ON BLACK SATURDAY AT THE ELEVENTH HOUR OF THE NIGHT BEFORE EASTER: AFTER BRECHT, MANUAL OF PIETY



In the spring and under the green heavens
Somewhat brutalised by the loved and savage winds
I came swaggering on my way
Down to the black cities, the interior of my heart lined with cold sayings.

It was with the black creatures of the asphalt that I filled myself
I filled myself with water and with lamentation
I was left in the cold and my darlings in the light
I stayed throughout incomplete and light through it all.

And I know they were the ones who smashed the holes through my walls
And that even as they were to curse me crawled out of me again
There was nothing inside me but so much space and paper
I was the paper only—and they were to scream with their obscenities.

I grinned and as I did so walked at speed down between the houses
Into the open country. Soft and receptive
The wind was going now to run more swiftly through my walls.
The snow had stopped falling. There was to be the rain.

Thick snouts of thuggish bully-boys
Have found that there is nothing in me—in truth, nothing!
Wild boars had sex in me. From the radiant heavens
Ravens would often piss straight into me.

Feebler than the clouds! More delicate than the wind would ever be!
There is nothing visible. The light, being brutal and as festive
As any one of my own poems, I crossed the heavens
With a stork, its wings beside me, beating faster.