Poem for the 1st Mai - Of Poor - Bertold Brecht

[Eva Libre]

 

Of Poor B. B.

 

I

 

I, Bertolt Brecht, came from the black forests.
My mother carried me into the cities
When I was in her belly. And the chill of the forests
Will be in me till my dying day.

 

2

The asphalt city is my home. Furnished
From the outset with every sacramental perquisite:
With newspapers. And tobacco. And brandy.
Distrustful and idle and contented to the end.

 

3

I am friendly to people. I put on
A top hat because that's what they do.
I tell myself: They are animals with a particular smell.
And I tell myself: What of it, so am I.

 

4

In the morning I like to set a women or two
in my empty rocking chairs
And I look at them insouciantly and I say to themgaze at them:
In me you have someone on whom there is no relying.

 

5

Toward evening it's men I gather round about me
And we address our company as “gentlemen.”
They park their feet on my table
And say: Things are looking up. And I don’t ask when.

 

6

Toward morning in the grey light the fir trees piss
And their vermin, the birds, begin to chirp.
At that hour I drain my glass in town and chuck
The cigar butt and worriedly fall asleep.

 

7

We have sat, an easy generation,
In houses thought to be indestructible
(So we have built those tall boxes on the island of Manhattan
And those thin antennae that amuse the Atlantic swell).

 

8

Of these cities all that will remain is what passed through them, the wind!
The house makes the consumer happy: he empties it out.
We know that we are only tenants, provisional ones,
And after us there’ll be nothing much worth talking about.

 

9

In the earthquakes to come, I very much hope
I don’t let my cigar go out, embittered or not,
I, Bertolt Brecht, carried into the asphalt cities
From the black forests inside my mother long ago.

 

 

[Florence Hutchison]

Eva

Thanks ! i loved it I  have  to look some  words in my dictionnary and than , by the same time i can appreciate this poem, i improove english words Poetry is like a breath so fresh for our  spirit  Light Florence