1. of poor b.b.
2. hymn to god
3. little song
4. remembering marie a.
5. on the infanticide marie farrar
6. legend of the unknown soldier beneath the triumphal arch
7. tablet to the memory of 12 world champions
8. at potsdam `unter den eichen'
9. the carpet weavers of kuyan-bulak honor lenin
10. burial of the trouble-maker in a zinc coffin
11. united front song
12. questions from a worker who reads
13. on teaching without pupils
14. why should my name be mentioned?
15. the doubter
16. in dark times
17. legend of the origin of the book tao-te-ching on lao-tsu's road into exile

of poor b.b.

i, bertolt brecht, came out of the black forests.
my mother moved me into the cities as i lay
inside her body. and the coldness of the forests
will be inside me till my dying day.

in the asphalt city i'm at home. from the very start
provided with every last sacrament:
with newspapers. and tobacco. and brandy
to the end mistrustful, lazy and content

i'm polite and friendly to people. i put on
a hard hat because that's what they do.
i say: they are animals with a quite peculiar smell
and i say: does it matter? i am too.

before noon on my empty rocking chairs
i'll sit a woman or two, and with an untroubled eye
look at them steadily and say to them:
here you have someone on whom you can't rely.

towards evening it's men that i gather round me
and then we address one another as `gentlemen'.
they're resting their feet on my table tops
and say: things will get better for us. and i don't ask when.

in the grey light before morning the pine trees piss
and their vermin, the birds, raise their twitter and cheep.
at that hour in the city i drain my glass, then throw
the cigar butt away and worriedly go to sleep

we have sat, an easy generation
in houses held to be indestructible
(thus we built those tall boxes on the island of manhattan
and those thin aerials that amuse the atlantic swell).

of those cities will remain what passed through them, the wind
the house makes glad the eater: he clears it out.
we know that we're only tenants, provisional ones
and after us there will come:nothing worth talking about.

in the earthquakes to come, i very much hope
i shall keep my cigar alight, embittered or no
i, bertolt brecht, carried off to the asphalt cities
from the black forests inside my mother long ago

hymn to god

deep in the darkest valleys the hungry are perishing.
you merely show them bread and leave them to perish.
you merely lord it eternal, invisible
beaming and brutal over the infinite plan.

you let the young men die and those who enjoy their life
but those who wanted to die you would not accept...
many of those who now lie rotting away
had faith in you, and died completely secure.

you let the poor stay poor for year after year
feeling that their desires were sweeter than your paradise
too bad they died before you had brought them the light
but they died in bliss all the same - and rotted at once.

many of us say you are not - and a good thing too.
but how could that thing not be which can play such a trick?
if so much lives by you and could not die without you -
tell me how far does it matter that you don't exit?

little song

one time there was a man
whose drinking bouts began
when he was eighteen...so
that was what laid him low.
he died in his eightieth year:
what of, is crystal clear.

one time there was a child
which died when one year old
quite prematurely...so
that was what laid it low.
it never drank, that's clear
and died aged just one year.

which helps you to assess
alcohol's harmlessness.

remembering marie a.

it was a day in that blue month september
silent beneath a plum tree's slender shade
i held her there, my love so pale and silent
as if she were a dream that must not fade.
above us in the shining summer heaven
there was a cloud my eyes dwelt long upon
it was quite white and very high above us
then i looked up, and found that i had gone.

and since that day so many moons, in silence
have swum across the sky and gone below.
the plum trees surely have been chopped for firewood
and if you ask, how does that love seem now?
i must admit: i really can't remember
and yet i know what you are trying to say.
but what her face was like i know no longer
i only know: i kissed it on that day.

as for the kiss, i'd long ago forgot it
but for the cloud that floated in the sky
i know that sitll, and shall for ever know it
it was quite white and moved in very high.
it may be that the plum trees sitll are blooming
and yet that cloud had only bloomed for minutes
when i looked up, it vanished on the air.

on the infanticide marie farrar

1
marie farrar: month of birth, april
an orphaned minor; rickets; birthmarks, none; previously
of good character, admits that she did kill
her child as follows here in summary.
she visited a woman in a basement
during her second month, so she reported
and there was given two injections
which, though they hurt, did not abort it.
  but you i beg, make not your anger manifest
  for all that lives needs help from all the rest.
2
but nonetheless, she says, she paid the bill
as was arranged, then bought herself a corset
and drank neat spirit, peppered it as well
but that just made her vomit and disgorge it.
her belly now was noticeably swollen

and ached when she washed up the plates.
she says that she had not finished growing.
she prayed to mary, and her hopes were great.
  you too i beg, make not your anger manifest
  for all that lives needs help from all the rest.
3
her prayers, however, seemed to be no good.
she'd asked too much. her belly swelled. at mass
she started to feel dizzy and she would
kneel in a cold sweat before the cross.
still she contrived to kee her true state hidden
until the hour of the birth itself was on her
being so plain that no one could imagine
that any man would ever want to tempt her.
  but you i beg, make not your anger manifest
  for all that lives needs help from all the rest.
4
she says that on the morning of that day
while she was scrubbing stairs, something came clawing
into her guts. it shook her once and went away.
she managed to conceal her pain and keep from crying.
as she, throughout the day, hung up the washing
she racked her brain, then realised in fright
she was going to give birth. at once a crushing
weight grabbed at her heart. she didn't go upstairs till night.
  and yet i beg, make not your anger manifest
  for all that lives needs help from all the rest.
5
but just as she lay down they fetched her back again:
fresh snow had fallen, and it must be swept.
that was a long day. she worked till after ten.
she could not give birth in peace till the household slept.
and then she bore, so she reports, a son.
the son was like the son of any mother.
but she was not like other mothers are - but then
there are no valid grounds why i should mock her.
  you too i beg, make not your anger manifest
  for all that lives needs help from all the rest.
6
so let her finish now and end her tale
about what happened to the son she bore
(she says there's nothing she will not reveal)
so men may see what i am and you are.
she'd just climbed into bed, she says, when nausea
seized her. never knowing what should happen till
it did, she struggled with herself to hush her
cries, and forced them down. the room was still.
  and you i beg, make not your anger manifest
  for all that lives needs help from all the rest.
7
the bedroom was ice cold, so she called on
her last remaining strength and dragged her-
self out to the privy and there, near dawn
unceremoniously, she was delivered

(exactly when, she doesn't know). then she
now totally confused, she says,  half frozen
and found that she could scarcely hold the child
for the servants' privy lets in the heavy snows.
  and you i beg, make not your anger manifest
  for all that lives needs help from all the rest.
8
between the servants' privy and her bed (she says
that nothing happended until then), the child
began to cry, which vexed her so, she says
she beat it with her fists, hammering blind and wild
without a pause until the child was quiet, she says.
she took the baby's body into bed
and held it for the rest of the night, she says
then in the morning hid it in the laundry shed.
  but you i beg, make not your anger manifest
  for all that lives needs help from all the rest.
9
marie farrah: month of birth, april
died in the meissen penitentiary
an unwed mother, judged by the law, she will
show you how all that lives, lives frailly.
you who bear your sons in laundered linen sheets
and call your pregnancies a `blessed'state
should never damn the outcast and the weak:
her sin was heavy, but her suffering great.
  therefore, i beg, make not your anger manifest
  for all that lives needs help form all the rest.

legend of unknown soldier
beneath the triumphal arch

1
we came from the mountains and from the seven seas
to kill him.
we caught him with snares, which reached
from moscow to the city of marseilles.
we placed cannon to reach him
at every point to which he might run
if he saw us.
2
we gathered together for four years
abandoned our work and stood
in the collapsing cities, calling to each other
in many languages, from the mountains to the seven seas
telling where he was.
then in the fourth year we killed him.
3
there were present:
those whom he had been born to see
standing around him in the hour of his death:
all of us.
and
a woman was present, who had given him birth
and who had said nothing when we took him away.
let her womb be ripped out!
amen!
4
but when we had killed him
we handled him in such a way that he lost his face
under the marks of our fists.
this was how we made him unrecognisable
so that he should be the son of no man.
5
and we dug him out from under the metal
carried him home to our city and
buried him beneath stone, an arch, which is called
triumphal arch
which weighed one thousand hundredweight, so that
the unknown soldier
should in no circumstances stand up on judgement day
and unrecognisable
walk before god
though once more in the light
and, pointing his finger, expose us
who can be recognised
to justice.

tablet to the memory of 12 world champions

this is the story of the world middleweight champions
their fights and careers
from the year 1891
to the present day.

i started the series in the year 1891 -
the age of crude slogging
wehn contests still lsted 56 or 70 rounds
and were only ended by the knockout -
with bob fitzsimmons, the father of boxing technique
holder of the world middleweight title
and of the heavyweight title (by his defeat of jim corbett on
    17 march 1897).
34 years of his life in the ring, beaten only six times
so greatly feared that he spent the whole of 1889
without an opponent. it was not till the year 1914
when he was 51 that he accomplished
his two last fights:
an ageless man.

in 1905 bob fitzsimmons lost his title to

jack o'brien, known as philadelphia jack.
jack o'brien started his boxing career
at the age of 18.
he contested over 200 fights. never
did philadelphia jack inquiere about the purse.
his principle was one learns by fighting
and so long as he learned he won.

jack o'brien's successor was
stanley ketchel
famous for fhour veritable battles
against billy papke
and, as the crudest fighter of all time
shot from behind at the age of 23
on a smiling autumn day
sitting outside his farmhouse
undefeated.

i continued my series with
billy papke
the first genius of in-fighting.
that was the first time people used
the term `human fighting-machine'.
in paris in 1913
he was beaten
by a greater master of the art of in-fighting:
frank klaus.

frank klaus, his successor, encountered
the famous middleweights of the day
jim gardener, billy berger
willy lewis and jack dillon
and georges carpentier by comparison seemed weak as a baby.

he was beaten by george chip
the unknown form oklahoma
who performed no other deed of significance
and was beaten by
al mccoy, the worst middleweight champion of them all
who was good at nothing but taking punishment
and was stripped of his title by

mike o'dowd
the man with the iron chin
beaten by

johnny wilson
who beat 48 men k.o.
and was himself k.o.'d by

harry grebb, the human windmill
the most dependable boxer of them all
who never refused a contest
and fought each bout to a finish
and when he lost said:
i lost.
who so infuriated the man-killing dempsey

tiger jack, the manassa mauler
that he flung away the gloves when training
the `phantom who couldn't keep still'
beaten on points in 1926 by

tiger flowers, the negro clergyman
who was never k.o.'d

the next world middleweight champion
successor to the boxing clergyman, was
micky walker, who on 30 june 1927 in london in 30 minutes
beat europe's pluckiest boxer
the scot tommy milligan
to smithereens.

bob fitzsimmons
jack o'brien
stanley ketchel
billy papke
frank klaus
george chip
al mccoy
mike o'dowd
johnny wilson
harry greb
tiger flowers
micky walker -
these are the names of 12 men
who were the best of their day in their line
confirmed by hard fighting
conducted according to the rules
under the eyes of the world.

at potsdam `unter den eichen'

at potsdam unter den eichen
one noon a procession was seen
with a drum in front and a flag behind
and a coffin in between.

at potsdam `under the oak trees'
in the ancient dusty street -
six men were carrying a coffin
with helmet and oak leaves complete.

and on its sides in red lead paint
an inscription had been written
whose ugly letters spelled the phrase:
`fit for heroes to live in'.

this had been done in memory
of any and every one
born in the home country
fallen before verdun.

once heart and soul cuaght by the tricks
of the fatherland, now given
a coffin by the fatherland:
fit for heroes to live in.


and so they marched through potsdam
for the man who at verdun fell.
whereat the green police arrived
and beat them all to hell.

the carpet weavers of
kuyan-bulak honour lenin

1
often and copiously honor has been done
to comrade lenin. there are busts and statues.
cities are called after him, and children.
speeches are amde in many languages
there are meetings and demonstrations
from shanghai to chicago in lenin's honor.
but this is how he was honored by
the carpet weavers of kuyan-bulak
a little township in southern turkestan.

every evening there twenty carpet weavers
shaking with fever rise from their primitive looms
fever is rife: the railway station
is full of the hum of mosquitoes, a thick cloud
that rises from the swamp behind the old camels' graveyard.
but the railway train which
every two weeks brings water and smoke, brings
the news also one day
that the day approaches honoring comrade lenin.
and the people of kuyan-bulak
carpet weavers, poor people
decide that in their township too comrade lenin's
plaster bust shall be put up.
then, as the colleciton is made for the bust
they all stand
shaking with fever and offer
their hard-earned kopeks with trembling hands.
and the red ary man stepa gamalev, who
carefully counts and nimutely watches
sees how ready they are to honor lenin, and he is glad
but he also sees their unsteady hands
and he suddenly proposes
that the money for the bust be used to buy petroleum
to be poured on the swamp behind the camels' graveyard
where the mosquitoes breed that carry
the fever germ.
and so to fight the fever at kuyan-bulak, thus
honoring the dead but
never to be forgotten
comrade lenin.

they resolved to do this. on the day of the ceremony thy carried
their dented buckets filled with black petroleum
one after the other
and poured it over the swamp

so they helped themselves by honoring lenin, an
had understood him well.
2
we have heard how the people of kuyan-bulak
honored lenin. when in the evening
the petroleum had been bought and poured on the swamp
a man rose at that meeting, demanding
that a plaque be affixed on the railway station
recording these events and containing
precise details too of their altered plan, the exchange of
the bust for lenin for a barrel of fever-destroying oil.
and all this in honor of lenin.
and they did this as wll
and put up the plaque.

burial of the trouble-maker in a zinc coffin

here in this zinc box
lies a dead person
or his legs and his head
or even less of him
or nothing, for he was
a trouble-maker.

he was recognised as the root of all evil.
dig him in. it will be best
if his wife goes alone to the knacker's yard with him
because anyone else going
would be a marked man.

what is in that zinc box
has been egging you on to all sorts of things:
getting enough to eat
and having somewhere dry to live
and feeding one's children
and insisting on one's exact wages
and solidarity with all
who are oppressed like yourselves. and
thinking.

what is in that zinc box said
that another system of production was needed
and that you, the masses of labor in your millions
must take over.
until then things won't get better for you.

and because what is in the zinc box said that
it was put into the zinc box and must be dug in
as a trouble-maker who egged you on.
and whoever now talks of getting enough to eat
and whoever of you wants somewhere dry to live
and whoever of you insists on his exact wages
and whoever of you wnats to feed his children
and whoever thinks, and proclaims his solidarity
with all who are oppressed -
from now on throughout eternity
he will be put into a zinc box like this one
as a trouble-maker and dug in.

united front song

1
because a man is human
he'll want to eat, and thanks a lot
but talk can't take the place of meat
or fill en empty pot.
  so left, two, three!
  so left, two, three!

  comrade, there's a place for you.
  take your stand in the workers' united front
  for you are a worker too.
2
and because a man is human
he won't care for a kick in the face.
he doesn't want slaves under him
or above him a ruling class.
  so left, two, three!
  so left, two, three!
  comrade, there's a place for you.
  take your stand in the workers' united front
  for you are a worker too.
3
and because a worker's a worker
no one else will bring him liberty.
it's nobody's work but the workers' own
to set the worker free.
  so left, two, three!
  so left, two, three!
  comrade, there's a place for you.
  take your stand in the workers' united front
  for you are a worker too.

questions from a worker who reads

who built thebes of the seven gates?
in the books you will find the names of kings.
did the kinds haul up the lumps of rock?
and babylon, many times demolished
who raised it up so many times? in what houses
of gold-glittering lima did the builders live?
where, the evening that the wall of china was finished
did the masons go? great rome

is full of triumphal arches. who erected them? over whom
did the caesars triumph? had byzantium, much praised in song
only palaces for its inhabitants? even in fabled atlantis
the night the ocean engulfed it
the drowning still bawled for their slaves.

the young alexander conquered india.
was he alone?
caesar beat the gauls.

did he not have even a cook with him?
philips of spain wept when his armada
went down. was he the only one to weep?
frederick the second won the seven years' war. who
else won it?

every page a victory.
who cooked the feast for the victors?
every ten years a great man.
who paid the bill?

so many reports.
so many questions.

on teaching without pupils

teaching without pupils
writing without fame

are difficult.

it is good to go out in the morning
with your newly written pages
to the waiting printer, across the buzzing market
where they sell meat and workmane's tools:
you sell sentences.

the driver has driven fast
he has not breakfasted
every bend was a risk
in haste he steps through the doorway:
the man he came to fetch
has already gone.

there speaks the man to whom no one is listening:
he speaks too loud
he repeats himself
he says things that are wrong:
he goes uncorrected.

why should my name be mentioned?

1
once i thought: in distant times
when the buildings have collapsed in which i live
and the ships have rotted in which i travelled
my name will still be mentioned
with others.
2
because i praised the useful, which
in my day was considered base
because i battled against all religions
because i fought oppressions or
for another reason.
3
because i was for people and
entrusted everything to them, thereby honouring them
because i wrote verses and enriched the language
because i taught practical behavior or
for some other reason.
4
therefore i thought my name would still be
mentioned; on a stone
my name would stand; from books
it would get printed into the new books.
5
but today
i accept that it will be forgotten.
why
should the baker be asked for if there is enough bread?
why
should the snow be praised that has melted
if new snowfalls are impending?
why
should there be a past if
there is a future?
6
why
should my name be mentioned?

the doubter

whenever we seemed
to have found the answer to a question

one of us united the string of the old rolled-up
chinese scroll on the wall, so that it fell down and
revealed to us the man on the bench who
doubted so much.

i, he said to us
am the doubter. i am doubtful wheter
the work was well done that devoured your days.
whether what you said would still have value for anyone if it
      were less well said.
whether you said it well but perhaps
were not convinced of the truth of what you said.
whether it is not ambiguous; each possible misunderstanding
is your responsibility. or it can be unambiguous
and take the contradictions out of things; is it too
      unambiguous?
if so, what you say is useless. your thing has no life in it.
are you truly in the stream of happening? do you accept

      whom
do you speak? who finds what you say useful? and, by the
      way:
is it sobering? can it be read in the morning?
is it also linked to what is already there? are the sentences
      that were
spoken before you made use of, or at least refuted? is
      everything verifiable?
by experience? by which one? but above all
always above all else: how does one act
if one believes what you say? above all: how does one act?

reflectively, curiously, we studied the doubting
blue man on the scroll, looked at each other and
made a fresh start.

in dark times

they won't say: when the walnut tree shook in the wind
but: when the house-painter crushed the workers.
they won't say: when the child skimmed a flat stone across
      the rapids
but: when the great wars were being prepared for.
they won't say; when the woman came into the room
but: when the great powers joined forces against the workers.
however, they won't say: the times were dark
rather: why were their poets silent?

legend of the origin of the book tao-te-ching on lao-tsu's road into exile

1
once he was seventy and getting brittle
quiet retirement seemed the teacher's due.
in his country goodness had been weakening a little
and the wickedness was gaining ground anew.
so he buckled on his shoe.
2
and he packed up what he would be needing:
not much. but enough to travel light.
items like the book that he was always reading
and the pipe he used to smoke at night.
bread as much as he thought right.
3
gladly looked back aat his valley, then forgot it
as he turned to take the mountain track.
and the ox was glad of the fresh grass it spotted
munching, with the old man on its back
happy that the pace was slack.
4
four days out among the rocks, a barrier
where a customs man made them report.
`what valuables have you to declare there?'
and the boy leading the ox explained: `the old man taught'.
nothing at all, in short.
5
then the man, in cheerful disposition
asked again: `how did he make out, pray?'
said the boy: `he learnt how quite soft water, by attrition
over the years will grind strong rocks away.
in other words, that hardness must lose the day.'
6
then the boy tugged at the ox to get it started
anxious to move on, for it was late.
but as they disappeared behind a fir tree which they skirted
something suddenly began to agitate
the man, who shouted:`hey, you! wait!'
7
`what was that you said about the water?'
old man pauses: `do you want to know?'
man replies: `i'm not at all important
who wins or loses intersts, though.
if you've found out, say so.
8
`write it down. dictate it to your boy there.
once you've gone, who can we find out from?
there are pen and ink for your employ here
and a supper we can share; this is my home.
it's a bargain: come!'
9
turning round, the old man looks in sorrow
at the man. worn tunic. got no shoes.
and his forehead just a single furrow.
ah, no winner this he's talking to.
and he softly says: `You too?'
10
snubbing of politely put suggestions
seems to be unheard of by the old.
for the old man said: `those who ask quetions
deserver answers'. then they boy; `what's more, it's turning
     cold.
`right. then get my bed unrolled.'
11
stiffly from his ox the sage dismounted.
seven days he wrote there with his friend.
and the man brought them their meals (and all the smugglers
      were astounded
at what seemed this sudden lenient trend).
and then came the end.
12
and the boy handed over what they'd written -
eighty-one sayings - early one day.
and they thanked the man for the alms he'd given
went round that fir and climbed the rocky way.
who was so polite as they?
13
but the honor should not be restricted
to the saye whose name is clearly writ.
for a wise man's wisdom needs to be extracted.
so the customs man deserves his bit.
it was he who called for it.