Der Abschied (“The Parting”)
by Bertolt Brecht
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

We embrace;
my fingers trace
rich cloth
while yours encounter only moth-
eaten fabric.
A quick hug:
you were invited to the gay soiree
while the minions of the "law" relentlessly pursue me.
We talk about the weather
and our eternal friendship's magic.
Anything else would be too bitter,
too tragic.

German text:

Der Abschied

Wir umarmen uns.
Ich fasse reichen Stoff
Du fassest armen.
Die Umarmung ist schnell
Du gehst zu einem Mahl
Hinter mir sind die Schergen.
Wir sprechen vom Wetter und von unserer
Dauernden Freundschaft. Alles andere
Wäre zu bitter.

Published by Poetry on Demand, The HyperTexts and Ghani Project

Keywords/Tags: Bertolt Brecht, German, translation, parting, farewell, ****, law, minions, henchmen, thugs, pursuit, chase, embrace, hug, rich, cloth, threadbare, soiree, dinner, meal, event, eternal, friendship, bitter, weather, exile

Bertolt Brecht Epigrams and Quotations

These are my modern English translations of epigrams and quotations by Bertolt Brecht.

Everyone chases the way happiness feels,
unaware how it nips at their heels.
— loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The world of learning takes a crazy turn
when teachers are taught to discern!
— loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Unhappy, the land that lacks heroes.
— loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Hungry man, reach for the book:
it's a hook,
a harpoon.
— loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Because things are the way they are,
things can never stay as they were.
— loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

War is like love; true ...
it finds a way through.
— loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

What happens to the hole
when the cheese is no longer whole?
— loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

It is easier to rob by setting up a bank
than by threatening the poor clerk.
— loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Do not fear death so much, or strife,
but rather fear the inadequate life.
— loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Keywords/Tags: Bertolt Brecht, translation, translations, German,  modern English, epigram, epigrams, quote, quotes, quotations

i kept but one name-given namesake -
finally!
now it has become clear:
the german definite article -
die: implies definite article plural -
der: implies definite article singular -

i've become prone to german songs -
more than i'd like -
but i'd sooner die than have to recount
'hej hej sokoły' -
as the only folk song my ear was lent to...

an hour well spent:
a sudoku puzzle and some workhorse
germanic folk -
or listening the pearls and wisdom
of shane macgowan:
point being: the words come from
the tooth -
but only the french and the irish girls
can pull off... wearing short hair like
she'd be a boy...
perhaps those physiognomy details
of shy and porcelain:
faces that were only ever kissed
by the moon - the hair was was only
ever combed by the wind -
and she can come among the brothers
as a amber nectar gem ruffian in disguise...

sinead o'connor, alizée jacotey -
how the hell does tuba büyüküstün come
into the mix? ever so slyly...

bbc4 : 'when it was unpolular and unfashionable
to be irish in england'...
"unfashionable"? the drunken paddy -
the respectable ireland and its own...

conrad - conrad of masovia -
perhaps i just liked the names given unto me
that i chose not to be confirmed
at the brentwood diocees -
all whole lot of it: with a bishop clad in thistle -
the surname was always insignificant:
paperwork -
but at least the names allow you derive
meaning -

poor you alexander -
no minor roles to attach yourself to -
beside the glaring obvious...
st. levi: my former...

- i have only met one woman who ever
wanted to fiddle with my beard -
does it matter that she's my grandmother?
itchy fingers reach in and
pluck out a quartet of violins...

lie eines tambours:
die toten, die toten des regiments
(the dead, the dead of the regiment)

der tod in flandern:
der tod reit't auf einen kohlschwarzen rappe
(death rides on a coalblack horse)
in flandern reitet der tod
(in flanders death rides)
der tod reit't auf einem lichten schimmel
(death rides a pale horse)

teutonic marching party hum:
no wagner! murmurs and mumbling of disgruntled
baritone:
rataplan don diri don!
back from the east and there was
no cleavage to the british ways...
there was always the old one,
the alles vater of germanic roots and rot...
even in multicultural Loon'don...

but now know of the definite article distinction
in german:
der tod: definite singular...
die tod: definite plural... ja! jetzt isch sehen!

fa'lalala... fa'lalala... tamtaradej! tamtaradej!
niemec norweg duńczyk szwed!

a television - a phone no one rings -
all the blessings of the age -
better still - ghost in a skeleton suckling off
flesh - or staging: no soul welcome...
congested and freed from the loitering of
labour -

i would hardly imitate the irish as the dogs
of the british - sinking teeth into gaelic -
i would -
but since i do not have to...
i'd lend my ear toward speaking:
father german - of what this british brat
is worth...
father... alt-vater ßaß!
tease him, or tickle him...
give him a peacock as a gift for the missing
eye...
watch the crow zeppelins come knowing
how to knock...

i very much believe in a linguistic integrity
of a people - a language is beside the waving of
the flag - perhaps i am inclined
to skin of the supposed irish that do not
speak a word of gaelic: more so...
if they have tatoos on their skin?

the welsh have been given a strict overlord -
even though the english claim they
are the one *****-slap shy of donning
a gimp suit...
loud mouths from scotland...
but nothing in their native spreschen!
exfoliating "orthography" glaswegian...

oh but i would be willing to succumb to
this leprechaun sing-alongs...
i'm a workhorse of folk -
i need the drums and the vocals will do the rest -
no need for bagpipes -
or fiddling or dread the banjo...
old continent yawns...

who is the father of the english?
when the english start to... become too over-confident...
arrogant and atypical islander mentality that
doesn't borrow anything from the isolationism
of the Faroe Island people?
the forbidden fruit of the same language
being spoken "across the pond"...
unlike island dwelling people...
who want to be left alone...
strange... that so much media attention must
be given to a people:
that clearly do not want to be left alone!
who said the british didn't just generate
4 years of journalistic pay-cheques for
newspapers and other outlets?
stalling tactics... feeding tactics...
feed the propaganda hogs who will
gobble down anything and regurgitate with
an alistair cambell at the fore...

i was expecting to read some keneth koch,
listening to something beside german folk songs...
solving a sudoku...
and finally deciding... it would be worthwhile
to invest almost 30 quid in a complete works
of this poet...
one thing i've noticed...
the price of books has gone up dractically!
i once thought: paying 30 quid for heidegger's
ponderings VII - XI and II - VI is a bit steep...
but not all the poetry books i want to buy
cost just as much!

30 quid... em... that's almost a carton
of cigarettes...
and i've been hoping to save up to visit a brothel
and forget something:
of no immediate concern...
but poetry books were never this dear to buy...
i was rather spontaneous when
making a recommendation: kenneth koch...
perhaps i should read some more
before i buy this kilogram's worth
of compressed forest of a book...

but that's all the way into a tomorrow's
sitting before: this will never become
a Balzac 14 coffee work-ethic output...
writing: making sure the reader
has no chance to reflect -
nothing to introspect with or for...
then again:
what's any of this supposed to do
with: beside the reflexive?

man's transcendental love will never compensate
for the pragmatic love of a woman
in need for a, kettle...

shady lots of the unforgiving blue-snippet
of jazz and all the better:
that could happen that didn't originate
with british punk...
1960s screaming girls -
1970s and the boys could come around...

yeah, i've been to Ypres - where as pseudo-children
we played hide-and-seek trade-offs
in the trenches...
where the anglo-spreschen graveyards
have signatures: names -
and individual graves...
the german graves? the german graves
of 1st world war?
wilhelm! are you listening?!
apparently the jews were also
trafficed into the slaughter camps...

i have stood in the graveyards
of the germans - the en masse graves sites -
i have witnessed the silence of these graves...
camaraderie of the dead...
nothing of which the english
would ever learn...
in the graveyards
of a "communal"...

the mass graves of the fallen german
"hitlerjunge"... alles im schwarz...
keiner im khaki: senf hinter abendessen!

i stood in the graveyard of the world war
german en masse graveyards...
no sparrow will sing: when the dead sing among
each other...
i will not visit the slaughterhouse
of auschwitz... the cow-towing...
i will not bow before those that were naive...
but i will nonetheless...
succumb to the idiots...

and the Helmut: die eisenhelmkopf: knock-knock...
echo? echo?
among the english...
one is supposed to reach toward
loving the german
(then again one isn't);
feeling indifferent to this lot...
not being quiet the h'american expatriates
they could have been...
old father sax...

the world can heave: settle for the concentration
camps...
i must savor the bounty found in
german en masse graveyards from
the first world world war
if any slaughterhouse is willing to open
its gates to an esque auschwitz...
so be it... but the graveyard
to the youth of germany, wilhelm youth...
camaraderie: freundschaft-im-tod

mutter-tod!
i need not see the concentration camps,
i've seen the graveyards of germany from
the first world war...
if you've seen one sardaine crammed closure
ground...
and the silence...
what does it matter, regarding the people
so naive?

vier! 4th! alternatively: fear!
the mass graves of the youth under Wilhelm
in the vicinity of Ypres...
that acidic silence...
piquant...
and i am supposed to visit the concentration
camp the slaughterhouse?
what will always die
with being naive... trust... and love...
and disinhibition and...
lingua franca ergonomics of
selling stale wood in the form
of antiques...

i know one way of failing to integrate
into english society...
look down... learn some german...
learn what the old father spoke when
he started to brew these unforgiving children
of the chandelier maze...

i'll be singing these germanic folk songs...
x-ray flag of cornwall -
teutonic - black cross upon the white flag...
muslims nearing jerusalem -
old pagans of lithuania
remnants of the golden horde having settled
in ukraine's crimea -

best felt: of what it feels to be alive,
in england...
tinging the old ****** with a dalmation specker
full blodied worth of:
zee ols: germanicus inhibutus -
because there's not need for *****...
as far as the british go...
in... ***** first: welcome! the conquering
par'tayh!

******* soft-ball dodgers and ****-*******
pinzetteblödsinnausweichmanöver:
ease a coming... you *******
weiser herr misers!
lovecraftian video vermont
aenemic *****-liquor...

poetryfoundation.org poet:
is he / she dead?!
they're dead? they're dead?!
oh thank god there's a dead...
and body worthwhile to **** with...
because safety... safety...
and no bit of h. h. holmes
will ever grace the pish-poor pasrty...
party... oops...
******* yankies...

horror is a fetish...
poor croat poor yugoslav...
unless you mention
the serbs and the balkan "muslims"...
high-brow expectation -
until i am willing to meet
not meat...
my fore-bride... death...
honk honk!
i am more than willing top die
via the swizz affair than all this,
******* fawty towers agony...
pristine and puritanical...
the living better excused to live...
enough to buy them life insurance...
and, otherwise... the remains of
dead willing to pop the cork...

the sane always have their: two pence shave
worth of flip: they know-it-how...
the sane will alway know what to write
about insanity...
problem? when the insane write about sanity...
and the mole-hills and whatever it left
becomes the windowlicker down-dyndrome
chop-suey "oops"?
retro-****: or simply: re-...
the sane have authority over the insane...
what happens when the insane have a crab-bite
on the concept of "sanity"...
people elsewhere also die... no?

sanity that requires grey-matter peep-show
peoples to run miles for:
the dying auntie and her cancerous loved-up
"french"...
the sane speak of the insane
i almost forget: the insane would never
speak about the sane... because...
it's nostalgia: papa roach:
between angels and insects...
as dostoyevsky said:
for angels... the sight of god's throne...
for insects... something associated with
succumbing to soap opera and itchy ***
disinhibitions...

why would i visit these concentration camps?
living in western europe first world war
was more important than the 2nd world war...
i've visited a german world war I mass grave...
why would i subsequently visit
the remains of a concentration camp?
a site near Ypres where no sparrow
will cling to branch or to song...

for no reason: don't tease... stop teasing...
if you life is all mud and mediocre and
soap opera... stop teasing!
i will not visit a concentration camp...
appeasing the hebrew...
only when... the graveyard of the en masse
dead of german youth is visited from
the 1st world war...
where... bullet, mud...
fingerprints not welcome...
citizens non-anon...
auschwitz and death the addressee...

the sane and their stipends concerning insanity!
but then one diagnosis falls foul...
and the straitjacket jack starts speaking...
oh! oh then!
the usual story...
the usual *******-become-bells-and-church-uvulas...
and the rest is just a cry, a sigh,
a boring reminder of the british raj...

learn some german...
the peasants will retain theirs with some velsh...
and that's how you
react to be... "leisured with a caption
of being measured via
the focus of having a father"...

liebe: zu nicht lassen gehen...
liebe: das alles ich können behalten!

i rather speak some german on these isles...
this is not ******* h'america...
this is the old continent..
england serves for *******'s worth of nothing
when it is excused to speak german...
while english is relegated for chinese tourists...
and... the faroe island farmers of sheeps' **** and wool...

it's not like you'd expect to become welcome
these days, or any other days...
as a tourist or as a ******* trader...
of "goods"...
made in chine is the broker's deal to begin with...
on the broken bone signature...

i too thought the english were prized on
giving stipends on how:
how to best keep things cordial...
champagne, oysters... the eton mess...
a good round of polo and ******* wacking...
no?

i do admire the early exits of the suicide prone...
i would too...
but i do crave... for the platic 20 quid banknote...
and what would become of charles III
should he chose a different name...
and i really wish that lizzie lives her most...
but then... her current grin is already
tombstone... and she...
well... she's bothersome in that she's pradictable...
and that's boring and bongo-bongo boorish...

****'s sake: two popes teamed up to try
and topple her off the throne and play snooker
into a dead-8 with her crown...
better speak some german: for jokes...
among... the british... that did live through
the 60s of the 20th century...
but... will never relive the same cushioning
of history to somehow "compensate"
the rolling stones dinosaur of the:
most welcome pensioner rock & zimmer framers...
roll with that sort of shaky stephens
park-on-eire-n-son?

just drop the delayed nuke...
we're all done and b.b.q. readied
recounting what's interpreted as "trauma"...
superiority / the messiah complex
of the english...
but you speak a word of german...
you think a word of german and...

do these people care, to, remember,
their, natural, neighbourly...
competitive streaks with the fwench?
it's just like "us"... the polacks with the russians...
with the germans...
i too thought that the ukranians were
better represented by competing with
leftover mongols of crimea.