by Tom Kuhn
The production of stone monuments
Is an arduous business and
Expensive. Whole cities
Must be reduced to rubble
And possibly in vain
If the fly or the fern
Were badly placed. Besides
The stone of our cities is not durable
And even lapidary monuments
Will not surely endure.
Joyously to eat of meat . . .
Joyously to eat of meat, the juicy sirloin
And with the rye loaf, well baked, smelling so good
That cheese from the great round and to drink
Cold beer from the jug, all this is held
In low esteem, but I say, to be laid in the grave
Without having enjoyed a mouthful of the good meat
That is inhuman, and I say this though I myself
Am a poor eater.
Here is the map . . .
“Here is the map, there runs the road
See the bend here, and the drop when you’re past!”
“Give me the map, that’s where I’ll go.
From the map it appears
The road will be fast.”
Love song from a bad time
We were not friends to one another then
And yet for love it did not seem too soon
And so we lay there in each other’s arms
Stranger to each other than the moon.
We’d likely fight about the price of fish
If we should meet at a market stall today
We were not friends to one another then
Although in one another’s arms we lay.
And the smile once meant for me . . .
And the smile once meant for me
Finds another now at home
As I couldn’t keep it safe
I must let it roam.
Pleasures
First look out of the window in the morning
The old book that is found again
Enthusiastic faces
Snow, the changing seasons
The newspaper
The dog
Dialectics
Showering, swimming
Old music
Comfortable shoes
Understanding
New music
Writing, planting
Travel
Singing
Being friendly
When I have to leave you dear . . .
When I have to leave you dear
For all the horses, men and gear
The queen’s great ship will lie there waiting at the quay.
Take another sweetheart, Minnie
For our ship goes to Virginny
And our love, our love my dear can never be.
And we’ll stand there thousands strong
Wave you off with hurrah and song
As the queen’s great ship sets sail for far-off lands.
Remember, Jimmy, as I kiss you
I will always always miss you
When I one day take another man.
So you could sit here . . .
1
So you could sit here: many a battle was fought.
Forgetting that, you might indeed be happier.
But just remember this: once others sat here
In judgement over man. So you watch out!
2
Whatever you one day find out, if you can
It won’t be of much use what you discover
Unless it helps to bring you all together
And keeps away the enemies of man.
3
Never forget: they were much like you who fought
So you could sit where else they might have sat
So now: take up the struggle, as you ought
And learn to learn, and never unlearn that.
So lads, before they lay down with their lasses . . .
So lads, before they lay down with their lasses
Check over, with good reason, and they try
The softness of their lips, the cushion of their asses
So that they know the what and why
Testing what it is they’ll get
And how the wind is set.
You statesmen, when you forge your plans, be sure
You really can’t afford to be too shy:
To bring the peace you must not fear the war
But always check the what and why
Go out on the streets and don’t forget
How the wind is set.
(And when our poet speaks, as I have done
Of sex and politics as if the two were one
He has in mind some certain passive nations
Who want their pleasure without the perturbations.)
But I who’ve seen how roses fade . . .
But I who’ve seen how roses fade and die
And looked down at the leaves where they now lie
Yellowed on the cold ground, knew the truth:
How vain the unbounded confidence of youth!
Say I: the loveliest season soon will pass:
Gather in your roses—while May lasts!
Send me a leaf . . .
Send me a leaf, but from a little tree
That grows no nearer your house
Than half an hour away. For then
You will have to walk, you will get strong and I
Shall thank you for the pretty leaf.
Tank squadron, I’m glad . . .
Tank squadron, I’m glad to see you
Writing and making the case for peace
And I’m glad that you, writing
And making the case for peace, are armed.
Difficult times
Standing at my writing desk
I see through the window the elder bush in the garden
And can make out something red and something black
And all at once I remember the elder
Of my childhood in Augsburg.
For several minutes I weigh up
Quite seriously, if I should go to the table
And fetch my glasses, once again
To see the black berries on the red twigs.
If we lasted forever
If we lasted forever
Everything would change
Because we come to an end
Much remains as before.
The great day when I am become useless
That will be a glad day when one can say:
Put away the weapons, they are not needed!
Those were good years when, later
The weapons were fetched from the shed, and it turned out:
They’re rusted.
Of course I would wish only to be set aside
By the very last one bitten by the dogs.
I was sad when I was young . . .
I was sad when I was young
Now I’m old I’m sad
When can I be happy then?
Soon, that would be good.
My one and only
My one and only,
in your last letter
You said:
“My head hurts,
my heart was rebellious
If they hang you,
if I lose you
I cannot go on living.”
You will live on, my love.
The memory of me will fade
Like black smoke on the wind
You will live, red-haired sister of my heart
Mourning for the dead
In the 20th century lasts
One year.
Death . . .
A corpse swinging
At the end of a rope.
But be assured, beloved:
When the hangman’s hairy hand
Lays the rope around my neck
They will look
In vain in Nasim’s blue eyes for
Fear.
Contrary song
Is that to say that we should simply lump it
And
say, That’s how it’ll always be and all?
And seeing the goblets, rather suffer thirst
Reach for the empties rather than the full?
Is that to say that we should sit outside
Uninvited, in the cold for hours
Because the big boys graciously decide
What joys, what sufferings are properly ours?
We think the time has come, and we rebel
And won’t pass up on any joy, however small
We’ll beat those sorrow merchants off with force
And make a world where we can live, and well!
What Orge wants
Of joys, the full-blown.
Of skins saved, one’s own.
Of stories, the unintelligible.
Of counsels, the unusable.
Of girls, the new.
Of women, the untrue.
Of orgasms, the not together.
Of enmities, the one another.
Of sojourns, the not-here-to-stop.
Of partings, the not-over-the-top.
Of the arts, the unexploitable.
Of teachers, the buryable.
Of pleasures, the ineffable.
Of goals, the incidental.
Of enemies, the squeamish
Of friends, the still childish.
Of colours, the red.
Of words, the sayers not what they said.
Of the elements, fire.
Of gods, the weird, the dire.
Of those going under, the ones who praise.
Of the year, the autumn days.
Of lives, the brightly lit.
Of deaths, the quick flit.
Change, but for the worse
1
Often I look up from my manifold
And not always happy cares and want once more
The counsel of the clever friendly one
She of long ago, who knew
So well of the burden of snow that the barely
Blossoming tree had to bear in the winter.
2
And how the lesser joys grew big
—Driving along in an open car, a well-prepared meal
Looking at a photograph that has turned out well—
Through the joy of the happy companion
Of long ago.
3
But I invite Shen Te today
And along comes Shui Ta.
4
I see you, friendly one
Schlepping the great copper clock all the way through France
That wonderful present that was rejected
Or finding the bread tin and that precious knife
With a cry of joy, a cry of pleasure
At the pleasure of the receiver of that gift, and silence
Was all the reception it got. The defeated
No longer knew how to smile.
5
For the two old folk
Whom you threw out of our house, spoiling
The one green month in that whole troubled year
How you might once
Have defended these
Fighters on behalf of the dead brickie!
Even in the mouths of infants
Ha, ha, ha, laughed the clients of Socrates
But one of the three ha’s
Gave him food for thought.
The Cheops pyramid has eleven flaws
The Bible countless
And Newtonian physics
Is full of superstition.
The loving couples returning home from the cinema
Could teach a thing or two
To Romeo and Juliet
And the father of Azdak
Often baffled his son.
Two times two is four . . .
Two times two is four
Even counted out in matches
And spoken in dialect.
Collective leadership
May well produce eggs in the chicken coops of Katzgraben.
Listening to lines of poetry
By death-addicted Gottfried Benn
I saw on the faces of workers an expression
Which was not a response to the verse form and was more precious
Than the smile of the Mona Lisa.
The Tsar spoke to them . . .
The Tsar spoke to them
With rifle and with whip
On Bloody Sunday. Then
Another spoke to them with rifle and whip
Every day of the week, every working day
The distinguished murderer of the people.
The sun of the people
Burnt up its own worshippers.
The greatest scholar of the world
Forgot the Communist Manifesto.
Lenin’s most brilliant pupil
Struck him in the face.
But young he was diligent
But old he was cruel
Young
He was not the God.
He who becomes God
Becomes foolish.
For the cultivation of winter wheat . . .
For the cultivation of winter wheat
Many researchers are put to work
Shall the construction of Socialism
Be fudged together by a few people in the dark?
Shall the leader drag the led
To a high peak known only to him?
At the very least statistically
By doing or leaving undone
It is the led who lead.
The God is maggoty . . .
The God is maggoty.
The idolaters beat their breasts
Just as they strike their women’s bottoms
With rapture.
The weights on the balance . . .
The weights on the balance
Weigh heavy. Thrown
Onto the other scale, wisdom
And as a necessary bonus
Cruelty.
The idolaters look about:
What was wrong? The God?
Or the worship?
But the machines?
But the trophies of war?
But the child without bread?
But the bleeding comrades’
Unheard cries of terror?
He who commanded it all
Did not do it all.
What was promised were apples
What never came was bread.
Poem for adults
1
When by mistake I jumped on the other bus
The people were sitting, as ever, on their way back from work.
But the bus sped along a different street.
Holy Cross Street, you are
No longer the street I knew. Where
Are your bookshops, second-hand stalls, students? Where
Are you, the dead and gone? Even their memory
Fades.
The bus comes to a stop
On a square torn open in mounds of clay.
The ageing backside of a four-storey house
Waiting to crumble, amen.
I got off in the square
In a workers’ quarter
Where the grey walls shimmer with memory.
People were hurrying home. Where I was
I dared not ask. Had I not
As a child, visited the chemist here?
Now I have returned
Like someone who went out quickly to buy medicine
And now returns after twenty years.
My wife asked, where were you.
The children asked, where were you.
I was silent—
A sweating mouse.
2
The alleys wind like blind worms?
The houses like peacocks’ display.
Give me just one old stone
In Warsaw to find my way.
I stand empty-headed as a post
On the square, under the candelabra.
I praise, I gaze, I beshrew
The snakes and the abracadabra.
Between patheti
c columns
Like a hero I creep in
What are the shop dummies to me
All made up for the coffin?
Here the kids eat ice cream!
Ah they’re all so young.
At most they remember the ruins
One girl will give birth soon.
What grew into stone endures.
Pathos and kitsch together
You, budding poet of Warsaw
Here you will learn your letters.
Love your own street, you should.
But I loved other stones.
Grey and truly sublime
For me those were the ones.
The squares wind away like cobras.
The houses like peacocks’ display.
Give me an old stone, please
In Warsaw to find my way.
3
“Today our heavens are not empty.”
