Translating Brecht ... Fortini

January 19, 2012

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

— 15 hours ago with 3 notes
#poetry #fortini #brecht