor
The Chancellor lives in a simple country house
It would be better if he lived in a palace like Emperor Nero
And the working people had roofs over their heads.
The Chancellor eats no meat
It would be better if he ate seven times a day
And the working people had milk to drink.
The Chancellor doesn’t drink
It would be better if he got drunk on the streets every night
And in his stupor told the truth.
The Chancellor works from early till late at night
It would be better if he lay around doing nothing
Then his oppressive laws would never be enacted.
A prediction
1
When that buffoon whom the coal barons have
Playing the Führer in our land has played
The Führer long enough
He’ll set his mind to playing the Führer
On the continent at large.
2
The more big guns he has
The more threats he will issue.
He will think: they’re scared of war, but
One day he’ll get his war all right.
3
He’ll scream: the Frenchies
Are tired and want their peace and quiet.
And against him they will rise up, the tank squadrons of France.
He’ll scream: war is too costly
For the English shopkeepers.
And against him they will rise up, the gold stocks of the Transvaal
And of both the Indies.
He’ll scream: America
Is far away and has no army.
And against him they will rise up, suddenly and close at hand
Armies from the distant lands of America, where they have cities with
A hundred storeys.
He will scream: the Soviet Union
Just sits there waiting.
And against him they will rise up, the airplanes
Of the Soviet people, darkening the skies
From Breslau to Berlin, four squadrons deep.
He’ll scream: our friends the Italians
Will come over the Alps to help us.
And no one will come.
4
And Germany, who in the last war
Won all the battles except for the last
In this war will, except for the first
Lose them all.
Driving along in a comfortable car . . .
Driving along in a comfortable car
On a rainy country road
We saw a raggedy man at nightfall
Who waved to us to give him a lift, and gave a deep bow.
We had a roof and we had room and we drove on past
And we heard me say in a surly voice: no
We can’t give anyone a lift.
We had gone some distance further, a day’s march perhaps
When I suddenly took fright at this voice of mine
This behaviour of mine and this
Whole world.
Marriage banns of Goliath, issued by the Philistines
Not amongst emperors or kings
Nor from the midst of the wealthy Philistines
Does Goliath choose his wife
But the son from the edge of town
Herdsman and peasant farmer
Chooses the daughter of the people.
Not upon his friends does he bestow honour
Who come with their blessings
But rather Miriam it is, daughter of Ishai
Who raised his hand against him
Whom he now leads to his bed.
In dark times
They will not say: when the nut tree shook in the wind
But rather: it was when the housepainter trampled the workers
They will not say: when the child skimmed the flat pebble over the rapids
But rather: when the ground was being prepared for great wars.
They will not say: when the woman walked into the room
But rather: when the great powers united against the workers.
But they will not say: the times were dark
But rather: why were their poets silent?
Address to the characters of the first two volumes
You, Galy Gay, who stepped out to buy a fish
Eager for a commission, exchanging your name
With any other, until you
Went marching off into distant Tibet
With evil Uria, the shaper of souls, who knew you to be a
Willing butcher
And you, Polly Peachum, two-bit peach of the suburbs
Whom little robber Macheath stole from your parents
Your propertied parents, until your father
The monetizer of misery, the great Peachum
Summoned him to the gallows
And you, Joan, she of the stockyards
Kind-hearted but ineffectual, who came on cue
For conflicted Mauler, the great exploiter
You Callas too, sly peasant, with that
Cunning Herr Iberin.
Every year in September . . .
Every year in September, when the schools go back
The mothers gather in the suburbs in the stationery shops
And buy schoolbooks and exercise books for their children.
In despair they fish their last pfennigs
From their worn purses, lamenting
That knowledge is so dear. But they have no idea
How poor is the knowledge that is
Coming to these children.
When I told them . . .
When I told them
How I had taken in a man
Given him food and written him a letter to a friend
In which I vouched for him, and then all
The harm that this man had done me, I saw
Them laughing.
So hear me, you who cheated me, I was ashamed
To be taken for a fool
On your account, and I taxed you
With the laughter
Of those wretches.
Know this also, that I defended you on account of
Your situation, poverty and deprivation, of which these people, as I could see
Were fundamentally accepting
—And be ashamed, as I am.
The song of your pound and our pound
1
If you don’t make use of your God-given pound
Quoth the vicar, he’ll take a dim view, the good Lord.
And he went his way and took his cut
Made fools of all of us who heard
For his particular talent
Was the gospel word.
2
If you don’t make the best of what you’ve got
Quoth the “boss”, you
’ll just be one of the herd.
And he went his way and took his cut
He was a wily, tricky bird
And his particular talent
Was the sweat of us who laboured.
3
And the doctor studied what makes us sick
Believe me, it wasn’t because he was bored.
Not at all, he went his way and took his cut
Made sure his family’s supper was secured
And his particular talent
Was our sick bodies, worn and scarred.
4
The civil servant found himself a desk
And some paragraph against which no one is insured.
And he sat on his ass and took his cut
A willing pair of hands and sinecured
And his particular talent
Was knowing the statutes, word for word.
5
Our fists are worth a pound or two as well
Bought cheap by those who can afford.
But perhaps it’s time we put these pounds to work
We’ll be a force not easily ignored
If we make full use of our talents
To spell the end of usury and fraud.
The parting
We embrace.
My hands clasp rich cloth
Yours clasp poor.
Our embrace is swift.
You are going out to a dinner
The hatchet men are after me.
We talk of the weather and of our
Lasting friendship. Anything more
Would be too bitter.
Reconstruction in the time of the housepainter
The marshes are drained. The new harvests
Are destined for the army’s grain stores. And
