The Collected Poems of Bertolt Brecht

by Tom Kuhn

Did my sense of contradiction falter, any more than

  My heartbeat.

  Time and again I step aside, to check

  From outside my part: but I never betray it.

  This is how I play:

  Thrashed by my enemy

  I crash to the ground like a plank

  And lying there, cry out

  I cry out for mercy, as loud as I can

  But now

  Without breaking off, I stand again

  Rise easily, with a spring in my step

  I step over to one who has been thrashed

  Refuse to hear to his cries

  And rather, raise my foot to kick him

  And I would kick, were I not already

  Lying stretched out again, dying again, choking silently

  As ordained.

  Yet I did nothing with indifference and I made my decisions

  All the while, as I was speaking, and, always committed to the better

  Charged by those of the morrow, I was

  In accordance with the morrow.

  But

  I did not coerce the spectators

  They were not me, I was not them

  I was unashamed, I was not humiliated

  The great and the small, I brought both after their own fashion

  Of nothing I did not make something, nor of something nothing

  When I left I did not wish to stay

  I did not leave before everything was said.

  So I hushed nothing up and added nothing superfluous

  A good tool, kept clean and tidy, often checked and tested

  In precise exercise.

  Steffin Collection

  The following poems, up to ‘Finnish landscape,’ all belong to the Steffin Collection, which was not published as such in Brecht’s lifetime but of which Brecht—at the beginning with Margarete Steffin’s help—made several lists of contents and even full drafts, with minor variations, between 1940 and 1948 (hence the inconsistent numbering and organization). There was a clear intention to publish. Hanns Eisler set nearly all of them to music in 1942, making small changes to the texts as he proceeded. They make up the first part of his so-called Hollywooder Liederbuch (Hollywood Songbook).

  Motto

  So this is all there is—it’s not enough

  It’s proof at least that I’m still on the loose.

  I’m like the man who showed a brick around

  To tell the world what his house once was.

  Spring 1938

  1

  This morning early, Easter Sunday

  There was a sudden snowstorm over the island.

  Snow lay in between the greening hedges. My young son

  Fetched me out to a little apricot tree against the wall of the house

  Fetched me from a line of verse in which

  I was pointing the finger at men preparing a war in which

  The continent, this island, my people, my family and I

  May be erased. In silence

  We laid a sack

  Over the freezing tree.

  2

  Over the sound the rain clouds hang, but the garden

  Is still gilded by the sun. The pear trees

  Show their green leaves but as yet no blossom, the cherries in contrast

  Are in blossom but with no leaves. The white sprays

  Seem to sprout from barren twigs.

  Over the ruffled waters of the sound

  A little boat with its patched sail speeds

  In amongst the chatter of the starlings

  The distant thunder

  Of warships on manoeuvre

  From the Third Reich.

  3

  In the willows by the sound

  On these spring nights you often hear the owl call.

  According to a peasant superstition

  The owl brings mankind the knowledge

  That they have not long to live. For me

  Conscious as I am how I have told the truth

  About our rulers, I have no need of the bird of ill omen

  To bring me that knowledge.

  The cherry thief

  One early morning, long before cockcrow

  I was woken by a whistling and went to the window

  On my cherry tree, dawn was just filling the garden

  Sat a young man with patched trousers

  And was happily picking my cherries. Seeing me

  He nodded to me, and with both hands

  He fetched down the cherries from the branches to fill his pockets.

  For quite a while, as I lay back in my bed

  I could hear him whistling his cheerful little song.

  1940

  1

  Spring is coming. The gentle winds

  Release the skerries from the winter ice.

  The peoples of the north await, trembling

  The battle fleets of the housepainter.

  2

  Out of the libraries

  The butchers step.

  Clasping their children to them

  The mothers stand and search the skies in horror

  For the wise men’s newest inventions.

  3

  The draughtsmen hunker

  Bent over in the design rooms:

  One false calculation and the cities of the enemy

  Will escape destruction.

  4

  Fog envelops

  The highroad

  The poplars

  The farmsteads and

  The artillery.

  5

  Here I am on the small island of Lidingö.

  But the other night

  I dreamt heavily, and I dreamt I was in a city

  And saw that the street signs

  Were German. Bathed in sweat

  I awoke and to my relief

  Saw the night-black pine tree at the window and knew:

  I was in a foreign land.

  6

  My young son asks me: should I learn mathematics?

  What for? I want to say. That two pieces of bread are more than one

  You’ll see that anyway.

  My young son asks me: should I learn English?

  What for? I want to say. That empire will fall. And

  If you just rub your stomach with the flat of your hand and groan

  You will be well enough understood.

  My young son asks me: should I learn history?

  What for? I want to say. Learn to bury your head in the ground

  And then you will perhaps survive.

  Yes, learn mathematics, I say

  Learn English, learn history!

  7

  In front of the whitewashed wall

  Stands the black trunk with the manuscripts.

  On top lies the smoker’s kit with the copper ashtrays.

  The Chinese canvas, the depiction of the doubter

  Hangs above that. The masks are there too. And next to the bedstead

  Stands the little six-valve radio speaker.

  In the morning

  I turn the dial and listen

  To the victory bulletins of my enemies.

  8

  In flight from my countrymen

  I have now reached Finland. Friends

  Whom yesterday I did not know, have set up a couple of beds

  In nice clean rooms. Over the loudspeaker

  I hear the victory bulletins of the scum. Curiously

  I examine the map of the continent. High up in Lapland

  Towards the northern ice sea

  I still see a little door.

  To my Danish refuge

  Above the sound you stand, my old retreat

  Tell me, the sentence once a refugee

  Entrusted to your walls: THE TRUTH IS CONCRETE

  Has it survived the latest bombing spree?

  Finnish larder 1940

  O shadowy vittles store! A pitch-dark tang

  Of fir rushes in as the night winds moan

  And
mingles with the scents of sweet milk from the can

  And smoky bacon laid out on the stone.

  Beer, goat’s milk cheese, fresh bread and berries

  Picked from the grey bush in the early brume!

  Oh would I could invite all those with empty bellies

  Whom war across the sea doth now consume.

  Memorial for the fallen in Hitler’s war against France

  1

  He has to die! No enemy is more wicked.

  His downfall is my urgent last request!

  And I can speak out now, for where I rest

  Only the Loire knows. And a single cricket.

  2

  You people, when you hear that man retell

  How he, in twenty days, destroyed a state.

  Ask after me, for I was there as well!

  And of those days I lasted only eight.

  Memorial for four thousand drowned in Hitler’s war against Norway

  We lie together in the Kattegat

  Cattle boats carried us beneath the sea

  Fisherman, if you take a good catch in your nets

  Think on us, and let just one swim free!

  Ruuskanen’s horse

  When the world crisis entered its third winter

  The peasants of Nivala cut their wood as was their custom

  And, as was the custom, the little horses dragged the tree trunks

  To the rivers; but this year

  For each trunk they received only five Finnish markka, which is so much as

  The price of a bar of soap. And when the fourth spring of the world crisis came

  The farms of those who had not paid their taxes in the autumn were auctioned off.

  But even those who had paid could no longer afford

  The feed for their horses

  Indispensable for working the fields and the forests, so that the horses’ ribs

  Poked out of their dull hides; and it happened then that the magistrate of Nivala came

  To farmer Ruuskanen on his pasture and said

  With all authority: Do you not know, there’s a law

  That you must not be cruel to animals. Look at your horse. Its ribs

  Are poking out of its hide. This horse

  Is sick and must be slaughtered.

  And then he went away. But when he came by

  Three days later he saw Ruuskanen again

  Working his scrawny horse on his tiny field, as if

  Nothing had happened, as if there was no law and no magistrate.

  Vexed

  He sent two officers with the strict order

  To confiscate the horse from Ruuskanen and

  Lead the mishandled creature straight to the knacker’s yard.

  But the officers, as they trailed Ruuskanen’s horse along

  Behind them through the village, saw, as they looked around

  How out of their houses more and more peasants came

  To follow the horse, and at the edge of the village

  They stopped, uncertain; and farmer Niskanen

  A devout man and friend of Ruuskanen, made the suggestion

  The village should scrape together some food for the horse, so that

  There would be no need for the slaughter. So the officers brought

  Before the animal-loving magistrate not the horse

  But farmer Niskanen instead with his happy news

  For Ruuskanen’s horse. Listen your honour, he said

  This horse isn’t sick, it just has no food, besides Ruuskanen

  Will starve without his horse. If you slaughter his horse

  You’ll soon have to slaughter the man, your honour.

  What talk is this? asked the magistrate. The horse

  Is sick and the law is the law, that is why it has to be slaughtered.

  Troubled, they went

  The two officers, together with Niskanen

  Fetched Ruuskanen’s horse from out of Ruuskanen’s shed

  And set off again to take it to the knacker’s yard, but

  When they came again to the edge of the village, there stood fifty

  Peasants, like great stones, staring

  In silence at the two officers. In silence

  The two left the mare behind at the edge of the village.

  And still in silence

  The peasants of Nivala led Ruuskanen’s mare

  Back to its stable.

  That is sedition, said the magistrate. And a day later

  On the train from Oulu a dozen officers came

  With their rifles to Nivala, so favourably sited and

  Ringed with meadows, simply to prove

  That the law is the law. That afternoon

  The peasants took down from the scrubbed timbers

  Their own rifles, which hung next to the panels

  Painted with Bible sayings, old rifles

  From the civil war of 1918, distributed to them

  For use against the Reds. Now

  They pointed them at the twelve officers

  From Oulu. The same evening

  Three hundred peasants, from the many

  Surrounding villages, laid siege to the magistrate’s house

  On the hill by the church. Hesitantly

  The magistrate came out onto the steps, waved his white hand and

  Spoke fine words about Ruuskanen’s horse, promising

  To spare its life; but the peasants

  Were no longer only concerned with Russkanen’s horse, but demanded instead

  An end to the forced auctions and relief

  From the taxes. Fearful for his life

  The magistrate hurried to the telephone, for the peasants

  Had not only forgotten that there’s a law, but also

  That there’s a telephone in the magistrate’s house, and now he telephoned

  His cry for help to Helsinki; and in that same night

  There came from Helsinki, the capital, in seven buses

  Two hundred soldiers with machine guns, and at the head

  An armoured car. And with this military might

  They overcame the peasants, beat them up in the village hall

  Dragged their ringleaders to court in Nivala and sentenced them

  To eighteen months in prison, so that order

  Be restored to Nivala.

  Of all of them, as things played out

  Only Ruuskanen’s horse was pardoned

  By a personal intervention of the minister of state

  In response to the many petitions.

  FROM THE VISIONS

  Parade of the old New

  I stood on a hill, and there I saw the Old approaching, but it came as the New.

  It crawled along on new crutches, such as had never before been seen, and it stank of the new vapours of decay, such as had never before been smelled.

  A stone rolled by as if it were the latest invention, and the war cries of the gorillas, beating their chests, rang out as the latest compositions.

  All around graves lay thrown open, and they were empty, when the New made its way towards the capital.

  Round about stood creatures fit to inspire terror and cried out: Here comes the New, it’s all new, hail to the New, be new like us! And whoever had ears to hear heard only their shouting; but whoever had eyes to see saw those who were not shouting.

  So the Old strutted along disguised as the New; yet in the triumphal procession it led the New along too, and the New was paraded as the Old.

  The New walked in chains and rags, through which you could see its naked shining limbs.

  And they processed along in the night, but there was a red fire in the sky, and that was seen as the red of dawn. And the cries: Here comes the New, it’s all new, hail to the New, be new like us! would have been all more clearly audible had they not been drowned out by the thunder of artillery.

  The labour of the great Babel

  When her hour of travail was upon her she withdrew into the innermost of her chambers
and surrounded herself with doctors and soothsayers.

  A whispering began. In the house grave men with serious faces walked up and down, and they came out from the house with troubled faces, and they were pale. And the price of white make-up doubled in the beauty salons.

  On the streets the people gathered and stood morning and evening with empty stomachs.

  The first that they heard sounded like an almighty fart in the roof truss, followed by an almighty cry “PEACE”, whereupon the smell grew stronger.

  And straight after, blood spurted up in a thin watery fountain. And now there followed further noises one after another, each more terrible than the last.

  The great Babel vomited and it sounded like FREEDOM! and coughed and it sounded like JUSTICE! and farted again and it sounded like PROSPERITY! And in a bloody linen cloth a squealing brat was carried out onto the balcony and shown to the people as the bells pealed, and it was WAR. And he had one thousand fathers.

  The stone fisher

  The great fisherman has appeared again. He sits in his rotting boat fishing, early when the first lamp flickers to life and in the evening when the last light gutters out.

  The villagers sit on the pebbles at the shore and watch him, and grin. He is fishing for herrings, but he pulls up only stones.

  Everyone laughs. The men slap their thighs, the women hold their bellies, the children leap into the air with laughing.

  When the great fisherman draws in his frayed net and finds the stones, he does not hide them, but reaches out with his strong brown arm, takes hold of the stone, holds it up and shows it to the unfortunates.