Bertold Brecht

 

 

Il y a des hommes qui se battent un jour , 

et it sont importants . 

 

Il y a des hommes qui se battent une année , 

et il sont couraqeux

 

Mais il y a ceux qui ce battent toute leur vie , 

ceux la sont Indisponsable . 

 

---

 

Questions from A Worker Who Reads

Who built Thebes of the seven gates?
In the books you will find the name of kings.
Did the kings 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?
Philip 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.

"Fragen eines lesenden Arbeiters" - translated by M. Hamburger
from Bertolt Brecht, Poems 1913-1956, Methuen, N.Y., London, 1976

 

 

Bad Time For Poetry

 

Inside me contend
Delight at the Apple tree in blossom
And horror at the house painter’s*
  speeches
But only the second
Drives me to my desk.
  [* Hitler]

 

* * * * *

 

The old see the young die
The foolish see the wise die
The earth no longer produces, it devours
The sky hurls down no rain, only iron

 

1930s

 

 

The Solution

 

 After the uprising of
    the 17th June
  The Secretary of the
    Writer’s Union
Had leaflets distributed in the Stalinallee
Stating that the people
Had forfeited the confidence of the
    government
And could win it back only
By redoubled efforts.
Would it not be easier
In that case for the government
To dissolve the people
And elect another?

 

Poems 1913-1956 by Bertolt Brecht, edited by John Willett & Ralph Manheim (Methuen, 1976)