Why Should Brecht's Name be Mentioned?

 

"Because I praised the useful, which 

In my day was considered base 

Because I battled against all religions 

Because I fought oppression or 

For another reason.

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 behaviour or 

For some other reason.

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.

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?

Why Should my name be mentioned?"

(Brecht) 

Letter to Comrade Nazim Hikmet

Comrade Nazim: this morning 

I recall your house in Peredelkino 

resembling the heart of a gigantic pine forest,

I remember the ample fraternity of your antarctic eyes, your crystalline poetry. 

I take care of your gifts: the colorful wooden spoon 

and the picture of Lenin 

and I hope the awesome clay head from Izalco that I left in your hands speaks to you often about my poor country and its bitter bread. 

Comrade Nazim: I write this from the neighborhood of sudden dread 

from the Fifth Cell Block in the Central Penitentiary of El Salvador. 

I couldn't do this before when I was free 

because feeling playful and bubbly at liberty 

one cannot raise words 

to the high occasion of prisoners, the old prisoners 

who, like you, showed the way to see prison as one more tiny step of stone 

on the road to winning a little of the future freedom for everyone.  

They've held me prisoner, comrade, 

for nineteen days now. 

The same ones who brand the dark rose, 

heart of our country, with red-hot irons and acids, who stole my freedom as though it were simply an object 

and surrounded me with hatred, guards and walls and took from me the currents of the wind, 

the stars, the streets, the eyes of girls, 

the downpours of these latitudes that look for our flesh only to find fire. 

And here I am, with the poor murderer 

in spite of him, with the thief, the rapist, 

and the ignorant one, sharing our daily mire and insults, 

combining our breathing with the usual outcries, from behind bars, 

watching the days pass like exhausted swallows, pathetic wings, accused of anything for having loved hope 

and defended life and having begun to be a man once 

and for all going all out, full blast, barely pausing to examine my apparent conceit, as it turned out. When do I get out of here? It doesn't matter. 

What does is that in spite of the hatred, the pain, the uncertainty, 

we must follow with Firmness in the footsteps of the heart, 

always together in the struggle, facing hope, and happy, happy, very happy... 

Please excuse my confused expression and ideas: 

there's a touch of fever and anxiety between my crazed hands and brain; 

what's more, according to the news other comrades have been arrested... 

I enclose some poems from these last days, where friends speak from their cells, 

only some of them, there are three hundred and twenty of us. 

Will you give my regards to Memet? 

And you take good care of your heart. 

Especially today when America has many doorways for you and your poetry. 

I won't take up any more of your precious time — has the snow melted yet in Moscow? — 

and I close these lines with an embrace. 

So long. 

May we keep on hauling up the morning. 

January, 1960. 

Roque Dalton

Suddenly

Human Condition, René Magritte

Suddenly something snaps in me and catches in my throat,

suddenly, in the middle of work, I jump up,

suddenly, in a hotel, in the hall, standing up, I fall into a dream,

suddenly, on the sidewalk, a branch whacks me in the forehead, suddenly a wolf howls at the moon, miserable, enraged, starved,

suddenly stars hang from a swing in a garden,

suddenly I see myself in the grave,

suddenly my head is a sunny haze,

suddenly I cling to the day I started out as if it wouldn't end, and every time you float up to the surface

-Nazim Hikmet

Two Important Lessons by Brecht

 The art of ceasing to teach

Me-ti said: Every teacher must learn how to stop teaching, when the time comes. That is a difficult art. Only a few are able, when the time is right, to allow reality to take their place. Only a few know when they have taught enough. Naturally, it's difficult to watch how the student, whom you've tried to save from making your own mistakes, now makes such mistakes. Difficult as it is, not to get advice, it's just as difficult, not to be allowed to give any.

Concealing failings

Me-ti said: The worst is not having failings, not even not resisting them is bad. What's bad is concealing them. Not to seem what you are, that's unfor- tunate for yourself. To seem what you are not is unfortunate for others. How should anyone go into battle at your side, if you haven't shown them your failings? The effort of appearing to be what you are not already exhausts all your energy for the fight. You're afraid, for example, that your friend might reject you, if he knew you're a coward. But what he needs to fear are only the consequences of your cowardice. He can avoid them better than you can provided he knows about your cowardice. Even someone who tells lies must at least make his best friends aware of it; he's not allowed to lie about that.

-Brecht (Me-ti)

Bach's Concerto No. 1 in C-Minor

 Bach's Concerto No. 1 in C-Minor

by Nâzım Hikmet (1902 – 1963)

(https://youtu.be/ljLi9A0H8H4?si=5rSXFsLu4KHRqnps) 

Fall morning in the vineyard:
       in row after row the repetition of knotty vines,
       of clusters on the vines,
       of grapes in the clusters,
       of light on the grapes.

At night, in the big white house,
       the repetition of windows,
       each lit up separately.

The repetition of all the rain that rains
       on earth, trees, and the sea,
       on my hands, face, and eyes,
       and of the drops crushed on the glass.

The repetition of my days
               that are alike,
               my days that are not alike.

The repetition of the thread in the weave,
          the repetition in the starry sky,
          and the repetition of "I love" in all languages,
          and the repetition of the tree in the leaves,
          and of the pain of living, which ends in an instant
          on every deathbed.

The repetition in the snow -
                the light snow,
                the heavy wet snow,
                the dry snow,
the repetition in the snow that whirls
in the blizzard that drives me off the road.

The children are running in the courtyard;
in the courtyard the children are running.
An old woman is passing by on the street;
on the street an old woman is passing by;
passing by on the street is an old woman.

At night, in the big white house,
               the repetition of windows,
               each lit up separately.

In the clusters, of grapes,
on the grapes, of light.

To walk toward the good, the just, the true,
to fight for the good, the just, the true,
to seize the good, the just, the true.

Your silent tears and smile, my rose,
your sobs and bursts of laughter, my rose,
the repetition of your shining white teeth when you laugh.

Fall morning in the vineyard:
       in row after row the repetition of knotty vines,
              of clusters on the vines,
              of grapes in the clusters,
              of light on the grapes,
              of my heart in the light.

My rose, this is the miracle of repetition -
to repeat without repeating.

Gone

 

Night and snow on the window-panes.
The rails gleam in the white night
reminding you of going
          and never coming back.
In the third-class waiting room
a woman is lying,
      her feet bare,
      a black kerchief round her head.
          I walk up and down.
Night and snow on the window-panes.
Inside some people are singing -
      a song my comrade loved
                            so much.
His favourite song,
his favourite,
his-
Comrades, do not look into my eyes,
I am trying not to weep.
In the white night the rails gleam,
reminding you of going
          and never coming back.
A woman in a black kerchief
      is lying
          in the third-class
          waiting-room,
          her feet bare.
Night and snow on the window-panes.
Somewhere inside they are singing.

Nazim Hikmet

गाज़ा में रंग और धुन

वक़्त चीख रहा है, 

जले खेतों में सेटलर बुल्डोज़र हैं, 

टूटे मकानों में लोहे के सरिये मुड़े हुए हैं, 

कोंक्रिट के जंगल में माँस और खून की गंध बस चुकी है, 

आसमाँ से आग बरसती है

हमारे सपने जल रहे और श्रापनेल धँस गया है रंगों में

रोशनी में कीचड़ है बूटों की, 

हमारी धुन बहरी हो गयी है, 

मेरे दिल में

श्रापनेल का टुकडा धँसा है, 

इसे कैसे निकालूँ? 

निकालूँ या नहीं? 

यही तो खून बहने से रोक रहा। 

खाका ढह गया है, 

पर न मर सकी हैं स्मृतियाँ, 

रंग, खुशबू, मिठास और धुन 

खून से जन्म रही। 

फ़िलिस्तीन भी यहीं से जन्मता है। 

बिखरे बिम्ब

 बिम्ब बिखरते हैं, 

गंगा में शंख और सीप नहीं अनिश्चितताओं की पोटली, लूट के पैकेट और 

पन्नी में लिपटे हथियार तैर रहे,

सूंस मर चुकीं।

नदी किनारे से संवाद नहीं कर पा रही,

संघ के बुड्ढे रक्तचाप बेहतर रखने के लिए नकली हँसी हँसते हैं,

नदी के वफ़ादार आवारा कुत्ते मालिकों के साथ आये

पालतू कुत्तों पर भौंकते हैं।

मुखौटे ही चेहरे हैं, 

बाज़ार में पटे सामानों में आत्मा है,

आह, मैं खुद को गंगा में उगते सूरज में खोजना चाहता था

पर यह क्या मिल गया?  

पार्टी जीवन का क़सीदा

 हमारे युग में दुर्लभ हो चुका 

एक मानवीय गुण है – सिद्धान्तनिष्ठा, 

जिसे सहज आदत बनाने के लिए 

एक ही जीवन में कई-कई बार 

फिर से जनम लेना होता है 

और कई-कई बीहड़ यात्राएँ करनी होती हैं। 

जीवन कुछ यूँ जीना 

जैसे कोई समूह गान गाया जा रहा हो, 

जैसे छापामारों की कोई टुकड़ी 

ज़िम्मेदारियाँ बाँटकर हमले की तैयारी कर रही हो 

अगले मुकाम की ओर जल्दी से जल्दी 

बढ़ने की बेचैनी के साथ 

इसके लिए कई बार अपनी ही राख से

फ़िनिक्स पक्षी की तरह पंख फड़फड़ाते हुए 

फिर-फिर जीवन में प्रवेश करना होता है। 

कई बार एक पूरा जीवन प्रतीक्षा होता है प्यार की 

और एक दूसरा जीवन मिलता नहीं 

उसका मोल समझने के लिए। 

कविता सा जीवन 

एक चिरन्तन स्वप्न होता है 

जीवन-सी कविता के पंखों से उड़ते हुए 

आजीवन हम जिसका पीछा करते हैं। 

इसी तरह सपनों की कविता 

और कविता जैसे जीवन का पीछा करते हुए 

जो क्षितिज की ओर उड़ते चले जाते हैं 

और आकाश की निस्सीम गहराइयों में 

जादू की तरह खो जाते हैं 

वे घोंसले कभी नहीं बनाते हैं।

कात्यायनी

Mountain of Grief

 You and I are a mountain of grief... 

you and I will never meet. 

Only try at midnight to send me 

a greeting through the stars.

Anna Akhmatova