Provisional Tenants

Photo by D.R. Wagner, Elk Grove

CONTEMPLATING HELL
—Bertolt Brecht

Contemplating Hell, as I once heard it,

My brother Shelley found it to be a place

Much like the city of London. I,

Who do not live in London, but in Los Angeles,

Find, contemplating Hell, that it

Must be even more like Los Angeles.

Also in Hell,

I do not doubt it, there exist these opulent gardens

With flowers as large as trees, wilting, of course,

Very quickly, if they are not watered with very expensive water.
     And fruitmarkets,

With great heaps of fruit, which nonetheless

Possess neither scent nor taste. And endless trains of autos,

Lighter than their own shadows, swifter than

Foolish thoughts, shimmering vehicles, in which

Rosy people, coming from nowhere, go nowhere.

And houses, designed for happiness, standing empty,

Even when inhabited.

Even the houses in Hell are not all ugly.

But concern about being thrown into the street

Consumes the inhabitants of the villas no less

Than the inhabitants of the barracks.

(Translated from the German by Robert Firmage)

___________________

ON READING A RECENT GREEK POET
—Bertolt Brecht

After the wailing had already begun

along the walls, their ruin certain,

the Trojans fidgeted with bits of wood

in the three-ply doors, itsy-bitsy

pieces of wood, fussing with them.

And began to get their nerve back and feel hopeful.

(Translated by John Peck)

____________________

OF POOR B.B.

—Bertolt Brecht

I, Bertolt Brecht, came out of the black forests. 

My mother moved me into the cities while I lay

Inside her body. And the chill 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 unction and 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 stiff hat because that's what they do.

I say: they're animals with a quite peculiar smell

And I say: Does it matter? I am too.

Sometimes in the morning 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 around 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 gray light before morning the pine-trees piss

And their vermin, the birds, raise their twitter and cheep.

At that hour I drain my glass in town, then throw

The cigar butt away and worriedly go to sleep.

We have sat, an easy generation

In houses thought to be indestructible

(Thus we built those tall boxes on the island of Manhattan

And those thin antennae that amuse the Atlantic swell.)

Of those cities will remain: what passed through them, the
     wind!

The house makes glad the consumer: 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 Virginia alight, embittered or no,

I, Bertolt Brecht, carried off to the asphalt cities

From the black forests inside my mother long ago.

(Translated by Michael Hamburger)

_____________________ 

Today's LittleNip: 

THE MASK OF EVIL

—Bertolt Brecht

On my wall hangs a Japanese carving,

The mask of an evil demon, decorated with gold lacquer.

Sympathetically I observe
The swollen veins of the forehead, indicating

What a strain it is to be evil.

(Translated by H.R. Hays)

_____________________

—Medusa

Don't forget two important dates: Deadline for The Ophidian #2, Rattlesnake Press’s online journal of poetry and art, is next Tuesday, March 1! Don’t be left out. Scroll down the skinny blue b-board over at the right and click on The Ophidian for info. And Monday is the last day of The Book Collector’s month-long 25% off EVERYTHING sale. Better get down there this weekend, or you’ll be left out of that, too!

 Soulangian Magnolia

—Photo by D.R. Wagner