‘early in 1922
i signed on the 6000 to freighter osaka
built four years earlier for two million dollars
by the united states shipping board. in hamburg
we picked up cargo, champagne and liqueurs for rio.
as the pay was bad
we felt a need to drown our sorrows
in alcohol. so
a case or two of champagne found its way into
the crews quarters. but from the officers’ room too
even on the bridge and the chartroom
only four days after leaving hamburg, were heard
the clinking of glasses and the songs
of carefree folk. several times
the ship was thrown off her course. however
owing to sundry favourable circumstances
we reach rio de janerio. our skipper
missed a hundred cases of champagne
when we unloaded. but as he could not pick up any better
crew in brazil he had to
make do with us. we loaded
over a thousand tons of meat for hamburg.
a day or so out our sorrows overcame us again -
the bad pay, our insecure old age - and
one of us in his despair fed oil into the furnace , and fire
shot from the funnel all over the upper structure so
that lifeboats, bridge and chartroom were burned away
to prevent our sinking
we helped put it out, but
meditating on the bad pay (uncertain prospects) didn’t
exert ourselves very hard to save much on deck. it
could easily be repaired at some cost; after all, they had
saved enough on our pay.
undue exertion in middle life
ages men fast, unfits them for life’s struggle.
so, as we had to be sparing of our strength
the dynamos burned out one fine day, since they needed
the sort of care
not given by those with no heart in the job. now
we had no light. at first we used oil lamps
to avoid collision with other ships, but
a tired mate, dejected by thoughts
of his joyless old age, threw the lamps overboard
to save work. about then , just off maderia
the meat began to stink in the cold storage chamber
due to the failure of the dynamos. unfortunately
a preoccupied sailor, instead of the bilges
pumped out nearly all the fresh water. there was enough
left for drinking
but none for the boilers. s we had to
use salt water for steam, with the result that
the pipes choked with salt. cleaning them out
took quite a while. it had to be done seven times.
then there was a breakdown in the engine room. grinning
we patched it together again. the osaka limped slowly into maderia. no facilities there
for the extensive repairs that were now needed. we procured
only water and a few lamps and some oil for the
running lights. the dynamos
it appeared, were totally ruined, consequently
the refrigeration system didn’t work, and the stench of
the frozen meat rotting became intolerable to
our shattered nerves. the skipper
never stirred without his revolver - a sign of
insulting mistrust. one of us outraged
by such demeaning treatment
finally shot steam into the refrigerator pipes, so that the
damn meat
should at least be cooked. that afternoon
the whole crew sat down and diligently figured
how much the united states government would have to
pay for the cargo. before the voyage ended
we actually managed to beat our own record: off the coast of
holland
the fuel oil supply gave out, and we had to be
towed into hamburg at enormous expense.
the stinking meat caused out skipper much further trouble
the ship went into the boneyard. any child we considered
could see from this that our pay
really was too low….
Brecht (1934-36)
(a warning tale for capitalists everywhere… 1922 being only 10 years in the future)
I was a communist throughout.
Justly though, the other communists
looked askance at me. I was a communist
despite their certainties, despite my doubts.
Justly they did not see themselves in me.
.
They would not admit my discipline.
My centralism seemed anarchy to them.
My self-criticisms contradicted theirs.
Special communists cannot be:
to think so is not to be so.
.
Justly they did not see themselves in me,
my comrades. Like them, I too
was enslaved. Even more so: I tended to forget it.
They did their work, I followed my inclination.
Exactly that: I was a communist throughout.
.
Despite their certainties, despite my doubts
I always wanted this world ended.
Myself ended too. And it was that exactly
which estranged us. My hopes had no point for them.
My centralism seemed anarchy to them.
.
As if I wanted more, more truth,
more for me to give them, more
for them to give me. Thus living, dying thus.
I was a communist throughout.
I always wanted this world ended.
.
I have survived enough to see
comrades who bruised me broken by intolerable truths.
Now tell me: you knew very well I was with you?
Was that why you hated me? My truth is truly needed,
breathed in through space and time, heard patiently.
—
Translated by Angelo Quattrocchi and Lucien Rey
Ah the delight of dawn!
Over the grassy lawn
the spark of silk, of silk
spat out by some small spider
to be the breeze’s pawn.
A distant siren whines
from the freeway. Sun shines!
What a Sunday, what peace!
An old man’s tidy peace,
his favorite hour of all.
The ants march on in rows.
They’re off to do who knows
what harm to the ripe pears …
Such sun now on the wall!
The lizards heed its call.
Source: Poetry (December 2007).
Today, Easter Sunday morning
a sudden snowstorm swept over the island
between the greening hedges lay snow. My young son
drew me to a little apricot tree by the house wall
away from a version which I pointed at those
who were preparing a war which
could well wipe out the continent, this island, my people, my
Family
Red Rosa now has vanished too.
Where she lies is hid from view.
She told the poor what life is about
And so the rich have rubbed out.
I have worked all these years, have seen
the seasons change little behind window panes, working
for the car, for papers, doctors, for food and the house.
Doing not what I ought to have done, but neither
what I should have done; not with the slow mind
of the wise, nor with bright eyes,
nor with a glad heart.
But the dark water beyond the future,
the still lake that lies unvisited there,
of that I knew how to speak; and you
that hesitate over these words should know:
behind the proud complaint and the feeble anger
it is one in you and me.
All afternoon
a thunderstorm hung on the rooftops,
then broke, in lightning, in torrents.
I stared at lines of cement, lines of glass
with screams inside them, wounds mixed in and limbs,
mine also, who have survived. Carefully, looking
now at the bricks, embattled, now at the dry page,
I heard the word
of a poet expire, or change
to another voice, no longer for us. The oppressed
are oppressed and quiet, the quiet oppressors
talk on the telephone, hatred is courteous, and I too
begin to think I no longer know who’s to blame.
Write, I say to myself, hate those
who gently lead into nothingness
the men and women who are your companions
and think they no longer know. Among the enemies’ names
write your own too. The thunderstorm,
with its crashing, has passed. To copy
those battles nature’s not strong enough. Poetry
changes nothing. Nothing is certain. But write
To discipline mimicry, to exhibit -
[held still in its formal death -]
the stamp of its ancient subjection ,
and at the same time to imitate
the violence and lament of violence
Undergone. This I think, I have sought
to do in my verse, and this is
connected with my Judaism
Franco Fortini —- poem from Fortini-Cani Straub and Huillet …
i feel/like a soviet factory
manufacturing happiness.
i don’t want/to be plucked
like a flower/after a the days work
……………………………………………….
i want the heart to be paid
its wage of love/at the specialists rate
i want the factory/committee
to put a lock on my lips
when the work is done
i want the pent to be equal to the bayonet
and i want stalin/to report in the name of the politburo
about the production of verse
as he does about pig iron and steeeeel
thus, and so it is/we’ve reached
the topmost level/up from the workers hovels
in the union of republics
the appreciation of verse/has exceeded the prewar level
Mayakovski – quoted in Jakobson (On a generation that squandered its poets…) in the fabulous Verbal Art, Verbal Sign, Verbal Time…
Though really if Jakobson and I were sitting drinking espresso in some small place in paris we’d be lamenting of the way the spectacle has generated a generation that squandered its intellectuals…
The poem is decapitalised…
Omnipotent one
You thought up a pair of hands
Fixed it
So that everyone has a head.
Why couldn’t you fix it
So that without torment
We could just kiss and kiss and kiss ?
Mayakovski … quoted from Roman Jakobson Verbal Art….
Don’t shake your hair like that we can’t see ourselves
anymore
It’s all of a sudden full of workmen
Don’t shake your hair like that or else the traveler
north
Disappointed may turn up south again
But do learn to curl your hair
for the benefit of stones
from Ralentir Travaux
Breton, Char, Eluard
This night while sleepe begins with heavy wings
To hatch mine eyes, and that unbitted thought
Doth fall to stray, and my chief powres are brought
To leave the scepter of all subject things,
The first that straight my fancies error brings
Unto my mind, is Stellas image, wrought
By Loves owne self, but with so curious draught,
That she, methinks, not only shines but sings.
I start, looke, hearke, but what in closde up sence
Was held, in opend sense it flies away,
Leaving me nought but wailing eloquence:
I, seeing betters sights in sights decay,
Cald it anew, and wooed sleep again:
But him her host that unkind guest had slaine.
