The Collected Poems of Bertolt Brecht

by Tom Kuhn

  And the German, my brother, who even

  Envies those others: they all

  Know this, there is

  An October.

  Now even as the planes of the fascists

  Bear down upon him

  The Spanish militiaman has

  Less reason to fear.

  But in Moscow, the famous capital city

  Of all workers

  Every year the unending parade

  Of the victors marches through Red Square

  Bearing the emblems of their industries

  Images of tractors and the wool bundles of the textile mills

  And the wheat sheaves of the grain processing plants.

  Over their heads the fighter planes

  Fill the skies, and in front

  Their regiments and tank brigades.

  On broad cloth banners

  They parade their slogans and

  Portraits of their greatest teachers.

  The banners are transparent

  So the whole scene is always in view.

  High on thin poles

  The narrow pennants flutter. In the distant streets

  Whenever the procession pauses

  There are dances and games. Joyfully

  They pass by, many processions side by side, joyfully

  But to all oppressors

  A warning.

  O great October of the working classes!

  IV

  To the waverer

  You say:

  Things are going badly for our cause.

  The darkness grows. Our powers decline.

  Now, after toiling for so many years

  We are in a worse position than at the beginning.

  But our enemy is stronger than ever.

  His powers, it seems, have grown. He begins to look invincible.

  Oh we have made mistakes, there’s no denying it.

  Our numbers dwindle rapidly.

  Our precepts are in confusion. Some of our words

  Have been twisted by the enemy beyond recognition.

  What is now false of what we once said

  Some of it or all of it?

  On whom can we still rely? Are we who remain just flotsam, thrown

  Out of the living stream? Will we live on

  Understanding nobody and understood by none?

  Is it luck that we need?

  So you ask. Expect

  No other answer than your own!

  To those who have been brought into line

  Broadcast from Moscow in 1935

  So as not to lose their bread

  In times of increasing oppression

  Quite a lot of people resolve to tell the truth

  About the crimes of the regime in upholding exploitation

  No longer, but

  Also not to spread the lies of the regime, so

  Not to uncover anything, but

  Also not to prettify anything. Those who act like this

  Seem anew to assert their determination

  Even in times of increasing repression

  Not to lose face, but in reality

  They are only determined

  Not to lose their bread. Indeed, this decision

  Not to tell untruths, serves them from now on as a pretext

  To remain silent about the truth. It is a stance that can, admittedly

  Only be maintained for a short while. But even in this period

  While they still go in and out of offices and newspaper buildings

  Laboratories and factory yards, as people

  From whose mouths no untruths come

  They begin to do harm. For they who bat no eyelid

  At the sight of bloody crimes lend those crimes

  The appearance of the natural. They describe

  The fearful misdeed as something as unremarkable as the rain

  Also as unpreventable as the rain.

  So, by way of their silence, they lend support to

  The criminals, but soon

  They will notice that in order not to lose their bread

  They must not only remain silent about the truth, but also

  Tell the lie. Not ungraciously

  The exploiters embrace those who are prepared

  Not to lose their bread.

  They do not go along like men corrupted

  For they have not been given anything, rather

  Nothing has yet been taken from them.

  When the eulogist

  Rising from the table of the powerful, opens wide his mouth

  And you can see between his teeth

  The remains of the meal, then you listen

  To his speech with scepticism.

  But the eulogy of him

  Who but yesterday reviled the powerful and was not invited to the victory banquet

  Weighs heavier. He

  Surely is the friend of the oppressed. They know him.

  What he says, is right

  And what he does not say, is not.

  And now he says, there is

  No oppression.

  The murderer does well to send

  The murdered man’s brother

  Whom he has bought, to testify

  That his brother was struck

  By a roof tile. The simple lie

  Cannot of course help those, who would not lose their bread

  For long. There are too many

  Of their sort. Quickly

  They get embroiled in the merciless competition of all those

  Who would not lose their bread: the will to lie is no longer enough.

  Facility is called for and passion required.

  The wish, not to lose your bread, becomes mixed

  With the wish, by a particular exercise of skill, to lend meaning

  To the most nonsensical drivel, to speak

  In spite of it all, the unspeakable.

  What is more, they must heap

  More praise on the oppressors than anyone else, for they

  Are under suspicion, that once upon a time

  They spoke ill of oppression. Thus

  Those who know the truth become the wildest liars.

  And even so, all that works only

  Until someone comes along and accuses them

  Of having once been honest, once decent, and then

  They lose their bread.

  On the death of a fighter for peace

  To the memory of Carl von Ossietzky

  He who did not surrender

  Has been beaten to death

  He who has been beaten to death

  Did not surrender.

  The mouth of the admonisher

  Has been stopped up with earth.

  The bloody enterprise

  Begins.

  Over the grave of the friend of peace

  The battalions stomp.

  So was the struggle in vain?

  If he who did not fight alone has been beaten to death

  Then the enemy

  Has not yet triumphed.

  Advice to visual artists concerning the fate of their works in the coming wars

  Today I thought

  How you friends too, who paint and draw

  And you who wield the chisel will have

  In the times of the great wars that are surely coming

  Nothing to laugh about.

  For you ground your hopes

  Which are necessary for the construction of works of art

  Above all on generations yet to come!

  It follows, you will need for your paintings, drawings and stones

  Created under such privation

  Good hiding places.

  Consider, for example, that the artistic treasures of the British Museum

  Plundered from all corners of the globe

  At some sacrifice of lives and money, the labours

  Of long-lost peoples, now reposited at a street corner

  Can be, with a few explosive bombs, reduced to dust


  One fine morning between nine and ten past.

  So where to put your works of art? The holds of ships

  Are not safe, the sanatoria in the woods

  The steel vaults of the banks are not safe enough.

  You ought perhaps to try and get permission

  To execute your paintings in the tunnels of the underground railway

  Or, better still, in aircraft hangars

  Buried in concrete seven floors under.

  Paintings painted straight onto the walls

  Take up no room.

  And a few still lifes and landscapes

  Will not trouble the bomber crews.

  That said, you would then have to erect signs

  In prominent places with easily legible directions

  That at such and such a depth beneath such and such a building (or pile of rubble)

  There lies a small canvas of yours, a representation of

  The face of your wife.

  So that future generations, your unborn comforters

  May discover that in our times there was art

  And pursue enquiries, shovelling away the debris.

  All the while the watchman in his bearskin

  High on the skyscraper roof, rifle in his lap

  (Or bow and arrow), keeps watch for the enemy, or the kite

  He craves to fill his hungry stomach.

  The farmer’s address to his ox

  (After an Egyptian peasant’s song from the year 1400 BC)

  O great ox, divine puller of the plough

  Deign to plough straight! Preserve the furrows

  Please, from confusion! You

  Go before us, our leader, giddyup!

  We bent down low to cut your fodder

  Deign now to consume it, dearest provider! Don’t trouble yourself

  While eating, about the furrows, just eat!

  For your barn, O protector of the family

  We dragged, groaning, the timber, we

  Sleep in the damp, you in the dry. Yesterday

  You coughed, beloved pacesetter.

  We were beside ourselves. You’re not going to

  Peg out, are you, before the sowing, you dog?

  On the birth of a son

  (After the Chinese of Su Tung-p’o 1036–1101)

  Families, when a child is born

  Wish that it should be intelligent.

  I, whose whole life

  Has been ruined by intelligence

  Can only hope, my son

  May turn out to be

  Dull, ignorant and lazy.

  Then he may enjoy a peaceful life

  As a minister in the cabinet.

  A worker’s speech to a doctor

  We know what makes us sick!

  When we’re sick, we hear

  You are the one who will heal us.

  For ten long years, they say

  You have studied in fine schools

  Built at the expense of the people

  And learnt to heal, and on your learning

  You have expended a fortune.

  So you must be able to heal.

  Can you heal us?

  When we come to you

  Our rags are torn off

  And you tap around our naked bodies.

  As to the cause of our sickness

  A glance at our rags would

  Tell you more. It is the same cause that wears out

  Our bodies and our clothes.

  The strain in our shoulder

  Comes, you say, from the damp, from which

  The mould in our flats comes too.

  So tell us:

  Where does the damp come from?

  Too much work and too little food

  Make us weak and gaunt.

  Your prescription:

  You must put on weight.

  You may as well tell the reeds

  To keep their feet dry.

  How much time will you have for us?

  We can see: a carpet in your apartment

  Costs the equivalent

  Of five thousand doctor’s appointments.

  You will probably say, you

  Are not to blame. The damp patch

  On the wall of our flat

  Says much the same.

  Call to arms

  1

  Call to a sick Communist

  We hear, you have been taken sick with tuberculosis.

  We entreat you: see this

  Not as a turn of fate, but

  As an attack by the oppressors, who

  Exposed you, poorly clothed and in damp housing

  To hunger. That is how you were made sick.

  We charge you take up the struggle at once

  Against sickness and against oppression

  With all possible cunning, rigour and tenacity

  As a part of our great struggle, which

  Has to be waged from a position of weakness

  In utter misery, and in which

  Everything is permitted which will aid our victory, a victory

  Which is the victory of humanity over the scum of the earth.

  We await your return, as soon as possible

  To your post, comrade.

  2

  The sick Communist’s answer to the comrades

  Comrades, by hunger, poor housing and inadequate clothing

  I was made sick and removed from your ranks.

  I immediately took up the struggle for my recovery.

  I declare to everyone who sees me

  The cause of my sickness

  I explicitly name the guilty ones.

  At the same time I wage the struggle against the sickness funds

  Who seek to cheat me at every little turn.

  I wage the struggle from my sickbed.

  I have informed myself about the liabilities of the hospital

  The daily abuses committed against sick members of the oppressed classes.

  I apply every resource which will help me

  Recover my good health.

  And so, although stricken and wounded

  I have not left your ranks. I will stick with you

  Until my last breath. I have no thought of yielding.

  I beg you

  Continue to depend on me.

  3

  Call to the doctors and nurses

  Now to you, doctors and nurses. We suppose

  There must be some amongst you

  Few perhaps, but some all the same, who

  Remember their obligation to those who

  Have a human face. These amongst you

  We challenge to support our sick

  In their struggle against the sickness funds and the practises of the hospitals

  With regard to the oppressed.

  We know, in order to do that you will have to

  Take up the struggle against others too, the compliant tools

  Of exploitation and deception. We ask that you

  Look upon these as your own enemies. By so doing

  You are, after all, only waging your own struggle against your own exploiters

  Who threaten you every hour with that same hunger

  That has brought our comrade low.

  Join our struggle!

  Taunting the soldier of the revolution His answer

  1

  General with the holes in your boots

  Tell us, what’s the deal?

  Who do you command? And just

  When did you last have a proper meal?

  Your head’s full of plans?

  But: your belly is empty.

  You say, you’ve got a flag

  But where is your army?

  You’re a statesman with just one pair

  Of un-ironed trousers.

  Does your cabinet meet

  Underneath the arches?

  The king trumps the jack

  The ace trumps the king

  Your name goes down in history

  But you’re still a sorr
y thing.

  If two and two is four

  You’ll come to power all right

  (And bottom will be top), but:

  Where will you sleep tonight?

  2

  If I want a pair of boots that’s decent

  For, it’s true, these don’t keep out the weather

  Then I’ll need to get after the people

  Who control the wholesale trade in leather

  Need to organize the leather markets.

  Yes, my trousers are in tatters.

  If I want to make it through the winter

  I will have to cover up my bottom

  So I need to know where trousers come from

  Need to get the cloth mills in my ambit.

  If I’m to enjoy a proper breakfast

  Then I’ll have to break the corn exchanges

  Send out tractors to the harvest

  Get to talking with the farmers

  Need to look to wheat production.

  If I’m not content to play the soldier

  In the wars of those who have oppressed me

  I must laugh to scorn the things that formerly depressed me

  Must unfurl my own flag, yes, you know, the red one

  And declare war for the things that matter.

  Cantata for the anniversary of Lenin’s death

  1

  When Lenin died

  A soldier of the honour guard, so it is told,

  Said to his comrades: I didn’t want

  To believe it. So I went in where he’s lying and

  Shouted in his ear: “Ilyich

  The exploiters are coming!” He didn’t stir. Now

  I know he is dead.