Waiting on the Opposite Stage

THE GERMAN LIST

 Heiner Müller

Waiting on the Opposite Stage

Collected Poems

T r a n s l aT e d b y Ja M e s r e i d e l

LONDON NEW YORK CALCUTTA

This publication was supported by a grant
from the Goethe-institut india

Seagull Books, 2021

Originally published as Heiner Müller, Warten auf der Gegenschräge. Gesammelte Gedichte
© suhrkamp Verlag, berlin, 2014

First published in english translation by seagull books, 2021

english translation © James reidel, 2021

‘and between abC and OneTiMesOne’; ‘Tales of Homer’; ‘The Joyless angel’; ‘Heart
of darkness after Joseph Conrad’; and ‘soap in bayreuth’, first appeared in Evergreen
Review and to which grateful acknowledgment is made.

isbn 978 0 8574 2 690 1

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

a catalogue record for this book is available from the british library

Typeset by seagull books, Calcutta, india

Printed and bound by WordsWorth india, new delhi, india
 PART ONE

A Book of Poems
(1992)
On meadows green
Many flowers bloom
The blue the kids
The yellow the pigs
The dearest the red
The white the dead

[1962]
1949 . . .
and between abc and onetimesone
we pissed whistling against the schoolhouse wall
the teacher from behind an upraised hand
have you no sense of shame. we had none.

with evening we were climbing the tree

from which they cut the dead down by morning. now
his tree was empty. we said: that was him.
where are the others? between branch and ground is space.

[early 1950s]

5
report from the beginning
1
Living by the penny they struggled
as though for dear life for a penny. so
the world taught them, in which the only
place for them was at the bottom.
when the top broke off
still striking dead many around it, strewing rubble on those
not among the fallen, what came down
slowly staggered up the mountain of rubble.
2
though the penny was shared now, what
a poor penny it was! although bread
belonged to everyone, no one felt full.
3
this meant: fight for a penny instead of over it.
a little today for a lot more tomorrow.
4
of course the objective was achieved. although buried
by a mountain of rubble. and stone is stone, hard to move.
5
there were the impatient patient.
there were the tireless, too soon tired
from being awake through the night . . .
those who long fought didn’t see the victory
for the sweat which burnt as the tears did before.
the survivors of great wars
for a place at the table, peace and shoes
the victory in hand, had yet to find in their pockets
that what there was to be done hard.
6
and a voice did speak to them
from the beginning:you the patient, have patience!
you the tireless, be tireless!
fight on, you the victors . . .
and they did follow

6
the path marked by that voice, for
there was none better, and they didn’t know
that it was their own voice that spoke.
7
but their hands were smarter than
their heads, and they did what remained to be done.
railing away they built houses of brick
they walked the path cursing the pace
watching the clouds, not the sky above
and not the road, only the dust of the road.
8
yet when the building stood, built for them
by them, they didn’t know what was
built. stepping through the doors they
still looked back, asking: why
didn’t someone drive us away? surely it belongs to someone?
9
those who were not practiced
in the art of taking, reluctantly took
what was theirs. those who were so long stolen from
suspected they themselves were guilty of stealing.
10
but the voice was always before them
that said to them: it’s not enough! don’t
stand there! those who stand fall! Keep going! thus
in this always-keep-going followed the voice
the hard became easy
the unattainable became attainable.
and above this always keep-going they
knew: that it was their own voice that spoke.

[1951]

7
images
images mean anything initially. are holdable. have room.
but dreams congeal, assume shape and disappointment.
even in the sky no image lasts very long. the clouds, from a plane:
vapour blocking the view. the crane just a bird.
even communism, that end frame, which is always refreshed
washed down over and over again with blood, the day in, the day out
pays with a little coin, unpolished, dull from sweat
debris great poetry, like bodies, long loved and
no longer needed now, in the way of this needful ultimate genre
between the lines moaning
happily on the bones of the stone-bearers
for beauty means the possible end to the horrors.

[1955]

8
phiLoctetes 1950*
philoctetes, the bow-kit of heracles in hand, sick with
Leprosy marooned on Lemnos, which was empty without him
with few provisions left by his princes, showed no
pride then, but rather shouted until the ship disappeared, unimpeded
by his shout.
and he got used to it, lord of the island, his servant too
chained to it with the surrounding sea’s flood, living off
green-stuff and wildlife, game, sufficient for ten years.
but in the tenth year of a futile war, the princes remembered
the forgotten man. how he trained his longbow, one far-reaching,
deadly. they sent ships, to bring back the hero
that he might shower them with fame. but that man wore his
proudest face. they had to forcibly drag him on board
to satisfy his pride. thus did he make up for lost time.

[early to mid-1950s]

phiLoctetes, greek archer and trojan war hero, subject of sophocles’ Philoctetes as well
as lost plays by aeschylus and euripides.
bow-kit of Heracles, the bow and poison arrows heracles gave the young philoctetes for
lighting his funeral pyre.this poem anticipates müller’s adaptation of the sophocles play
performed in munich in 1968.

9
taLes of homer
1
the students spoke incessantly and exhaustively with homer,
interpreting his work, asking him for a proper interpretation.
for the old man always loved to discover himself anew
and lauded without sparing wine and roasted meat.
the talk came, at the banquet, meat and wine, around tothersites*
the maligned, the unbridled tongue, who stood up at the assembly
shrewdly exploited the great discord over the greater spoils
spoke: behold the people’s shepherd, who shears his sheep
and, ever the shepherd, slaughters them, and showed the bloody
empty hands of soldiers as bloody and empty for the soldiers.
then the students asked: what is it with this thersites
master? you give him the right words, then you in your own
words show him in the wrong. this is hard for us to grasp.
why did you do that? homer answered: to please the princes.
the students asked: why do that? the old man: out of hunger.
for laurels?
Likewise. but he regarded what’s in the cook-pot as highly as that
on his crown.

2
but among his students, they say, had been this smart
one, a great sceptic. he still questioned every answer
to find nothing more to doubt about it. this pupil now asked,
sitting with the old man by the river, this question among others yet again.
the old man eyed the youth up and down and said, looking at him
congenially: truth is an arrow, poisonous to the hasty archer!
the bow drawn back is already enough.the arrow surely remains an arrow
to who recovers it in the reeds. the truth, clad in lies, remains truth.
and the bow doesn’t die with the archer. so he spoke and stood up.

[early 1950s]

Thersites, a common greek soldier in the iliad who questions how the spoils of the war
with troy will only benefit the greek kings. he also appears in the writings of hegel
and marx among others as the archetypal social critic.

10
conversation with horace1
a syllable counter your verse parenthetical amid the tramp of legions

the legions where are they my verse enters its second millennium

[mid-1950s]

Horace (65 bce–8 ce), roman poet.

tramp of legions, an allusion to the horace’s court poetry, such as the Odes, which glorified
the regime of augustus caesar.

11
horace
1
the overachiever with hatred at the starting gate.
under brutus he is a democrat
Death to the tyrant and for a country estate as well
a pacifist at philippi, he scanned the dirt.
then he learns his lesson (even he), changes
his career. Let Augustus get over it. maecenas
for a place in the wilderness, gave him the country estate
Eight mirrors in the bedroom and no more word of Brutus.
he makes his way into chrestomathies
Aere perennius a darling of philologists

2
rome the whore with seven breasts.
praise moderation, mother of empires
devoured by its growing children
with perfect verses, otherwise why need
Luxury. Horace sings well fed. for the laurel
seasons the meat. cappadocian game!
(and the tree blossoms in the alban hills!)
twenty-three dagger thrusts, the second fatal
in epileptic flesh, what are they
against the fart of priapus in eight satires.

[late 1950s / early 1960s]2

Aere perennius, i.e. more lasting than bronze.

12
on chamisso’s poem
‘the oLd washerwoman’3
the poet is surprised by how spry she still is
at seventy-six.—man, does the woman hurry!
if not for washing shirts, who knows, you might
forget all about ever paying her.

he watches, she sweats. so he praises her.

but her sweat drives his mill of course, and while
she chews her black bread, he can munch pastries.
praising her he ensures that she stays low.

buy a shroud early not sausage he counsels

washerwomen. washerwomen, no doubt
promptly are made cherubim in heaven.

he sees her gladly run inside god’s house.

he is the last who takes comfort in her.
when will she doubt his gospel is true?

[1952]

Chamisso, adelbert von chamisso (1781–1838), german poet from the romantic era,
whose poem ‘die alte waschfrau’ (‘the old washerwoman’) was often anthologized
and assigned for student memorization.

13
anna fLint4
i, anna flint, the wife of a little man
four times a mother too, when the time had come
sent him into the river, coldly crossed out
for our five lives meant his one.

he who has clean hands, has empty hands too, that

was his calculation, better to be bad
than badly paid! until the shooting ended.

his calculation was wrong: two hands empty

two hands bloody, and washing them didn’t pay.

when my man didn’t find his way to the river

i was the one who showed him where, who also
took off his coat: he who is cold doesn’t freeze . . .
i, anna flint, the wife of a little man
now widow, mother four times, murderess once.

[early 1950s]

this sonnet is based on müller’s minidrama ‘fleischer und frau’, part of the theatre piece
Die Schlacht (The Battle), in turn based on hermann broch’s novel Die Verzauberung (The
Spell ), specifically the chapters ‘theodor sabest, wirt und fleischer’ (innkeeper and
butcher). in müller’s works, a butcher’s wife describes how her husband had joined the
nazi brown shirts to advance his career and, in the waning days of the war, is charged
with the task of killing a captured american pilot. although he protests, the nazi author-
ities tell him he must: ‘this is in your line of work, you’re a butcher.’ believing he will
be exposed for his atrocity, the butcher tries to drown himself in a river. he doesn’t
know that his wife, torn between rescuing him and letting him drown, has followed
him. she decides to save him, but soon realizes that his clinging to her will drown them
both. as the mother of four children, she drowns him anyway in self-defence. a german
reader would not need to know the play as the backstory—that blank can be filled in
by such clues as the ‘little man’, for whom the nazi regime championed; the mother’s
fecundity, for which the nazis awarded medals; and the banality of the husband’s ‘calcu-
lation’ (Rechnung). ultimately, that ‘the shooting’—the war—was over fully establishes
the context.

14
missouri 19515
the money for the dam
was refused by the states.
doing nothing about it
the river lodged a complaint.

it breached the dam

deeming it too old
and the city-folk found
the water cold.

under the earth the forests felled

Keep growing away.
dresden a burn in saxony
the dead have the last say.

[early to mid-1950s]

a commentary on the 1945 allied fire-bombing of dresden and the great flood of
1951, when the missouri river and its tributaries breached levees and dams and flooded
much of Kansas and missouri.

15
a hundred steps6
(after defoe)
in the century of the plague
a man resided in bow, north London
boatman, penniless, without status, but
true to his own. caring as well
in his faithfulness.
from the towns downstream
where the plague was
he heaved food upstream
to the well-off the afraid
aboard their ships
in the middle of the river.
thus did the disease feed him.
but in his cottage
with his wife and four-year-old.
was plague too.
and every evening he carried a sack of food
the day’s take up from the river to a stone, a hundred steps from the cottage.
then, keeping his distance, he called his wife. watching
as she lifted up the sack, carefully following her every movement
he still stood for a time
at a safe distance
and returned her greeting.

[early 1950s]

after Dafoe, i.e. the waterman’s tale from A Journal of the Plague Year (1722).
Bow, a district in London’s east end.

16
question and answer
1 (Japanese)
comrade you see the clouds over the mainland
wind comes snow comes
comrade where will our bodies lie

our bodies will lie where we fall comrade

2 (chinese)
a cup of rice wine before you and
paradise what more do you want old man
i want my cup filled by itself
i would like my friends to visit me
instead of the official who collects the tax
i would also like to see my children prosperous
then i want to live another hundred years
and give up paradise

[early 1950s]

17
LooKing bacK from foreign hiLLs7
(after pu songling)
better to die here, alien, than
to live where the taxes always
hold us down.
who really grows
the rice, doesn’t eat it.
when the food is cooked
it isn’t yours any more.

when will you, heaven high, give us a good year,

better magistrates?

no rain in over a year! two feet deep

was the field like dust waterless. then
insects attacked the seedlings as though they were ripe.
what was left taxes took away.

Looking back
from these unfamiliar hills
we stand against the sky
hoping. but
for us nothing will likely come of it.

[early 1950s]

Pu Songling (1640–1715), qing dynasty writer, best known as the author of Strange
Stories from a Chinese Studio (Liaozhai zhiyi).

18
on the way into the land with
rice to where he will not reach
the hungry man sold his son
for provisions

(after pu songling)

[early 1950s]

19
the emperor needs soldiers, father.
plug your ears, son
so that you cannot hear the drums
and cover yourself up with dung up to your eyes
so that you aren’t blinded by the gleam of the weapons.

(after pu songling)

[early 1950s]

20
i was a hero, my fame wide8
the four winds swept through my banners
when my drums sounded the people kept silent
i have wasted my life

(after bai Juyi)

[mid-1950s / before 1958]

Bai Juyi, also po chü-i (772–846), tang dynasty poet and civil servant.

21
heroic Landscape
variation on a theme
by mao zedong
the seven-coloured hill
ploughed with bullets covered with corpses
is as beautiful as before the battle

in the wars to come

the seven-coloured hill will pale

[late 1950s / early 1960s]

22
two Letters
1
i see you sweating at the typewriter
churning out verses open to abuse
about asphyxiation in the web
of necessary laws. the masons, you write
were already used as the mortar
for building the great wall, and yet
great walls always get built. nothing new
under the sun, you write.you write nothing new.
you learnt to interrogate answers.
the applause, which deafened you, is it no one?
the rapid effects are nothing new.
a meeting in the evening after our conversation:
two republicans on their way to bed
discussing democracy
Wellthisistheformbutwhereisthecontent
they count years by their raises
months by the issue of Das Magazin
everyone a wit by copying Keuner
no thought which doesn’t go through the stomach
and no fear of puddles as in büchner
small minds, but they have it right
when they, reading your verse, say:
what is this somebody really telling us?
has he failed to understand the role of land reform?

2
what makes a rhyme work aimed at straw-heads
you ask. nothing, say some, others: little.
shakespeare wrote Hamlet, a tragedy
a story of a man who threw away his knowledge
submitting himself to some stupid convention.
he did nothing to stamp out stupidity.
did he want to write nothing more than a fact sheet?
Hamlet the Danish prince and worm food staggering
From hole to hole to that final hole apathetic
In the background the ghost who made him

23
Green as Ophelia’s flesh in the delivery bed
The horizon the armour takes longer
And just before the third cockcrow a clown
Rips apart the belled costume of the philosopher
An obese bloodhound slips into the iron suit.
or the misunderstood bertolt brecht
with enormous tenacity and some hope
He too could do no more than draw the bow
how many straw-heads survived him.
throughout his life he looked for some way
not to kill his neighbours. towards the end
he had seen them from afar
half-covered in a bloody fog.
becher slopped sweat to produce a sonnet
for the confluence of the volga and the neckar.
will the Jura farmers have read
his Sonnet Works when communism
takes the earth from their shoulders?
for us the span between nothing and little.9

[1956; reworked early 1960s]

Das Magazin, an east german monthly devoted to cultural issues, satire, and the like.
Kuener, bertolt brecht’s persona mr Keuner, the wise and proper socialist.
puddles as in Büchner, an allusion to the pond in which the title character of georg büch-
ner’s play Woyzeck drowns himself.
Hamlet the Danish . . . the iron suit, a similar passage is found in müller’s Hamletmachine
bloodhound, i.e. gustav noske (1868–1946), the weimar defence minister who famously
said ‘you must be the bloodhound’ in suppressing the spartacist uprising of 1919.
Becher, Johannes robert becher (1891–1958), east german poet whose flattering verses
about stalin and gdr earned him the opprobrium the ‘neanderthal minister of
culture’.
Volga and the Neckar . . . Jura farmers, ironical, an allusion to becher’s hyperbole vis-à-vis
the east and west germany, for the neckar river and Jura region are in southwestern
(i.e. capitalist) germany.

24
mayaKovsKy
mayakovsky why
the lead full stop?
heartache, vladimir?
‘did a lady
shut him
off
or
did a third party
open up’?
take
my bayonet
from my teeth
comrades!
blood, congealed
to tin medals
The walls stand
Speechless and cold
In the wind
The weathervanes clatter.

[1956; reworked after 1974]10

bayonet, an allusion to mayakovsky’s poem ‘back home’, in which he sees the pen as his
bayonet.
the last four lines are from the closure of hölderlin’s 1805 poem ‘hälfte des Lebens’
(half of Life); also cf. hölderlin’s diotoma to mayakovsky’s marquita/Lili brik.

25
or büchner, who died in zurich
100 years before your birth
23 years old, of hopelessness.

[1956]

26
brecht
he truly lived in dark times.
the times got brighter.
the times got darker.
when the light says, i am the darkness
it has told the truth.
when the darkness says, i am
the light, it doesn’t lie.

[1956]

27
Lesson
in a traitor’s book i read
about the loyalty of communists
in Karaganda.11

[after 1956]

Karaganda, a city and region in Kazakhstan where thousands of volga germans, despite
their loyalty to the soviet union, were deported to siberia during the second world
war; many perished in the gulag.

28
opera
onassis, inventor of coffin ships
callas, the most beautiful voice of the century
shared his bed

[after 1957]12

coffin ships, an allusion to b. traven’s novel Das Totenschiff (The Death Ship, 1926).

29
L. e. or the hoLes in the stocK

In 1949, Luise Ermisch, a member of the central committee of the SED,

organized the ‘first brigade for outstanding quality’ in the worker-owned
textile industry of the German Democratic Republic.
in the summer of ’48 a dispute
ensued in a town in central germany
a man, a woman fought over three holes in a sock.
and what that woman said was her trump card.
the place: a stocking factory, a few weeks after
workers encouraged workers
the whitewash on the wall was fresh
in the canteen. around a bare table
they sat before their bowls, men and women
there was much to spoon, little to chew.
the man said: before we’d strike
over water and onions. the woman said: over hitler too?
the man said: it’s not just the food.
don’t forget the textiles.
and he took off a shoe, then a sock
dangled it, three holes, as his trump card
purchased yesterday, today a rag
why do i work, i’d love to know.
we listen, we silently scrape our bowls empty
the woman, she can say something. she says: Let’s see.
three holes.—true, you can’t stuff your mouth with that
not with your mouth running. there’s something foul
about the economy.—true, says the woman, guessing.
but, brother, some things don’t hang by a thread.
a manufacturing defect.—and with a sock under his nose
the three-holed trump card, he could say no more.
there you have it. so what about your socks?
you make nothing better with a turned-up nose.13

[1956]

Luise Ermisch (1916–2001), east german trade union leader, political activist, politburo
member and inventor of the ‘Luise-ermisch-methode’ of socialist competition principles
(i.e. productivity), which rewarded textile workers for quantity and quality.
SED, sozialistische einheitspartei deutschlands (socialist unity party of germany).

30
father
1
perhaps a dead father would
have been a better father. better yet
is a stillborn father.
grass grows forever new over the borders.
the grass must be ripped up
which grows over the border again and again.
2
i wish my father had been a shark
which had ripped apart forty whalemen
(and i would have learnt to swim in their blood)
my mother a blue whale my name Lautreamont
died in paris
1871 unknown

[1958]14

I wish my father . . . Lautreamont, a complex allusion to the prose poem Les Chants de Mal-
doror by isidore ducasse comte Lautreamont (1846–70).
Died in Paris . . . unknown, an allusion to the paris commune. both parts of this poem
are also epitaphs in müller’s 1959 prose piece ‘der vater’ (the father), based on the
arrest of his father Kurt müller, a socialist party member, by the gestapo. the elder
müller’s disillusionment with the postwar east german regime and subsequent defection
to the west was longstanding disappointment for müller.

31
oLd poem
at night while swimming across a lake the instant
which puts you in question. there is no one else any more
finally the truth. that you are but a quote
from a book which you didn’t write
in dissent you can type at length on your
fading ink ribbon. the text pounds through

[early 1950s; reworked in the 1970s]

32
seLf-portrait at two in the morning
20 august 1959
sitting at the typewriter. flipping the pages
of a crime novel. eventually
Knowing what you already know now:
the smooth-shaven aide with heavy facial hair
is the senator’s murderer
and that love the sergeant from homicide has
for the daughter of the admiral will be reciprocated.
but you won’t skip a page.
sometimes while flipping pages a quick glance
at the blank sheet in the typewriter.
Thus will we be spared. Something at least.
printed in the newspaper: somewhere is a village
completely levelled to the ground by bombs.
this is unfortunate, but what is it to you.
the sergeant is in the act of preventing the second murder,
even though the admiral’s daughter (for the first time!)
puckers her lips for him, duty is duty.
you don’t know how many are dead, the newspaper is gone.
in the next room your wife dreams of her first love.
yesterday she tried to hang herself. tomorrow
she will try to slit her wrists or whatever.
at least she has a goal in mind.
she will reach it either way
and the heart is a spacious cemetery.
the story of fátima in Neues Deutschland
was so terribly written that it made you laugh.
the torture is easier to learn than the description of the torture.
the killer has fallen into the trap.
the sergeant takes his prize into his arms.
now you can sleep. tomorrow is another day.

[1959]15

Fátima an allusion to the apparitions of mary witnessed by thousands in the bavarian

town of herroldsbach from 1949 to 1952, which provided several opportunities for the
unprecedented scientific research of a marian apparition and various rational explana-
tions (e.g. staring at the sun too long).

33
uLysses
With a few rowers aboard this salt-dwelling
Tree I planted my tired hope of dry land
Ploughing the sea anew with passing furrows
I measure my life with its breadth.
again and again dusk dawn the reddish
sky with those two three last first
clouds over the gasworks power station reactor building
ever since odysseus died a voyage of five months
westward from gibraltar into the atlantic
far and away from the wreath and ribbon, through the surf.
he burns in the hell of the curious
dante has seen him among the other flames.

[late 1950s / early 1960s]16

Dante has seen him, an allusion to the virgil and dante’s encounter with the ulysses in
canto XXvi of the Divine Comedy.

34
motif by a.s.
debuisson on Jamaica
between black breasts
in paris robespierre
with a broken jaw.
or Joan of arc as the angel come to nothing
angels always come to nothing in the end
that mountain of fLesh danton gives the street no meat
but LooK LooK the meat in the street
hunt red deer in yeLLow shoes.
christ. the devil shows him the kingdoms of the world
throw down the cross and everything is yours
in the time of treason
Landscapes are beautiful.

[1958]17

A.S., anna seghers (1900–83), whose short story ‘the Light on the gallows’ provides
the ‘motif ’ for this 1958 poem and the basis for müller’s play Der Auftrag: Erinnerungen
an eine Revolution (The Task: Memory of a Revolution).
Debuisson, a character in the seghers story who is sent to the english colony of Jamaica
by the Jacobins to free the slaves and based on pierre-ulric dubuisson, a french actor,
playwright, theatre director and revolutionary denounced by robespierre and guil-
lotined on march 1794.
yeLLow shoes, the mustard-coloured shoes typically worn by the secret police during
the hungarian revolution of 1956.

35
dan dee
there was a town called dan dee
wherein sundry people lived
who said their prayers and plundered
until a singer came who cried:
With the power of song
Let’s tie an everlasting bond
In Dan Dee
and through the power of song
were all the townsfolk brothers
the strangled and the stranglers.
but sadly for just one night.
For with the power of song
No everlasting bond was tied
In Dan Dee
as the sun in dan dee
once more made a clean cut of light
and shadow, the night was yet thorough.
that singer they ennobled/they hanged.

[1950s]18

Dan Dee, the name of a mythical scottish town. the original is in ballad form after
beethoven’s ‘ode to Joy’.

36
orpheus pLoughed
orpheus the singer was a man who could not wait. after he had lost his
wife from having sexual intercourse too soon after being in childbed or, fol-
lowing her being freed from death by his singing, from that forbidden look
during the ascent from the underworld, such that she collapsed back into
dust before she was once more in the flesh, he invented pederasty, which
spares one the childbed and is closer to death than the love of women. the
spurned chased him: armed with their bodies branches stones. but the song
spares the singer: what he sung of could not cut his skin. farmers, frightened
by the sound of the chase, ran away from their ploughs, for which there was
no place in his song. so was his place under those ploughs.

[begun late in the 1950s; resumed in the 1960s]19

intercourse too soon, i.e. a demystification of the snakebite that killed eurydice.
no place in his song, an allusion to orpheus’ inability to plough straight and, by extension,
to write on the part of his followers.

37
the good fortune of productivity:
a soLdier’s bride
(after urs graf)
an armless girl with a peg leg
before a seascape, pregnant.
cheap: she can’t take any money out of your pants.
convenient: she can’t hold on to you
armLess is harmLess neither
can she come running after you: when you go
you go.
maybe you’ll wave to her once more.
after all, she still has eyes in her head (two).
Four thousand armless girls embrace you
Four thousand pregnant girls with a peg leg
Marching in your wake

[late 1950s / early 1960s]20

Urs Graf (1485–1528), a swiss renaissance artist and mercenary soldier known for his
etchings of camp followers, prostitutes, and the like.
armless girl, an allusion to the woodcut Armlose Dirne mit Stelzbein (Armless Harlot with
Peg Leg, 1514).

38
he was the first of the best: when others
overgrazed the land like prodigal farmers
he broke from old tools and new methods
dry bread in his pocket, coal.
freezing, they beat him up. they stood
at slowly turning flywheels
reviled him and followed his example.

[mid- to late 1950s]21

he was the first of the best, a reference to the east german coalminer adolf
hennecke (1905–75), whose ‘activist’, stakhanovite-inspired production methods made
him the object of resentment and praise in east germany in 1949-50 and a celebrity in
the west.

39
napoLeon, for eXampLe, wept when
his guard took their escape route
at wagram through their own wounded
and the wounded cried vive L’empereur.
the monument was touched: its mortar cried.
one sunday after work he, Lenin,
went on a rabbit hunt, driven
by his chauffeur, accompanied by no one
else. it was his vacation. in the forest
he walked alone. the chauffeur had to
wait by the car, which was irreplaceable.
Lenin met a peasant who had gone after mushrooms
in the forest. he had given up his hunt.
the old man railed at soviet control
in his village, from top to bottom always
much talk, little flour. mushrooms scarce too.
he laughed as Lenin wrote down his complaints
the village, the names and errors of his friends.
he too had complained. didn’t have to twice.
who are we? if you were, for example, Lenin
and Lenin was a man like you who listens
one might think that things will change
but you are not Lenin and so things remain.

[mid-1960s]22

Guard . . .Wagram, napoleon’s first personal defeat on may 1808, during the protracted
battle of wagram against the austrian empire, when he was forced to retreat from the
danube island of Lobau, while his outnumbered Garde Impériale repulsed the austrian
counterattack.
The monument . . . mortar, metonymies for napoleon and his soldiers.

40
the JoyLess angeL. behind him the past floats down, debris rains on
wings and shoulders with a din, like buried drums, while before him the
future gapes, blowing his eyes inward, each eyeball exploding like a star, any
word turning into a resounding gag choking him with his own breath. for
a while you can still see his beating wings, hear in their rush the rockslides
falling behind him, his futile motion becoming louder, evermore violent,
sporadic as it becomes slower. then this blink of an eye closes over him:
in that quickly buried standing-room seat the joyless angel comes to rest,
waiting on history in a petrification of flight sight breath. until a renewed
rush of mighty wing beats reverberates through the stone and portends his
flight.

[1958]23

the subject of this ekphrasis is paul Klee’s monoprint Angelus Novus (1920), or the
‘angel of history’ as interpreted by its first owner, walter benjamin in the ninth thesis
of his 1940 essay ‘theses on the philosophy of history’.

41
1959 . . .
commentary on oedipus
Laius was king in thebes. the god said to him from the mouth of the
priests, his son will walk over him. Laius, unwilling
to pay the price of this birth which cost a life
ripped the newborn from the breasts of his mother, carefully pierced
its toes so that it could not walk over him, had them sewn up triple
gave it to a servant who exposed it on the table of the mountain
for the birds, this flesh of mine will not overrun me
and thus spread that foot wide which trampled him with his prudence:
the servant did not give the child to the winged hunger
placed it in other hands to be rescued in another land
there the high-born raised him up on his swollen feet
None has my walk, his stigma his name, on his
feet and with his walk fate went elsewhere, every step
stopping, the next one unstoppable, one step then another.
regard this poem of oedipus, son of Laius by Jocasta
unknown to himself, in thebes a tyrant by merit: he
solved the riddle since escape on his crippled feet was denied him
placed by the thrice-born sphinx over thebes
gave the man-eating triple-formed beast to the rocks to be eaten
and man was the answer. thereupon for years in that happy city
the bed was ploughed in which he was planted, the luck-bringer lucky.
time is longer than good fortune, and longer than misfortune: in the tenth
year from an unknown cause a plague fell over the city
thus long blessed. it brought agony to the body and a new order.
and in the ruling circle this new riddle stood shouldered
on an enormous foot, surrounded by the cries of city’s dying, the
riddle-solver threw his question into the darkness like nets:
does the messenger lie, his ear, sent to the priests, the mouth of the gods?
does the blind one tell the truth, who points at him with all ten fingers?
from the darkness the nets came rushing back, in their meshes
with his own footsteps overtaking his own trail: he.
and his bottom is his peak: he outstripped time
in making the circle, I and no end, of himself.
he buries the world in the holes of his eyes. did a tree stand here?
Living flesh from him? none, there are no trees with voices
speaking into his ear, his thought is the ground
mud or stone, on which his foot thinks, sometimes from his hands

45
a wall grows, the world a wart, or it is his finger planting
him in intercourse with the air, until he erases the image
with his hand. thus does he live, his grave, and chews his dead.
regard his example, which bursts from bloody starting blocks
in the freedom of man between the teeth of man
on too few feet, with too few hands grasping in space.

[1966]24

this poem is a prologue to müller’s 1966 adaptation of hölderlin’s translation of Oedipus

Rex. according to müller, the prologue mixes allegory with a historical dialectic in that
one can read the course of twentieth-century communism and stalin as the figure of
oedipus.
thrice-born . . . triple-formed, alluding to the sphinx.
the blind one, the blind seer tiresias.

46
babeLsberg eLegy 1960
the way to the box office is far, especially in the rain.
dry in their brand-new automobiles
the screenwriters of terrible movies drive past me.

[early 1960s]25

Babelsberg, located in berlin, and established in 1912, is the oldest film production studio
in the world.

47
fiLm
45 years after the great
revolution i see on the screen
in a new film from the land of the soviets this transformation
of a slow waiter into a sprint-runner
with the false news that the hundred-and-first
waiting guest is a state prize-winner.
a few filmgoers dressed with little difference
inside the corner cinema in the divided capital
of my divided fatherland laugh
at this common occurrence uncommonly
onscreen. why do the people laugh?
O not enough does one praise the lethargy
Of those who no longer bustle! The exquisite surliness
In those no longer forced to smile!

[1962]26

O not enough . . . to smile!, after Karl immerman in Münchhausen (‘o not enough does
one praise the goddess of the sick bed!’)

48
to the mountain cLimbers. a denizen of the lowlands requests
your exalted attention. perhaps if you put your hands over your eyes, you can
still see him. or, have you ascended so high that you can no longer make out
our little village, our wretched dwellings with their freshly painted shutters
cowering amid the new, our packed church on feast days, just the clouds,
which detract from the view of curious among your column, or the morning
fog? you gods, walking with dry feet above the rain, in your crampons, say a
mass for us on the summit! why did you take umbrellas with you? at least
send down the lift if you don’t need it any more, your highnesses.

[January 1962]27

a riposte to the article ‘wolfgang Joho: die schriftsteller und der gipfel’ (‘the writer
and the summit’) in the January 1963 issue of Neue Deutsche Literatur, in which Joho, a
writer, journalist and editor close to the east german regime, saw socialist writers as
‘columns of mountain climbers’ and criticized müller’s play Die Umsiederlin (The Resettled
Woman, 1961), which had been closed by the regime for its ‘counterrevolutionary ten-
dencies’ and resulted in müller’s expulsion from the writer’s association.

49
schaLL corioLanus
if i had a country estate like virgil and others
or a patron to maintain me like horace
or this gift for making gold out of shit
i would write a long poem schall
about the greatest actor i have ever seen
but i must write my play
so that i can repay my debts and i must
repay my debts so that i can write my play
a twisted dog that bites its tail
i have no time to attend rehearsals
thus relying on whatever is available
mediocre photographs in contemporary theatre
thus among terribly photographed hamlets
each ten times more hamlet than hamlet
they use their swords like chopsticks
cannibals who can’t bear to see blood
but they persist in their sham
i see you, schall, playing coriolanus
fighting before antium and the slaughter is a slaughter
rome’s first butcher doing her work
with the zeal of a boy killing flies
the atrocity beautifully shown as unnecessary
for reality must be made visible
so that it can be changed
but reality must be changed
so that it can be made visible
and beauty means
the possibLe end of terror

[1964]28

Ekkehard Schall (1930–2005), the german actor.

Coriolanus, brecht’s 1953 adaptation of shakespeare’s tragedy; it was inspired by mao
zedong’s essay ‘on contradiction’.
contemporary theatre, the german theatre magazine Theater der Zeit.
Hamlets, an allusion to müller’s 1977 play Hamletmachine.

50
new year’s Letter 1963
a year is finally ending with a bang
of bells and fireworks the newspaper
which will be brought in an hour
to you in your city to me in my city
by an old woman with old feet
three sons lost but still no newspaper
das reich neues deutschLand rheinischer merKur
a better year will be proclaimed per usual
and the black in your newspaper you know
is the white in my newspaper we know
the grass forever grows anew over the border
and the grass must be torn up
which forever grows anew over the border
and the barbed wire must be planted
with hobnailed boots forever new
i am the boot which pLants the barbed wire
outside my window in a tree in the park
alone like a drunk towards dawn
an old crow rants beating its wings
the street sweepers ALL OUR YESTERDAYS
have started their work
many things come back and many do not
the heart is a spacious cemetery
in the parK the popLars toss
the one who Lives in my brow

[early 1963]29

italics indicate english in the original.

das reich . . . merKur, Das Reich was the official newspaper of the nazi party Neues
Deutschland, the official communist party of the former east germany, and the Rheinis-
cher Merkur, a leading conservative newspaper in the former west germany.
aLL our yesterdays, a phrase from william shakespeare’s Macbeth (act 5, scene 5).

51
chiLdhood
the one who held the cat under the knives of his playmates was me.
i threw the seventh stone at the swallow’s nest, and the seventh one was
the one who struck it.
when the moon stood white against the window of my room, i was
a hunter
hunted by wolves, alone among wolves, in my sleep.
in falling asleep i heard the horses screaming in their stalls.

[early to mid-1950s]

52
e. L.
you came like a princess across the sea
to denmark stranded after escaping danzig
a transport ship visited by bombers hunting u-boats
it was like the desecration of a temple when you
put on a pair of glasses beside me in the cinema
trees growing wild roots in the mud flat
green rushes
his Lordship
sends his regrets he takes the morning train
with schiller at least you know when it ends
see you soon both knowing never again

ExCUSE ME, MADAM

[1960s]30

italics indicate english in the original.

53
you are gone the cLocKs
flail at my heart when are you coming

[1960s]

54
yesterday i started
Killing you my heart
now i love
your corpse
when i am dead
my dust will be screaming for you

[1960s]

55
steLLa sonnet
our esteemed audience, in these five acts
we hope that you have witnessed with pleasure
how two ladies involve a gentleman
till three are one, the devious honest
through love. those embarrassed by the result
will be served as well: since beauty is what must be
wrote herr goethe for the alternate end
in which the one times one rules as is wont.
what love can do: three hearts burn into one
poison and lead can by means of subtraction
with horror the right tone is triumphant
number trumps heart, the realm of pretty shams
having no place inside a bourgeois house
reassured applause snows on the two dead.

[1966]31

steLLa (1776; 1806), goethe’s controversial ‘play for lovers’ as he termed it, an endorse-
ment of polyamorist relationships, was later revised into tragedy to make it more socially
acceptable for the stage.
one times one, from Einmaleins, idiom for the multiplication tables and like basic knowl-
edge.
Number trumps heart, an allusion to the point-trick game hearts.

56
medea pLay
a bed will be lowered from the fly loft and placed upright. two female fig-
ures in death masks bring a girl onto the stage and lay her down with her
back on the bed. attired as a bride. she is tied to the bed with the belt of
her wedding dress. two male figures in death masks bring the groom and
position him with his face to the bride. he stands on his head, walks on his
hands, turns cartwheels before her, etc.; she laughs soundlessly. he tears apart
the wedding dress and takes his place on top of the bride. projection: sex
act. with the torn strips of the wedding dress, the male death masks tie the
hands of the bride to the bed and the female death masks the feet. what is
left serves as a gag. while the man stands on his head before the (female)
spectators, walks on his hands, turns cartwheels, etc., the belly of the woman
swells up until it bursts. projection: birth act. the female death masks carry
off a baby from the woman’s belly, loosen the bonds of her hands, and lay
the child in her arms. meanwhile, the male death masks have encumbered
the man with weapons such that he can only move on all fours. projection:
death act. the woman pulls off her face, tears the baby apart and throws the
pieces in the direction of the man. from the fly loft gore limbs guts fall on
the man.

[1974]32

medea pLay (Medeaspiel ), is a 1974 prose adaptation of seneca’s play (in keeping with
antonin artaud’s estimation of seneca as the master of cruelty in the theatre).

57
Journey to pLovdiv street of the crusaders.
mariza. here orpheus was torn to pieces
by thracian women with a plough.
they drove his singing skull downriver. the river
no longer has water any more. rivers die too.
over thracian burial mounds three tombs
with a red star. communism:
Liberator of the living and the dead.
plovdiv. trimontium. philippopolis.
on three hills three millennia.
history: a hungry corpse.yesterday
which grasped at morning with the love of a vampire.
(who was orpheus. in his song there is no
place for a plough.) alexander the great
son of philip, for whom no street is named in plovdiv
could not untie the gordian knot.
anyone can hew to pieces it who has learnt nothing
happy the people who bury their dead
cold to the embrace from those tombs.
glory to the heroes. no tears in the dust.

[late 1960s]33

pLovdiv is bulgaria’s second largest city and was once a major city in ancient thrace.
Mariza, a pet-name for müller’s third wife ginka tscholakowa.

58
1969 . . .
eLectra teXt
tantalus, king in phrygia, steals the food of the gods, slaughters pelops, his
son, serves him up to the gods. the gods recognize the meal, however,
demeter eats from a shoulder. so they punish the theft: tantalus clings to a
fruit tree that grows from a pool underneath a floating rock in the triple-
walled centre of hades, in eternal hunger between the fruit, thirst above the
water, fear beneath the stone.the gods curse his descendants. niobe, daugh-
ter of tantalus, has twelve children. she boasts of her fertility before the gods.
apollo and artemis kill her twelve children with twelve arrows. zeus trans-
forms the screaming mother into a statue of herself. in the early summer
the stone weeps. thyestes, son of pelops, breaks up the marriage of his
brother atreus. atreus murders the sons of his brother and serves him with
their flesh and blood. thyestes forces himself on his own daughter. her son
aegisthus kills atreus. agamemnon, son of atreus, takes clytemnestra as his
wife, his brother menelaus her sister helen. helen is seduced by paris,
follows him to troy, the trojan war begins. a soothsayer determines that
iphigenia, daughter of agamemnon and clytemnestra, shall be the first war
sacrifice. clytemnestra resists, agamemnon obeys, iphigenia puts her neck
under the axe. with aegisthus, son of thyestes and the murderer of atreus,
clytemnestra shares power and bed. clytemnestra and aegisthus kill
agamemnon upon his homecoming after ten years of war, in a bath with a
net sword axe. electra, agamemnon’s second daughter, rescues orestes, her
brother, from the sword of aegisthus and sends him to phocis. for twenty
years, a handmaid among handmaids in the palace of her mother, she awaits
his homecoming. for twenty years clytemnestra dreams the same dream: a
serpent suckles milk and blood from her breast. in the twentieth year, orestes
returns to mycenae, murders aegisthus with sacrificial axe, after him his
mother, who with bared breasts stands before him screaming for her life.

[1966–67]34

this piece is a synopsis of the House of Atreus written for the 1967 deutsche staatsoper
berlin production of Elektra by richard strauss, directed by the german choreographer
ruth berghaus.

61
proJection 1975
Where is the morning we saw yesterday
The early bird sings the whole night
In a red cloak the morning goes through
The dew that looks like blood in its wake
i read something i wrote three, five, twenty years ago, like the text of a dead
author, from a time when a death could still be set to verse. the murderers
have stopped to scan their victims. i remember my first attempt to write a
play. the text was lost during the postwar chaos. it began with the (young)
hero standing before a mirror and trying to find out on which street the
worms would eat through his flesh. in the end he stood in a cellar and sliced
up his father. in the century of orestes and electra, which is coming up,
oedipus will be a comedy.

[1975]

62
yesterday on a sunny afternoon
as i drove through the dead city of berlin
returning home from some foreign land
i felt for the first time the need
to dig my wife out of her cemetery
i tossed two shovelfuls on her myself
and to see what was still left of her there
bones that i have never seen before
to hold her skull in my hand
and to imagine what her face was like
behind the mask she wore
through the dead city of berlin and other cities
when it was covered with her flesh.
i have not given in to this need
out of fear of the police and the gossip of my friends

[1975–76]35

my wife, the east german writer inge müller.

63
aLone with these bodies
states utopias
grass grows
between the rails
the words rot away
on paper
the eyes of women
become colder
goodbye as of tomorrow
status quo

[1975–76]

64
on the rereading of aLeXander fadeyev’s the nineteen
on a night with vodka the sKy fuLL of maggots
he defined his image with a revolver in the photoflash
of the last party congress as the monuments bleed

[1978]36

alexander fadeyev (1901–56), soviet novelist who was slavishly loyal to stalin in his
capacity as chairman of the soviet writers’ union. although a talented writer of military
fiction, fadayev is best remembered for his devotion to the notorious policy of
Zhdanovsh-china, a campaign of criticism and persecution against many of the soviet
union’s foremost writers and artists.
revolver, fadeyev shot himself in may 1956 following nikita Khrushchev’s denunciation
of stalinism during the 20th party congress in february 1956.

65
shakespeare the tourist
der reisende shakespeare
from stratford to stratford
von stratford nach stratford
via London
via London
in his heartbeat the greed of the epoch
im herzschlag die gier der epoche
in his blood a tiredness
im blut eine spätere
to come
müdigkeit
a grip for the sun
ein griff nach der sonne
a jump into shadow
ein sprung in den schatten

[18.11.1983]37

the original is the author’s translation, the lines in german–english order, which allows
the translator to simply reverse that order to english–german.

66
1979 . . .
fragment for Luigi nono
we must stiLL
tear up the grass
so that it
remains green

in auschwitz
the nail mark
man over woman
over child
the broken songs
the church choir
of machine guns
a song
of severed
vocal chords marsyas
versus apollo
in the stone quarry of nations
the flesh of the instruments
a world without hammer and nail
outrageous

[14. 9. 1985]38

Luigi nono (1924–90), the italian avant-garde composer and his masterpiece l canto
sospeso (The Suspended Song), whose texts—farewell letters by resistance fighters executed
by the nazis with the over-arching title lifted from a poem by ethel rosenberg—
resulted in much criticism over the cantata’s political content and serialism, especially in
light of theodor w. adorno’s critique of such compositions, in which he coined his
famous phrase, ‘to write poetry after auschwitz is barbaric’.

69
i am the angel of despair. with my hands i dispense the intoxication, the
anaesthesia, the forgetting, pleasure and torture of bodies. my speech is the
silence, my song the scream. terror lives in the shadow of my wings. my
hope is the last breath. my hope is the first battle. i am the knife with which
the dead man pries open his coffin. i am who will be. my flight is uprising,
my sky the abyss of tomorrow.

[1979]

70
night train berLinfriedrichstrasse franKfurtmain
after the journey through a lightless homeland the hate for the lamps.
that corpse is so colourful! i am death come from asia

[mid-1980s]39

the title has common run-together abbreviations for the principal railway stations of
east berlin and frankfurt.

71
while driving by the charlottenburg palace park suddenly this sadness
green is the coLour of damnation the trees belong to the dead

[1985]40

the schloss charlottenburg is a baroque–rococo palace, park and mausoleum of the

hohenzollern family. badly damaged during the second world war, it was reconstructed
by the city of west berlin in the postwar period, in contrast to similar historic sites in
east berlin still in ruins.

72
sometimes when i enJoy my priviLeges
for example in an airplane whisky from frankfurt to (west)berlin
ambushed by what the idiots from the spiegeL
call my angry love for my country
savagely like the embrace of a queen of hearts
presumed dead on the day of Judgement

[9.5.1985]41

Queen of Hearts, an allusion to müller’s second wife, inge, whose suicide in 1966, often
mentioned by western journalists, dogged his reputation as he gained increasing notice
in the west.

73
tooth decay in paris
something gnaws at me
i smoke too much
i drink too much
i die too slowly

[1981]

74
fragmentary Letter to a
Lost Lover
cities landscapes occupied with grief:
i can no longer see them with your eyes
...
You were breasts thighs buttocks no name
you will be bones dust no remembering

[January 1989]42

italics indicate english in original.

75
DAYS WITH OLJA AND
THINGS LIKE THAT
a girl with naked breasts
on a motorcycle
hiding their beauty
at the back of her young driver
I would have liked to see them
in full blossom long ago
that I looked at flowers
only the wind now
probes my ageing skin
a night in the aegean
on a boat between the islands
with a full moon perhaps and a last
Leap into the black sea
and the violet streaks on the mountains
from the blood of the forlorn gods

[mid- to late 1980s]43

italics indicate english in original.

76
Letter to a. s.
...
now you are dead anna seghers
whatever that may mean
your place where penelope sleeps
in the arms of irrefusable suitors
but dead girls hang on the line in ithaca
blackened by sky beaks in their eyes
while odysseus ploughs the surf
Laughter at his back
on the bow from atlantis

[1986; reworked in 1989–90]44

a.s., originally titled ‘epitaph’ and later revised to mark the ninetieth birthday of anna
seghers (1900-1983), whose reputation as the most important east german writer after
brecht’s death was damaged by the allegations of walter Janka in his memoir A Difficulty
with the Truth (1989).
where Penelope sleeps, an allusion to seghers’ short story ‘the tree of odysseus’ (1940), in
which a returned odysseus proves his identity to a reluctant penelope after he hollows
out a tree to make a new marriage bed.
dead girls, an allusion to seghers’ short story ‘the excursion of the dead girls’ (1946),
which established seghers’ reputation.
While Odysseus . . . Atlantis, an allusion to canto XXvi of the Divine Comedy, in which
ulysses describes his ultimate fate, which differs markedly from seghers’ happy ending.
On the bow from Atlantis, this line was inserted in the final version.

77
cuLturaL poLitics after boris dJacenKo
boris djacenko told me after the banning
of my novel heart and ash part two
in which were described for the first time
the horrors of the red army’s liberation
my censor invited me to a private conversation
and this official reader pointed out to me proudly the banned
typescript bound in expensive leather that’s
how i Love your booK which i had to ban
in the interest of you Know our common cause
in the future said boris djacenko
forbidden books will be bound
in the interest of you Know our common cause
in leather tanned from the skins of their authors
we’ll keep our skins intact said boris djacenko
that’s how our books in their durable bindings
will outlast the time of the official readers

[november 1989]45

boris dJacenKo (1917–1975), the Latvian german writer, whose novel Heart and
Ash, part one (1954), was celebrated in east germany. however, its 1958 sequel was
banned for the realistic way it dealt with the systematic rape of german women by the
red army in 1945.

78
reunion with my eviL cousin
she who broke my toy behind my back
show me and i showed it to her and she took it
and i heard it crack in her sausage fingers
saw her never to be forgotten smile to this day
the cracking in my ears seeing that never-to-be-forgotten smile
i speak badly about that which i love circumspect
now she sits before me and knows of nothing
the horror is cold gone to fat
Kids screaming all day the trash of this type

[1989]

79
1989 . . .
a light rain on light dust
the willows in the guesthouse yard
will be green and green
but you sir should drink wine before your departure
for you will have no friends
when you get to the gates of go

(for erich honecker after ezra pound and rihaku)

[1988/89]46

this is a translation of müller’s german translation of ezra pound’s ‘epigraph to four

poems of departure’, repurposed here to mark erich honecker’s attempts to flee to the
soviet union and ultimately chile following the collapse of the east german state,
which he had led from 1976 until a few weeks before the fall of the berlin wall in
december 1989. honecker (1912–1994) was eventually tried in 1992 for his responsi-
bility in building the berlin wall and for the murders of east germans shot while
attempting to flee the german democratic republic. müller’s translation is virtually lit-
eral save for the third line, which reads ‘will be going greener and greener’ in pound’s
interpretation.

83
teLevision
Margarita says my father
Was Howard Hughes a member
Of the next generation
last
Which doesnt move its arse
From the tv-chair because
Outside lives man the beast
On the screen at least
It is flat and doesnt watch you
1 geography
opposite the hall of the people
the monument to dead indians
in the square of heavenly peace
the tank tracks
2 DAILY NEWS after brecht 1989
the torn-out fingernails of Janos Kádár
who called out the tanks against his people when they started
hanging his comrades his torturers by their feet
his death like the betrayed imre nagy
exhumed or what was left of him
BONES AND SHOES the television was there
buried with his face to the earth 1956
we who wanted to Lay the groundworK
for Kindness
how much dirt must we eat
with the taste of our victims’ blood
on our way to a better future
or to none when we spit them out
3 seLf-criticism
my editors dig through ancient texts
sometimes when i read them it runs over me cold this
i wrote in possession of the truth
sixty years before my putatative death
on the screen i watch the people of my country
with hands and feet and vote against the truth
i possessed forty years ago

84
which grave protects me from my youth
4 for gunter rambow 1990
on the television erich honecker’s arrest at the charité’s gate following
his cancer operation. an old man, lined by sixteen years in power, which
overwhelmed his mind and his character, hollowed out by ten years in
brandenburg prison, worn down, sad proof of Jünger’s thesis about the
growing disproportion between the stature of the actors in recent history and
their radius of action, presented now by his creatures as the scapegoat of
popular scorn. meanwhile, the church has taken him in, an antiquated power
that only grasps for souls, no longer bodies. i see the images and think of
rambow’s theatre posters in frankfurt, the capital city of banks and prosti-
tution and, for a short time, the political theatre of the bundesrepublik.
antigone: hölderlin’s republican chair burning at the stake of the restora-
tion. gundLing: the torn figure of a falling, bisexual icarus LessingKleist–
frederickthegreat, fluttering to the left above the neues deutschLand,
a newspaper without readers, the lost topsail of the socialist stillbirth.
hamLetmaschine: the hamlet character without a face, behind him a
wall, his face a prison wall. images, which not one performance could arrive
at waymarkers through the morass, which have already begun to close over
the provisional grave of utopia, which, perhaps, will shine once more when
the phantom of the market economy replaces the spectre of communism,
showing its cold shoulder to the new clientele, the iron face of its liberation
to the liberated.

[1989–90]47

teLevision, the german word for television (Fernsehen), read as a verb (to see far), res-
onates in its closure.
Hall of the People, the great hall in tiananmen square.
monument to dead Indians, i.e. the so-called goddess of democracy, the temporary
statue whose torch and pose resembled the statue of Liberty, erected during the 1989
tiananmen square protest.
Heavenly Peace, the literal translation of tiananmen.
Janos Kadar (1912–1989), hungarian communist leader who rose to power after the
failed hungarian revolution of 1956.
Imre Nagy (1896–1958), communist leader and reformer, executed after a secret trial at
the behest of the soviet union.
GUNTER RAMBOW (b. 1938), german graphic artist.

85
Charité, the university of berlin hospital.
sad proof of Jünger’s thesis, an allusion to the conservative political philosopher ernst Jünger
(1885–1995) and his proposal on the nature of work (in the sense of erwirken, to have an
effect) and the state—using the third reich as his example—that is, work displaces and
inserts the individual (the ‘actor’ here) in the radius of action of all essential powers of
being, which is the state, or work-state.
ANTIGONE . . . restoration, an allusion to hölderlin’s translation of sophocles play and
the restoration of the german monarchies after napoleon.
GUNDLING, i.e. the poster for müller’s play Gundling’s Life Frederick of Prussia Lessing’s
Sleep Dream Scream (Leben Gundlings Friedrich von Preussen Lessings Schlaf Traum Schrei).
HAMLETMASCHINE, i.e. rambow’s posters for the premiere of müller’s play (the latter’s
allusion to the berlin wall was seen as a misreading by the author).

86
heart of darKness after Joseph conrad
for gregor gysi
A gruesome world a capitalist world
(gottfried benn in a radio broadcast with
Johannes r. becher 1930)
in the valuta bar of the hotel metropoL
berlin capital of the gdr exerts itself
a polish whore a guest worker
with an old man with a runny nose
between chapters of his lecture
about freedom in the usa
he blows into his handkerchief and cries out for the waste can
still in the grip of commiserating over her difficult work
i listen to two travelling sales reps
bavarians by the sound
divvying up asia: oKay i’d LiKe maLaysia
thaiLand too that incLudes Korea
oKay the crossbar system for yemen
i’d stiLL set things up then
they’re done
that incLudes china too
china is the onLy proJect that’s soLd
in the s-bahn zooLogicaL garden friedrichstrasse
i met two east germans
one of them said my son three weeks old
was born with a sign on his chest
i was in the west on the ninth of november
my daughter likewise i have twins
bears the inscription me too
THE HORROR THE HORROR THE HORROR

[december 1989]48

Gregor Gysi (b. 1948), east germany’s last communist party leader during the unification
period of 1989–90.
Gottfried Benn (1886–1956), german physician, poet and essayist, in answering the subject
of whether poets could change the world.

87
valuta bar, (literally, value bar) a hotel bar in east germany that accepted foreign currency
and catered to foreign travellers, party officials and privileged clientele, which also served as
primary nexus for intelligence gathering.
ninth of november, 1989, when east germany lifted travel restrictions to and from
west germany.

88
seLf-criticism 2 broKen Key
The uprising broke out on 23 October 1956, but he had already started on 6 October
with the solemn funeral of Rajk and his comrades, where 200,000 people paid their
last respects to the murdered. But, above all, they demonstrated for the fall of a mur-
derous regime. Only a scattered few still remembered the Stalinist Rajk, as one of
those demonstrators did, who whispered to himself: Had he lived, he would have let
them shoot into the crowd . . .
(hodos: Schauprozesse [Show Trials], p. 250)

bluebeard’s forbidden door forbidden dream

the dead women in the dance-wrecked chamber
no rain washes off the blood on the key
no grave hides the death on your retina
no angel’s wings will blow your room open
the dead women are dining on your dream
sex for the last time is drumhead justice
in the year of wolf ’s milk you see your face

[late 1989 / early 1990]49

the long quotation (the uprising broke . . .) is from the german edition of george h.
hodos’ definitive 1987 history of the stalinist purges in eastern europe during the late
1940s and 50s.
Rajk, László rajk (1909–49), a hungarian communist politician, tried and executed for
being a titoist spy in 1949 and rehabilitated and reburied in a state funeral in the weeks
before the hungarian revolution.
year of wolf ’s milk, i.e. 1989, which saw the fall of the berlin wall and the beginning of
the end of east germany. the metaphor is ductile, but given müller’s regard for ancient
history, he may see the relationship of romulus and remus in terms of west and east
germany.

89
JoyLess angeL 2
between city and city
after the wall the abyss
wind at the shoulders the strange
hand on lonely flesh
the angel i still hear him
but he no longer has a face save
yours which i don’t know

[late 1990]

90
heracLes 13
(after euripides)
1
the thirteenth labour of heracles was the liberation
of thebes from the thebans
2
burnt offerings lay at the hearth of zeus
to purge the palace of the blood of Lykos
he whom heracles had put to death
and whose corpse he had thrown from the palace
around the altar stood his children and
his father and his wife megara
with their teeth holding fast to any talk
any unholy sound in holy sacrifice
and then in silence with a torch in hand he
suddenly emerged as this other man
with heracles’ form but not heracles
with spinning eyes entirely different
the roots of his eyeballs coloured with blood
froth dribbling in his beard and speaking madly
Laughing with a laughter that was not his
why father before this sacrifice did
i not slay eurystheus as well
i could have done so easily with one hand
adorned the palace with eurystheus’ head
i wish these hands of mine to be washed by death
which will be the deaths of my enemies now
pour out the water throw away those baskets
my way is to the mycenae the cyclops’
seats set into place with a red yardstick and
hammers i must break them apart with a
crooked iron bar someone hand me my bow
and my arrows put my club in my hand
then mounting a chariot of no chariot
which only he saw he flailed empty air

91
as though he were holding a horse whip in hand
which the servants met at once with laughter
and terror they looked at one another
and one of them said he’s having fun with us
the lord or he’s stark raving mad but he who
careens up and down the palace he says
he’s entering the city of nisos
and lies upon the floor as though to eat
without eating then he believes he walks
through a woodland dell on the isthmus
throwing off his clothes he struggles naked
with no one there a struggle in which he
claims victory and for no ear to hear
then was he in mycenae making threats
against eurystheus with dire words again
raising his hand now to kill then his father
grabbed his son you suffer from something such
that you walk strange has the killing driven you
mad but he in a frenzy his father now
becoming eurystheus begging in fear
touches the old man’s hand pushes him away
gropes in his richly emblazoned quiver
for arrows for the children for his own
to kill eurystheus’ children he thinks
the children run in fear from their father
one of them here the other there one of them
in the robes of the mother of the doomed
the other in the shadow of a column
the third one diving under the altar like birds
the mother screams you their begetter what are you doing
you would kill your own children his father shouts
the slaves shout but around the column he
herds the boys in a terrible circle
and spins around terrible the arrow rips
out the liver and spatters the stone tiles
behind the first to draw his dying breath

92
a youth has perished for eurystheus
to me this pays for the hate of his father
now for the second one crouched by the altar
thinking he is safe there the arrow takes aim
before the bolt flies this son throws himself down
at his father’s feet the unfortunate
reaches his hand to chin and neck father dearest
he cries don’t kill me i am yours your son
not of eurystheus whom you would destroy
but he makes his eyes grow wild into that look
of the gorgon the boy now stood in the circuit
of that terrible missile the club swung high
as though he would forge iron let it dash
the lush blond skull splitting the wood the bone
the second child slain he goes for his third victim
so as to slaughter in pairs but this one
her last joy the mother had already
taken inside the palace and barred the door
now as though he were pitted against the cyclops
he pushes on the doors and shatters their posts
an arrow pierces both mother and child
what is parted at birth is a single corpse
together in death with a mortal arrow
then he runs horse-swift to kill the old man
but a female form brandishing a lance
appearing in the hall to see and not be seen
pallas athena hurled a stone at his breast
which put an end to his murderous path
smiting him with sleep and he falls to the floor
with his back striking against a column which
is broken a second time at the collapse
of the palace and lays on the tiles and we
freed from our shackled legs in getting away
bound him up tight to that broken column
such that when he is finished with sleeping

93
he will no more add to his other feats
having killed a woman and her children
he the one whom fortune forsakes sleeps a sleep
in misfortune and i don’t know of any
mortal now who is more belaboured than he

[1991]50

resonating the fall of the berlin wall, this dramatic text anticipates müller’s 1997 play
of the same title (and one of three based on the myth of heracles).
Lykos, the usurper of thebes and murderer of creon, heracles’ father-in-law in euripides
play Heracles (416 bce).
His father, amphitryon, the husband of heracles mother alcmene; Megara, princess of
thebes, daughter of creon, and the mother of heracles’ three sons.
Seats, the great limestone-block walls of mycenae, believed to have been erected by the
cyclops.
Nisos, the ruler of the Kingdom of megara.
Eurystheus, the king of mycenae who imposed the twelve Labours on heracles.

94
PART TWO

Poems
(1950–1995)
where?

your father shall be on the march.

your father is on the march.
your father—let himself be led.
they have led him off to die.
and now you shall be on the march.
your father—he’s on the march.
do you know where they’re leading you?!
they have led you off to die.

[early 1950s]

97
one night during the war a man walked off
to finally die in the lake by his town
because he feared peace. Lying in bed,
his wife woke up and found something missing: him.
she read: farewell. the paper was shaking
she ran, before he could meet his death there
in the water—this night as though starless.
he was still in sight. and the water had
yet to take him. she lowered herself in.
swimming, she struggled to hold on to the one
with whom she had slept for so many nights
then he pulled her down, to share his grave too
then she pushed the now-weak man: he sank deep.
she climbed ashore: it was no more the old one.

[early 1950s]1

an early verse treatment, dating from the early 1950s, of the theme of the radio play
Fleischer und Frau (Butcher and Wife) and the poem ‘anna flint’ (p. 14).

98
ballad

a clean hand goes empty

this was his calculation.
he was my husband. my children, he said,
must eat. when he went and sold himself,
i said don’t ‘go’, i didn’t watch.
so it was until the shooting ended.
his calculation was wrong. two hands empty,
two hands bloody, and no way to wash up.
he was my husband. but he screamed when he
went into the river, for bread for my children.
i said ‘go’, but i didn’t watch.

[early to mid-1950s]

99
romance

morning under the blackthorn

two drops fell from your hair.
and those that remained of the rain,
which had fallen all night.

[may 1954]

100
epigram on Lyric poetry

pegasus, that stalwart, served the poets of old with honour,

bore them winged and away above the earthly dust.
now—preoccupied, the earth being more pleasing to us—
we need a winged steed, terrestrial and motorized.
but our poets, what do they do? they pull the old
upright horse from the stall, where he eats the oats of charity,
you see them hitch a mighty tractor before the invalid,
him, the lame nag, behind the swift machine—
and they don’t care if he stumbles and breaks his bones:
passing off the old groan for the new song.
the lamppost works for dogs as much as the birch.
not so for the poet: he stops solely for the birch.
to dare that which one dares, you have to be capable of it, someone
wrote who could.
perhaps they can’t since they can’t, these masters?

[mid-1950s]2

a mild critique of other writers on the misuse of antiquity and nature (for example, the
overused birch tree) in postwar east german verse.

101
tractor song

my brother sat inside a tank

which came to stalingrad.
he burned up in that tank
the one he was driving.
i sit upon a tractor
which comes from stalingrad.
i till a field with that tractor
for the spring planting.

[mid-1950s]

102
thoughts on the beauty of the landscape on a journey
to the vast construction site of ‘schwarze pumpe’ (1958)

patches of forests and fields. oxen

Labouring before the plough. farmers
Labouring behind the plough
after an hour the first tractor.
the driver smokes a pipe.
ancient villages
narrower houses
smaller windows.
towards noon the construction site, the new, beautiful landscape:
smokestacks. shop buildings. steel and concrete.
soil, torn up, hills, shifted by machines and hands.
noise and dust.
here the old people gathered wood
5 times 100 years
here will be a briquette factory in
5 years and a new power station.

[mid- to late 1950s]3

Schwarze Pumpe (literally, black pump), a massive lignite-fired power station in spremberg,
which was constructed by east germany during the second five year plan. it was named
after an old guesthouse known for its black water pump.

103
bunchuk [i]

this is the open grave. a swift kick too:

he falls. the earth rises up to stop him.
he sees the sky reeling, sunless
immense, split open by bursts of gunfire.
above the restless spinning star
for which he, twenty-nine years old, fought
soldier and bayonet of the comintern
soon he will be the soil, parted by the plough.

[1956–57]4

Bunchuk, a turkish-style war banner (tugh) adopted by cossack cavalry units, consisting
of a flagstaff decorated with a ring of horse hair and surmounted by a finial. in this case,
the red star.

104
‘the reds’

the pastor made the bells to ring

and the ten commandments too.
and they fit the world like wearing on the left
foot the right shoe.
he who would fit like a glove
can go with his pockets empty.
who puts up with it: is blest!
damn whoever should complain!
Just treatment is for the dead
and don’t listen to the reds.
the reds did complain:
damn who would empty our pockets!
putting one’s hand in the right glove
can change the world, that’s something good.
the tears have been dried
with the five-year plan.
what good is the sky to the dead?
the reds would ask.
and they built that famous
red satellite.
and they erected new tablets
with ten commandments to better a better world.

[mid-1950s]5

Red satellite, sputnik, the first artificial satellite to orbit earth, which was launched in
october 1957.

105
winter battLe, 1963

1
in berlin, the old capital of the new germany
in that hall with the name of the dead pioneer
one of millions victors turned to dust
the delegates came together, two thousand,
from factories, cooperatives, offices, conferring
with his own voice, the voice of the voiceless too,
whose soil stuffs their mouths, the voice of the yet unborn,
in our common struggle, which changes at anytime, anywhere,
for the one goal: communism.
Listening to the speeches of the leaders, discussing, each one his own
Leader and not only his own, but
for others, many more each day, leading along the changing
battle lines against the old always disguising itself as new.
2
but on the first day of the great congress
three generators of the elbe power station stood still,
for the winter was the coldest in decades
and the ice, knowing nothing of party decrees,
rode on the river with the current and against the current,
a rider, who grows in the saddle, eating its mount,
it choked the intake’s canal, the main artery of the power station,
until the suction pumps screamed in the need for
water, which cooled the red-hot generators. so
reluctantly, so as to save the power station, which belongs to all,
its builders turned the control switch to off
and the struggle for water began, for a seventy-hour-
Long perpetual night. the struggle went
against regulations made in warmer days for winters
Less cold. and it was led by the guardians of those regulations
themselves and the shortest way was through the chain of command,
and through the chain of command came help: workers, farmers, soldiers.
and the soldiers attacked the ice with weapons,
meant for other enemies but used against the ice instead, which
has no reason, no ear for negotiations, no blood,
blasting a breach in the white and holding the line

106
on the hard-won water with pilings and stones,
with pontoons and fascines. against the advancing cold
their hands were insufficient, using weapons and tools,
nor the hands of the workers, using tools and weapons,
and they requested the help of the soldiers of the first
red army (the terror of our terror-spreading fathers)
to stand against the ice in their frozen uniforms,
sons of the enemy in a common winter battle.
3
on the rhine too, the thames, the missouri,
with machines and hands versus ice that could be stopped,
perhaps with more machines and fewer hands, were workers,
saviours of power stations as well. but none belong to them
nor do the machines belong to them, nor the river
and one’s own hands working, the strong
shedding sweat and blood without distinction,
making this star either uninhabitable or inhabitable.
finally they knew (they too) and would never forget: the people
are one body, one blood, their wounds and scars in common.
not until the rhine flows into the elbe will it belong to them.
4
the soldiers, exhausted by the ice, which needed no sleep,
men and women, breaking the frozen coal
from ice-covered trucks, already torn from the frozen ground
of surface mines, the farmers, crowbars
in their numb hands as well, and the divers
beneath the ice below their lonely work
had no time to listen to the conferences
of their delegates in the nearby capital,
the ice schooling them about what came next
while attending the academy of the coldest January
of their second decade, writing in one long shift
with their mighty hands united a new chapter
of their own history on a school desk made of ice;
alongside them the elderly, tea makers, tea kettles
carried slowly onto the battlefield, coke-oven tenders
(Knowing perhaps little about the nearby conference,

107
Knowing perhaps little about electricity too,
but knowing about the cold and the darkness).
and for the second time the power station belonged to the people.
5
only later, in the meetings, listening
to the reports of the delegates, did they learn
to read their own text, written on the ice
with working hands, an alphabet for coming struggles.
6
in the nearby capital the delegates
rose up from their seats, interrupting
their conferences on coexistence and production costs
art and mathematics, as the telegram
was read with the dry message of victory:
every turbine is on line in the elbe power station,
seeing in the restored light, in one long look at the final scene, washed
again and again with sweat, with blood too, seen always, unlost
in the smoke of the class struggle, this reality,
if mankind perceives the party is mankind,
its perceived nature submits to party discipline and
takes its place at the helm of the planet.

[1963]6

delegates, of the sixth party congress of the socialist unity party of germany, 15–21
January 1963.
in that hall, refers to the werner-seelenbinder-halle, a berlin sports arena.
Elbe Power Station (Kraftwerk elbe), a brown coal-power station on the elbe in
vockerode in the wittenberg district of saxony-anhalt;.
Not until the Rhine . . . belong to them, alludes to the unification of germany via east
germany.

108
questions for teachers

in our schools the children learn

to decline river and control one at the same time,
in our factories they learn economics,
at the lathe and the blackboard the abcs
of communism and the one-times-one
of automation. these words have weight,
substance, from which feats are accomplished,
an idea has consequences, an approximation
is dangerous in these new fields,
where a head is not enough, not even ten heads
without the labour of their inventions.
the children of this generation, who have relegated
capitalism to a museum, will build
machines, construct entire factories.
whoever is to master these new machines,
needs to know exactly what a machine is.
much is required of the young, too much,
the teacher says, who has learnt too little.
(for a thousand years it was long taken for granted
that birds and angels could fly, that man
could not fly, unless he were an angel.
we are not birds, we are not angels, we fly.)
the good teacher makes himself unnecessary.
what he alone knows, he doesn’t know.
why does a pupil sleep at his desk?
has he no desire for an easier life
through mathematics, who conceals
that mathematics will make his life easier?
in our country under-construction every day
the children rise quickly: their hands are free
of shackles that we have born.
an ‘exploiter’, is someone who takes work from them!
their brains are empty of that ballast
from the school of the exploiters. don’t stuff them now

109
with new ballast: a head is not a file cabinet,
a person is not a questionnaire that one files away.
he is the question that must be answered by himself.
the bicycle must not be invented all over again,
for the history of wars, teach what
will help do away with war. the school is no museum,
a life of outdated textbooks;
a man is no encyclopaedia: he needs one;
he is not a machine: it serves him.
the good teacher says more than his students grasp,
Knowing: that life, that greater teacher, will
continue his work if he was any good.
one doesn’t learn to drive a motorcycle from a tricycle.
one doesn’t learn to run a state shouting in unison.
don’t forget, when you teach the citizens of tomorrow
what kind of state is our state: you’re teaching statesmen.
(are there no stateswomen? do the women
in our language not have civil rights? a job for poets.)
the questions, which you ask of life,
ask of young people, teachers, managers, party secretaries.
your silence is not an answer, your excuses
are for questions which have nothing to do with this world.
Leaving them alone with your questions leaves them alone
with the lies of the enemy on the radio and tv-screen,
and then every minute is a minute too much.
why is the schoolteacher silent
about the noise in his classroom during instruction?
why does the principal throw sand in the eyes
of the school inspector with good examples,
how do we improve the bad schools, comrade Lemnitz?7

[1960s]

Comrade Lemnitz [sic], after east german politician alfred Lemmnitz (1905–94), who
served as minister for national education from 1958 to 1963.

110
dt 64
as the youth communiqué was being debated
in the workshops and lecture halls
in the dance cafes and in the athletic fields
at construction sites and in the beet fields
in the laboratories of tomorrow’s chemistry
and in the recesses of the bureaucracy
between the oder and the elbe, but on the rhine
and ruhr too, the newspapers and radio stations
of our friends from the wild west made
the discovery, the youth communiqué is paper
and paper is paper because persil is persil
in accordance with the eternal laws of the free market
which sustains the free press
in the advertisements:
the best man is any man
in his skin
so long as he knows
how to dress in style
for that naked man
no sport coat is tailor-made
in bonn, in saigon, in monaco
which spins around a carousel
for the masters in bonn
would love to pieces
our non-existent
much producing
workers–farmers–state
and they have at the ready
their nuclear cutlery
come time, come place
better sought than found
with freedom we are bound.
we’ll just do it with talk
against anyone we’ll speak out
our ears carry weight though

111
 we don’t have a say-so
with freedom we are bound
better sought than found
etc.
(from an sds twist, presented and defended by herr Lessing, 18 may 1964)

in may 1964, the paper came to berlin

with special trains to have its celebration
between work and work. and the festival was
three days and three nights long, so much
had the 500,000 future landlords
Learnt and done.
the new dances
did no harm to new technologies
nor did new ideas to old feelings
the spring is green for those as well this year
and the guests of the capital welcomed their guests
from the land of monopolies
where hotel guests must moderate
so that the proprietor can drink
and empty their pockets all at the same time
and the young could converse with the young
workers with workers, farmers with farmers
see what we have achieved
in our state where no one is the last
but everyone is the first in his place.
and they went back to their daily work
the century is made of minutes
Knowing definitely more than before, for whom the bell tolls
and knowing more than before
they spoke with their comrades of their future.

[1964]8

Dt 64, a government sanctioned radio station for youth programming that featured
western popular music. the abbreviation refers to Deutschlandtreffen der Jugend (german
reunion of youth), a conference and festival for the youth of east and sanctioned

112
delegations from west germany intended to promote the reunification of germany
under socialist ideals
Persil, west german laundry detergent.
carousel (Karussell ), a department-store fixture, suggesting mass-produced clothing.
SDS Twist, an ironic allusion to the popular 1960s dance vis-à-vis the east german
perception that socialists in west germany enjoyed less ‘freedom’. this was asserted in a
speech by helmut Lessing, vice chairman of west germany’s sozialistischer deutscher
studentenbund (socialist german student union), considered the first successful attempt
to publicly criticize the bureaucratic ulbricht regime, albeit couched in criticism of
west germany.

113
blind and filled with deception is your way, o world
your sweetness tastes bitter, your gift is poison
your greenness erases time with a black script
but he who keeps you out is not wise
a weight weighs your all and your nothing
take it all, for what little there is, isn’t yours
wise the man who flees your blossom
when he wets his lips with your fruit.

(after guido cavalcanti / ezra pound)

[1964]9

attributed to a rendering of ‘madrigal’ by guido cavalcanti, translated by ezra pound

in Sonnets and Ballate of Guido Cavalcanti (1912).

114
bulat okudshava
walking, that Long-Legged miracle

walking, that long-legged miracle which moves me,

has laid the earth’s burden on me:
‘you were your own guest long enough.
pick up your backpack.
perfect!
walk, take a little trouble, turn left twice—’
and i pull on my boots, size forty-three,
my footcloths are a second skin,
and i whistle something to myself: the main part loud!
and from man to man
i lie to myself:
‘fear? not a fig.
the world is a gift box.
not one of the little points
on its crown breaks for me.
a long stroll, nothing more.’
if nothing more were only not so far!
i walk, my legs are long,
i creep, my legs are too long
along the fire trenches
i walk. i will not fall behind.
i walk. i must write
in a rough copy
my life story.
(me too!)
the uniform puts up with my sweat.
i will fall soon, contorted by a shrapnel wound,
in the fire-red of wild rosemary.
my last thought is one syllable:
out—
then i will stand up from the dead alive
from the gauze grip of the bandages—
the wounds are scars—
and once more: to walk,
this long-legged miracle keeping to the roads

115
until the very last day (which will be found)
roomier than the roomiest house.
i walk. i stumble. and no one takes it wrong.
does the earth stop me? do i stop the earth?
the earth—in fact!—can’t turn without me.

[before 1965]10

müller’s translation of a poem by the russian bard, dissident and guitar poet bulat okud-
shava (1924–97).

116
(after Joris ivens)

in vietnam the newspapers

are printed underground
in vinh Linh a printer
used for his subterranean work
while others beside him operate a press
an ammunition case stencilled
us navy
asked why, he answered:
perhaps this war wiLL Last
untiL the end of wars perhaps we have
to dig ourseLves deeper into our soiL
to Keep our indispensabLe paper printing it
at a greater depth perhaps we wiLL
no Longer have a press and no
pLace for a press
this simpLe tooL
wiLL fight the enemy
untiL he is gone.

[1968]11

Joris ivens (1898–1989), the dutch documentary filmmaker’s 17th Parallel: Vietnam
in War (1968).
Vinh Linh, a rural district of quảng trị province of vietnam and the site of the 17th
parallel, the temporary borderline between north vietnam and south vietnam during
the vietnam war.

117
Laugh ye not unLess it be a city faLLen

(grobianus)
i want to be a german
(entry in the exercise book of an eleven-year-old Jewish schoolboy in the
warsaw ghetto)
the terror of which i write comes not
from germany it is a terror of the souL
(edgar allan poe)
the terror of which i write comes from
germany

[early 1950s; revised 1960s]12

Laugh ye not . . . Grobianus, a paraphrase after the sixteenth-century satirical book

of manners, Grobianas by friedrich dedekind (1524–98), attributed to the mythical st
grobian, the patron saint of fools, drunkards, vulgarians and the like.
the terror . . . Poe, a paraphrase of edgar allan poe’s defence against being too influ-
enced by german gothicism in the 1840s (‘if in any of my productions terror has been
the thesis, i maintain that terror is not of germany, but of the soul’, Collected Works,
voL. 1, p. 151).

118
i don’t beLieve in reaLity
says the bearded viennese, the castrator knife
of god, swollen foot of the tyrant, a foot is
no foot is the ineXpressibLe is
the papa, before he drowns in the flood of
images which stuffs his mouth, the imperialist

cocKs(pL)ucKing

Love’s sweetest requitement

is your own private apartment1

but in the background the iron bishop saws

at the faecal columns of the temple

a LOT OF PEOPLE WON’T GET NO SuPPER TONiGhT

a LOT OF PEOPLE WON’T GET NO JuSTiCE TONiGhT 2

death of the hoLy famiLy while the

great masturbator, referred to by ignorant natives as
Daddy Longhair, transforms his threatening dick
into a projectile freely floating into the final ejac-
culation fear ye nations
the hypodermic needLe where is your victory. in
the end they sing in three parts shit sweat bLood
the violet song.

postponement as a way of life

(from two graves in London venture two hairy

index fingers did you say wait
cannibaL.)

1 pop lyrics white

2 pop lyrics black

119
dream of the four-sided foreign woman and
the headless doll, which, before it was sacri-
ficed in the open street to cubism, was her (fe-
male) child

[1980]13

italics indicate english in the original.

Bearded Viennese, sigmund freud (an early version bears the title ‘st freud castra-
tor Knife of god’).
LOVE’S SWEETEST . . . APARTMENT, from an east german song ‘bieten parkplatz—
suchen wohnung’ (offering parking place—seeking an apartment).
iron Bishop saws, a dissident nickname for erich honecker, alluding to his hard-line
orthodox communism as well as his shoot-to-kill orders for civilians (‘the faecal
columns’) who attempted to escape east germany, and likening that to the imperial
catholic side during the hussite and taborite wars of the fifteenth century.
faecal columns of the temple, refers to muller’s play Leben Gundlings Friedrich von Preußen
Lessings Schlaf Traum Schrei (Gundling’s Life Frederick of Prussia Lessing’s Sleep Dream Scream):
‘the physician knows: that states rest on the sweat of their people, on the faecal columns
of the temple of reason’.
a Lot of peopLe . . . tonight, after the song ‘Justice tonight’, by the reggae artist
willie williams and covered by the clash in 1979.
Daddy Longhair, salvador dali?
the Violet Song (das Veilchenlied), the only text by goethe set to music by mozart.
two graves in London, referring to freud’s and marx’s memorials.

120
Prometheus, when the gods, or the inscrutable will as it was usually called in
that time allotted to him, blasted the world out from under him, this is what,
where, alone at last with his free at last floating rock

[1982]14

the jacket text for Prometheus 1982, an anthology of dissident east german writings,
drawings and composition to mark the sesquicentennial of goethe’s death in 1982.

121
woman with dog. a memory of a
criminal case: a greek forest keeper
observes a woman taking a bath, con-
ceals himself in the bushes. he only
has eyes for the woman, not one look
for the dogs with which she plays and
which play with her. the woman
changes him into a stag, another play-
thing for the dogs. the woman watch-
es as the dogs tear at his thighs, his
neck, his belly, his sex. the woman is
no longer naked, attired with his
blood like a royal robe.

[1991]15

a variation on the myth of actaeon, the greek hunter punished by the goddess artemis
for seeing her naked; originally published in the 1991 volume of Mein heimliches auge
(My Secret Eye), a german yearbook of erotic art and writing.

122
soap in bayreuth

for daniel barenboim

as a child i heard the grownups say:

in the concentration camps soap is made
from Jews. since then i could no longer
get used to soap and detested the smell of soap.
now i dwell, since i am directing tristan
in a brand-new apartment in the city of bayreuth.
the apartment is cleaner than any i have yet seen
everything has its place: the knives the spoons the forks
the pots the pans the dishes the cups the double bed
the shower, made in germany, can wake the dead.
on the walls flowery and alpine kitsch.
here is order, also the greenery behind the apartment building
in order, the street still, the hypobanK on the other side.
when i open the window for the first time: the smell of soap.
the building the garden the city bayreuth reek of the soap.
now i know, i tell the silence
what it means to live in hell and
not to be dead or a murderer. here
auschwitz was born in the smell of soap.

15.8.92, when a demonstration for rudolf hess was banned in

bayreuth.16

Daniel Barenboim (b. 1942), israeli conductor, served as the music director of müller’s
1993 production of wagner’s Tristan und isolde.
hypobanK, or hypovereinsbank, is one of germany’s largest financial institutions.
demonstration for Rudolf hess, the annual rudolf-heß-gedenkmarsch (rudolf hess
memorial march), a neo-nazi demonstration that took place in august to mark the
death of the nazi politician and war criminal.

123
coronary artery

the doctor shows me the film that is the spot

see for yourseLf. now you know where god lives
ashes of a dream of seven masterworks
three flights of stairs and the sphinx displays her claws
be glad if the blockage had caught you cold
as opposed to one more cripple crossing the landscape
a storm in the brain. Lead in the veins
what you didn’t want to know time is a deadLine
the trees on the way home shamelessly green

[21.8.1992]17

seven masterworks, richard wagner’s seven operas. müller’s ill health (and death in 1995)
only permitted him to direct Tristan und isolde for the 1993 bayreuth festival.

124
seneca’s death

what did seneca think (and not say)

as the captain of nero’s bodyguard silently
pulled the death sentence from his breast plate
sealed by the student for his teacher
(he had learnt writing and seals
and a disdain for anyone’s death excepting
his own that golden rule of all statecraft)
what did seneca think (and not say)
as he forbade his guests and slaves to weep
those who had shared in his last meal
the slaves at the end of the table tears are unphiLosophicaL
what has been imposed must be accepted
and as to this nero who had his mother
and his sibLings murdered: why shouLd he
maKe an eXception of his teacher
abstaining from the bLood of a phiLosopher
who had not taught him to shed bLood
and as he opened the veins
of his arms first and those of his wife
who did not want to survive his death
with a single stroke by a slave presumably
the way the sword on which brutus fell
from the sky of his republican hopes
had to be held by a slave as well
what did seneca think (and not say)
as the blood took too long to flow from his too-old
body and as the slave in obedience to his master
opened the leg veins and those behind the knees
whispering with withered vocal cords
my pain is my own send that woman
to the sideroom, bring me scribes
his hand could no longer hold the stylus
but his brain worked, still a machine
fabricating words and sentences recording the pain
what did seneca think (and not say)
between the letters of his last dictation
propped up on the couch of a philosopher

125
and as he emptied the beaker of poison from athens
because his death still tarried
and the poison which had helped so many before him
he could only write a footnote to his
all but bloodless body, not in plain language
what did seneca think (dumbfounded at last)
as he went to his death in a steam bath
while the air danced before his eyes
the terrace darkened with a flurry of wingbeats
not of angels presumably too death
is no angel in the flickering of columns on meeting again
with this first blade of grass the one he had seen
in cordoba in a meadow tall as no tree

30.8.199218

the poem is based on tacitus’ account of the death of seneca the younger (c.4 bce–65
ce) in annals, book 15. in James Ker’s The Deaths of Seneca (2009), there is a discussion
on this poem, which was first recited by müller on german tv in 1993. müller noted
‘the recurrence of the seneca–nero dyad in german thought’ and that seneca had always
been ‘a topos of german literature of the eighteenth century’ when the ‘education of
princes had been questioned as an ideal. but it lingered on in theodor mommsen and
martin heidegger, who thought they could have a good influence, respectively, on bis-
marck and hitler.the illusion of a properly educated leader, according to müller, is very
much ‘a german illusion’. it should also be noted that for dissident east german writers,
seneca served as an emblem of freedom and dignity for writers vis-à-vis a tyrannical
regime.
mother . . . sibLings, agrippina the younger and nero’s half-brothers, respectively,
chief among them britannicus.
sword on which Brutus fell, according to plutarch, marcus Junius brutus, the friend and
assassin of Julius caesar, committed suicide by running into his own sword held by two
of his retainers.
poison from athens, refers to hemlock, not an allusion to socrates in tacitus, but that the
athenian preparation was considered reliably effective among the ancients.
Cordoba, the birthplace of seneca.

126
müLLer in the hessian hof

in the hotel restaurant the innocence of the rich

the calm eye on the hunger of the world
my place is between the chairs my dream
to carve up the wrinkled neck of the widow
at the next table with the knife of that waiter
who is carving up her rack of lamb neither
will i carve up this neck for i will never do
something like that for as long as i live
i am not Jesus he brings the sword i
dream of swords Knowing that long after me
the exploitation in which i take part will go on
Longer than i the hunger which feeds me
the horror of force is its blindness
and poets i know lie too much
with his mouth villon could still tear
into the nobility and clergy he had no bed no chair
and knew the prisons from inside out
brecht sent ruth berlau to spain and wrote
señora carrar’s rifLes in denmark
while riding double-horsed through moscow gorky
hated poverty for it humiLiates why
did mayakovsky with his revolver
only end up silencing the poor
the lies of the poet have been exhausted
by this century’s horrors at the world bank’s teller windows
the dried blood smells like cold make-up
the sleeping bum outside the esso snacK&shop
refutes the verse of revolution
i drive past in a taxi i can
afford it benn spoke well he made
no money with his poetry and would
perish without skin or venereal diseases
at night in my hotel the curtain of my stage
is no longer raised unrhymed
these texts come the language refuses blank verse
the masks shatter before the mirror no

127
actor takes the text from me i am the drama
müLLer you are not subJect matter for poetry
write prose my shame needs my poem

frankfurt, 3.10.199219

hessian hof, a five-star hotel in frankfurt am main.

Villon, françois villon (b. 1431), the fifteenth-century french poet whose autobiograph-
ical poems dealt with the demimonde, poverty, social commentary, class conflict and the
like rather than the ‘courtly ideal’.
Brecht sent Ruth Berlau, in July 1937, brecht sent his lover, pupil and collaborator, the
danish writer and director ruth berlau (1906–74), to represent him at the second
international congress of writers on the defence of culture in madrid in July 1937.
señora carrar’s rifLes, a one-act play that is a modern version of the irish drama-
tist John millington synge’s Riders to the Sea (1904) reimagined in spain during the
height of the civil war—the irony here is that brecht was never directly involved in the
spanish civil war, whereas berlau stayed on after the aforementioned congress to assist
the spanish republic.
Gorky, an allusion to gorky’s own dire fear of poverty which overshadowed his early
life and often followed him throughout his career in russia, where he both criticized
the tsarist and bolshevik regimes, and in exile; his financial straits motivated his ultimate
return to the soviet union at stalin’s invitation in 1931 and rehabilitation.
Mayakovsky, vladimir mayakovsky (1893–1930), the russian poet, had allegedly com-
mitted suicide (so-called anti-socialist act) over a woman.
esso snacK&shop, a common 24/7 convenience store–petrol station in west germany.
Benn, gottfried benn, whose source of income was often medicine and pathology which
included, in 1917, opening a practice in berlin devoted to dermatology and treating
syphilis.
Frankfurt, 3.10.1992, during this time müller’s collected poems had recently been pub-
lished and so informed his reputation (still solely based on his theatre work).

128
the empty staircase tells the horrors
of a pristine world. no people, no
footprints, no dust, only an invisible eye,
affixed to a tool with which to paint, guided
by no hand.
aND a SLEEPiNG DOG aROuND ThE
CORNER / ON ThE NExT STaiRCaSE
BaRKiNG iN DREaMS.

[1992]20

italics indicate english in the original.

129
with the return of colour looms
the resurrection.
i said to you,you shouLd
not come bacK, dead is
dead.
death is a mistake.

[1992]

130
. . . and i go farther into a Landscape
which has no other tasK than
to wait for the disappearance of
manKind . . .
the painter records the moment before it disappears,
the cold second, when the body shrivels to
a shade of colour, to a last breath, like being
forgotten smothered by layers of paint.
the painter paints forgetting. the image forgets
its subject matter. the painter is charon. with
every stroke of the brush/the oar his passenger
loses substance. the progress is the end,
dying death. on the opposite shore no one
will step out.

[1992]

131
LiKe a shadow god created man
who shaLL Judge him when the sun
has set.
the painter dwells in his shadow which needs
no sun.

[1992]21

LiKe a shadow . . . set, from montaigne’s Essays 2, 12, as quoted in brecht’s Life of
Galileo.

132
visit with an eLder statesman

his health
is frail the vodka is just for guests
his hands having tea the hesitant grasp
for the tea glass it could be full of blood he knows
the crimes of the century back and forth
between the secret powers
the british have 30,000 in greece . . .
the americans wanted de gaulle . . .
churchill drew a salary from . . .
the torturer barbie was the inventor of the barbie doll
the heroes of 20th July
became martyrs because of . . .
his hand ached from the operation and his money
became a left-hander like stauffenberg the balts
spared the germans a lot of work with the . . .
i’m afraid of my own shadow
stalin said to zhukov while he was still in his good graces
Like hitler the fuel ran out the gulf war began
and what nation in europe wouldn’t be happy
now with a joyful majority under the swastika
the way the german people were the first time around
in his grey story full of geographic mischief
in freedom for Jews gypsies perverts
communists a pack of asylum-seekers
the forests intact and the meadows until the bill came
what hegel knew about the bunglers of politics
Learning from history means learning nothing
politics is what is feasibLe a gentlemen’s dream
from which no child cries in every language
is the future of death the hands of the elder statesman
sometimes he regards them and motions them in silence
as though in conversation his monologue is wordless
with an eye on his hand hesitating at the tea glass
forgetting makes for the successful statesman
your feelings do you have feelings if so what
when ousted from your last office

133
feelings nothing i felt nothing nothing nothing only a bitter emptiness
when listening to rumours myths legends behind
the news coming to light my looking at his hands
becomes a look in the mirror his misery congeals
into my colder text what keeps me in this life i
eat its pictures the truth truth
is not subject matter the stains of lies are
my beer i leave the elder statesman
his figure in the door bent by the KnowLedge of power
in his double handshake with the sublime feeling
that the world passes us by and it matters not

21.12.199222

eLder statesman, an earlier draft of the poem is dedicated to the soviet diplomat
valentin falin (b. 1926).
Barbie, Klaus barbie (1913–91), the gestapo chief and so-called butcher of Lyons during
the second world war.
heroes of 20th July, the german officers who attempted to assassinate adolf hitler on 20
July 1944 in a plot known as ‘operation valkyrie’.
he took his hand out of the operation . . . a left-hander like Stauffenberg, the anonymous/
fictitious statesman had been involved in the 20th July plot but withdrew his support
and became a communist bureaucrat in the postwar period. claus von stauffenberg
(1907–44) was the primary figure in the failed coup and assassination attempt and had
a prosthesis for a right hand.
the Balts . . . , an allusion to the Lithuanians who served the ss in its operations against
the Jews during the second world war.

134
mommsen’s bLocK

for félix guattari What authorities are there

beyond Court tittle tattle
(mommsen to James bryce, 1898)
the question why the great historian
did not write
the fourth volume of his history of rome
the long awaited one about the imperial era
has preoccupied the historians who followed
good reasons are in supply
preserved in letters hearsay speculation
the dearth of epigraphs he who writes with a chisel
has no manuscript the stones do not lie
no reliance on literature intrigue and
court gossip even the silver fragments
of the laconic tacitus merely perusals for poets
for whom history is a burden
unbearable without the dance of vowels
on the tombs against the gravitational pull of the dead
and their fear of eternal recurrence
he wasn’t fond of the caesars of the Late period
not their indolence not their vices
he had plenty of the one-and-only Julius
who was to him worth his own tombstone
even to describe caesar’s death he had
upon being asked about the pending
fourth volume no more passion
and the rotting centuries after him
grey-in-grey bLacK-on-bLacK for whom
the epitaph the midwife bismarck was
Likewise the gravedigger of the empire
that afterbirth of a false telegram
could be inferred from the third volume
getting soft in charlottenburg
the twice-daily trip by horse tram
in the dust of books and manuscripts forty

135
thousand in haus mommsen machstrasse 8
twelve children in the basement the courage to err
which i now Know quaLifies one to be a historian
sadLy something i don’t Know for example why
does a world empire crumble the ruins have no answer
the silence of the statues gilts the downfall
what we understand are the institutions
but he is weary and rather dusty
the pious dilthey wrote to count yorck
from the country roads of phiLoLogy
epigraphy and party poLitics
without any spirituaL yearning for the invisibLe King-
dom his kingdom was the tangible
in a letter to his daughter frau wilamowitz
he dreams of a villa near naples
so as not to learn to die come time come death
and with no mercy a bLind faith
for counts and barons christianity
a tree disease from the roots up
a cancer infiltrated by the intelligence services
the twelve apostles twelve undercover
the betrayer provides the proof of god
and the company logo saul a colonized
bloodhound plays the part of the social democrat
becoming paul after falling from a horse
and a bellwether of the unknown god
for whom he lures the sheep into the pen
to be culled for salvation or damnation
only to the worms are the dead equals
the first pope a police informant
only John of patmos amid narcotic vapours
that heretic that psychopomp that terrorist
saw the new beast rising upward
the dream of italy is a dream of writing
that stimulant of moonlight on ruins
with that godlike hauteur of my youth
of a younger generation at Least i was never young
what is left is this godLiKe obnoXiousness a POOR
SuBSTiTuTE eagles in the cesspool why

136
get down in writing just because the masses will read it
biology knows that more life exists
in cesspools than at higher elevations
how does one make the people understand
and to what end so that first decade under nero
the repressed artist the bloody
music is all the rage in decline
when all is said the voices are sweet
was a happy time for the people of rome
the happiest perhaps in its long history
it had their bread their games the massacres
took place in the box seats
and they had high audience ratings
an apartment fire in villa mommsen caused not
by christian zeal against libraries
Like two thousand years before in alexandria
but rather by a gas explosion at machstrasse 8
giving rise to the dire prospect
that the great scholar had a fourth volume
the long anticipated one about the imperial period
he had written it after all and the text had been burnt
along with the rest of his library such as
forty thousand books plus manuscripts
the academy fragment was rescued
a seven-page outline framed by the fire
in angLe bracKets the charred words
of mommsen the way editors write
one hundred and twelve years after the fire
newspapers chronicle that fire
one reader of newspapers nietzsche writes to peter gast:
‘have you read about the fire at mommsen’s house?
and that his excerpts are destroyed, the
mightiest of works perhaps ever produced by any
living scholar? he kept jumping into
the flames, and they finally over-
came him, for he was covered with burns.
such undertakings as mommsen’s can
only be quite rare, for seldom does a vast memory

137
and a corresponding acuity in discrimination and
order of material come together. more often
they serve to work against each other.—when
i heard this story, my heart turned upside down
in my body and i still suffer physically whenever i
think about it. is it sympathy? but what is mommsen
to me? i am hardly well disposed towards him.’
a document from that century of letter writers
the fear of loneliness is concealed in the question mark
who writes into the void needs no punctuation
excuse me if i speak for myself mommsen professor
according to toynbee the greatest living historian
(or he said as an aside this is the continually nagging fear
of the acclaimed that the measuring stick lies)
after gibbon residing at charlottenburg machstrasse 8
two three pages long for whom else do we write
than for the dead all-knowing in the dust an idea
perhaps unacceptable to you an instructor of young people
that forgetting is a privilege of the dead
after all even you forbid publication
of your lectures per your last will and testament
for the imprudence of the lectern betrays
the struggles of the writing desk even the aeneid
you wanted to see burnt in keeping with the intentions
of that manqué virgil on whom augustus
the architect of rome hesitating from completion himself
because it conceals the abyss conferred immortality
the divine comedy would not
have been written or be less enduring
without his verdict about the fire
and professor i wanted you to read Kafka
in your marble tomb on your pedestal
you realize that the bombs of the second world war
did not spare machstrasse you were
not spared nor your academy of sciences
with the overthrow of asiatic despotism product
of a false reading and falsely called

138
socialism according to that great historian
of capital he whom you failed to see
a man working in another quarry
before his monument stood on your pedestal
for one state long.the pedestal is once more your place
outside the university named for humboldt
by those autocrats of an illusion
(they had not read your history of rome
nor marx who said nothing in regard to reading it
had he lived longer as one might say
envious perhaps of your nobel prize money the Jew)
caught in the knitting pattern of red caesars
who recited his text with soldier’s boots
how do you clear a minefield eisenhower asked
from one victor of the second world war to another
victor with the boots
of a marching battalion zhukov answered
the great october of the worKing cLass sung
spontaneously with hope or in a double chokehold
by too many and still with their throats cut
was a summer thunderstorm in the shadow of the world bank
a mosquito dance over the tartars’ graves
WhERE ThE DEaD ONES WaiT
FOR ThE EaRThquaKES TO COME
as perhaps ezra pound would have said that other virgil
who bet on a false caesar he failed as well
that is ghosts do not sleep
their favourite food is our dreams
professor if you will excuse the bitter tone
the university named for humboldt
before which you sit on your pedestal
Long after your death is just now being shovelled
clean from the putative garbage of the new
blind faith not for counts and barons
yesterday at dinner in a fancy restaurant
in the reunited capital of berlin
i was leafing through the notes taken of your lectures

139
about rome’s imperial period fresh from the bookshop
two heroes of the new era dined at the next table
Lemurs of capital money-changers and merchants
and while i overheard their dialogue greedy
for fodder for my disgust for the here and now:
‘these four million / we need them now // and it’s
not working // but then no one sees it // when you
don’t master the keyboard / you’re lost this you have
seen in X / he has no control over it // you need to
hammer that / into him or he takes a bath tough // so i
have this fear / they are smacking him against the wall
like a jellyfish // then he hangs there floundering and floundering
// i think he’s a good acquisitions man for the initial stage /
but when it comes to doing the hard work . . . // then he
needs to hand this off to others // but is that the question then
are our hands good enough / that they can turn this game around
// someone needs to whip him back into shape // we have to
buy him for the deutsche bank // that we can do on
our own / if i just had a pair of pliers / then i could
teach him then he might bring in / some real money.’
five streets away as the sirens suggest
the poor smack down the poorest
and as these gentlemen turned to themselves cigars and cognac
strictly in accordance with the textbook of political economy
of capitalism: ‘they wanted to send me / to a tutoring
school // my mother was hard as rocks / against everything
you take your entrance exams / the faculty was always divided /
there were teachers who thought i was stupid.’
animal noise who would want to write that
with any passion hate isn’t worth it scorn does nothing
for the first time i understood your inhibition to write
comrade professor facing rome’s imperial era
that famously happy time under nero
Knowing that the unwritten text is a wound
for which the blood flows that posthumous fame does not staunch
and the yawning gap in your historical work
was a pain in my how-long-still breathing body
and i remembered the dust of your marble tomb

140
and my cold coffee in the morning at 6
in charlottenburg in haus mommsen machstrasse 8
in your office surrounded by books

199223

this poem is a variant of a dramatic text (italics indicate english in original).

mommsen, after theodor mommsen (1817–1903), german historian and politician
and nobel laureate.
Félix Guattari (1930–92), french philosopher and semiologist.
James Bryce (1838–1922), british liberal politician, historian and believer in ‘teutonic
freedom’, which included germany as a ‘natural ally’ of great britain and the united
states.
history of rome, mommsen’s chief work was left unfinished, with only volumes
devoted to the roman republic (published 1854–56) and a history of the roman
provinces (1885).
Bismarck . . . false telegram, the ems dispatch (here müller channels mommsen and sug-
gests that the fourth volume about imperial rome was left unwritten because history
was repeating itself after german unification and with the new german empire).
Machstrasse 8, a road in the berlin suburb of charlottenburg; mommsen purchased his
house there in 1874.
Dilthey . . . Yorck, Karl dilthey (1839–1907), german classical scholar, and count paul
yorck von wartenburg (1835–97), german lawyer and philosopher, whose correspon-
dence influenced martin heidegger’s philosophy of history.
invisibLe Kingdom, refers to the heavenly reward, the afterlife; line 63, ‘John . . .
vapours’, the imputation that the author of the book of the revelation, like the delphic
oracle and other seers, relied on noxious fumes to achieve visions of the future.
the academy fragment, the so-called akademiefragment formed the basis for the
1992 reconstruction of the missing fourth volume based on lecture notes taken by two
of mommsen’s students.
verdict about the fire, perhaps that the fires of hell burnt in proportion to one’s sins.
knitting pattern, idiom, cf. party line, groupthink.
lemurs, evil spirits and like spectral beings in roman mythology.

141
i have eaten with spectres during the night
now the tabloids fetch my shadow home
he breaKfasted with the deviL his spoon was
too short spewing it out in the vomit swims
a black sky blue Leonardo writes
with his left hand in a mirrored script
is no colour is an accident of
air currents and backgrounds nothing
is blue the sky a black homeland

[January 1993]24

from Blockade (1993), a portfolio of lithographs and etchings by the german artist mark
Lammert.
i have eaten . . . my shadow, an allusion to accusations that müller had cooperated
with the stasi, east germany’s state security police.
Blue Leonardo writes, after the seventh proposition in the treatise on painting (‘the azure
of the sky is produced by a mixture composed of light and darkness’) attributed to
Leonardo da vinci.

142
thinKing about micheLangeLo
who learnt no more from the stone
in the grip
of the borgias
haunted by parasites
his face cockeyed on the skin of the flayed man
he loved subject matter other than stone
the sex in the marble

[1993]25

flayed man, an allusion to michelangelo’s self-portrait as the flayed skin displayed by st

bartholomew in the Last Judgement fresco of the sistine chapel.

143
tristan 1993
yesterday my child had a strange look
bad news for a tv spot long
i read into the eyes of my child me
who has seen this question too much
whether the world still balanced out life’s hardship
one moment of bad news
for a tv spot long i was in doubt
of whether i should wish it a long life
or an early death out of love

[mid-1993]26

the poem alludes to müller's infant daughter anna (b. 1992) and his production of
wagner’s Tristan und isolde at the bayreuth festival in 1993, which received much critical
acclaim as well as negative reviews.

144
marKe to the dead tristan
you lie and dream in your final rest
under the mantle of that fatal lover
but i must return in this moonless day
which burns my heart to golden straw

[mid-1993]27

marKe to the dead tristan, after act 3, scene 3 of Tristan und isolde, when King
marke of cornwall mourns over the body of the dead tristan.

145
BiRTh OF a SOLDiER

on the screen a soldier from england

with the body count in a bosnian village
he weeps under his blue helmet at second glance
a wolf watches me baring its teeth
the grimace his last greeting for mankind

[29.10.1993]28

italics indicate english in the original.

146
rudoLf augstein, 70
water is already masking the face
the blood stands still the field of battle is surveyed
the messenger knows when his voice will break
to forget awaits any news

[autumn 1993]29

rudoLf augstein (1923–2002), german investigative journalist and founder of the

weekly Der Spiegel. this ‘birthday poem’ is a response to a 1992 article in Der Spiegel,
noting that allegations about müller cooperating with the stasi could damage his repu-
tation.

147
bLacK fiLm

the visible
can be photographed
o paradise
of bLindness
what is still heard
is canned
pLug your ears, son
feelings
are outmoded thought is
nothing new the world
is beyond description
all that is human
is strange

[1993]

148
scipio as his soldiers spread salt
over the ruins and mountains of corpses of carthage
quoted homer one day the day wiLL come and wept
polybius the writer of histories saw it
when have we seen a victor weep
in anticipation of the day that will come

[early 1994]30

scipio, scipio africanus the younger (185–129 bce), the roman consul who led the
roman army in the third punic war and oversaw the destruction of carthage.
quoted homer, according to roman tradition, scipio quoted a line from homer in which
the inevitable fall of troy and the slaughter of its inhabitants are predicted.
polybius (200–118 bce), the roman historian who recorded scipio’s revelation that one
day rome too would meet its doom.
When have we . . . will come, an early draft of this poem begins with the following lines:
‘how beautifuL it is zhukov should have said / on seeing the burning volga before
stalingrad.’

149
ajax for example

Baby pills are tricky things

Only ajax keeps the bowl clean
a popular expression

piled high in the bookshops

bestsellers literature for idiots
for whom the television is not enough
or the slower dumbing-down of the movies
i a dinosaur not by spielberg am sitting
contemplating the feasibility
of writing a tragedy how piously naive
in the hotel in berlin surreal capital
my view out the window falls
on the mercedes star
which spins with melancholy in the night sky
over the dental gold of auschwitz and the various subsidiaries
of the deutsche bank in the europa-center
europe the bull is slaughtered the meat
rots on the tongue of progress no cow left out
gods will no longer visit you
what is left for you that o of alcmene
and the stench of burning flesh which daily
befalls you from your borders this landless wind
and sometimes from the cellars of your prosperity
the ashes whisper the bonemeal sings
a ticker on the Kurfürstendamm proclaims to the world
peter zadeK shows berLin his teeth
beware of dentists one would like to tell him
during the peasants’ revolt the greatest disaster
in german history i read shaking my head
during that state of innocence of nineteen forty-eight
how can a revolution be a disaster
in brecht’s annotations to mother courage
a fang was pulled from the reformation
today i can write the sequel to the
french revolution in the wars of napoleon

150
the socialist premature birth during the cold war
since then history once more dances the tango
an excursus about revolution and dentistry
written during the century of dentists
two dental implants a büchner prize
one is coming to an end the next one
will belong to the lawyers time
for sale like real estate
in the high-rise beneath the mercedes star
on the floors of the directorate of cultural affairs
such words who directed phidias
a rug merchant from smyrna according to poLydorus
also art does not live on dust alone
the light still burns heads fume in budgetary constraints
the amputees rehearse walking upright
with borrowed crutches made of fibreglass
under the supervision of the senator for financial affairs
why yes for money aLL vies on money aLL Lies
faust groans in goethe’s sarcophagus in weimar
with the broken voice of einar schleef
rehearsing his choruses in schiller’s skull
i a dinosaur, in the noise of the air conditioner
with taxes squeezing me by the neck
the government runs on money money
needs to purchase work doesn’t make you free home is
where the bills are sent my wife says
read sophocles’ aJaX for example a description
of an animal experiment a yellowed tragedy
a man with whom a capricious goddess
plays blind man’s bluff before troy in that abyss of time
arnold schwarzenegger in desert storm
in order to make me intelligible to today’s readers
i aJaX fraudvictim twice
a man in stalinstadt the frankfurt oder district
in the news about the changing climate in moscow
quietly took down from the wall a portrait of the beloved
Leader of the working class of world communism
trampled the image of the dead dictator underfoot

151
hanged himself from the free hook
his death was not newsworthy a life
for the paper shredder aLL or none
that was a wrong programme not enough for everyone
the final objective of war will be the air we breathe
or KauLich liberated by the red army
from hitler’s gulag hears after a four-day foot march
his wife screaming from a shot-up window
sees one of the soldiers of the glorious red army
tossing her on the bed forgets the abc
of communism smashes comrade Liberator’s skull
an exercise in self-criticism in conversation with the dead man
no ear for his still-screaming wife
is last seen on the transport
to stalin’s gulag his second epiphany
sings the international in the cattle car
if he perished he still sings to this day
with those dead communists under the ice
the pleasure of writing in the nineteen fifties
when one was plucked out of blank verse
between the planks of the capsizing ghost ship
protected by the ironic pathos of rhyming doggerel
only those stressed syllables count
against the falling rocks of the monuments
in the eternity of the moment
in the misery of information biLd fights for you
the narrative is prostitution biLd fights
the tragedy gives up the ghost stalin for example
since his totems are for sale
blood congealed to the medals’ brass
at the brandenburg gate for hitler’s grandchildren
which text shall i put in this mouth
or stuff into that maw depending on the position taken
in the pen of his yellow teeth
in his caucasian wolf fangs
during his night in the Kremlin while waiting for hitler
when the speechless Lenin appears in the vodka
babbling and roaring after his second stroke

152
the mover of the world whose tongue
will no longer obey him Lenin dada
his world a square by malevich
the tartar who no longer comprehends
the law of the steppes inopportunely becoming roman
Law his executor the caucasian has in his blood
or trotsky the axe of macbeth still in his skull
his fist clenched in a bolshevik salute
from a german panzer’s turret hamlet the Jew
or bukharin singing in the cellar
that darling of the party a child of the aurora
perhaps he can talk to hitler man to man
or beast to beast depending on the position taken
the gravedigger with the fuehrer of souls
after ten years of war troy was a museum piece
an object of archaeology
nothing but a bitch still howls for the city
rome built from the bones of the avengers
price a burning woman in carthage
mother of hannibal’s elephants
rome suckled by the she-wolf falling to the winner
greece a province from which they extract the culture
three thousand years after the bloody
birth of democracy with bath net axe
o night bLacK mother in the house of atreus
athena the head-birthed pulls the forceps
the third rome crawls pregnant with mischief
towards bethlehem in its next incarnation
the roar of the ancient images the exhaustion
in the background this unending murmur
of the television programme with us you sit
in the first row the arduousness
in the verse standing up to the staccato
of the commercial inviting voyeurs to dinner
give us today our daiLy murder
the title of a book comes to mind
the first row a report of deaths in germany
communists who fell in the war against hitler

153
young like the fire-setters of today knowing
Little perhaps like the fire-setters of today
aware of something else and unaware
falling for a dream that sets you apart
in the traffic circle of merchandise amid the merchandise
their names being forgotten and erased
in the name of a nation from the memory
of a nation whatever that may be or become
in the dreamless cold of outer space
i aJaX who sheds his bLood
doubLed over his sword on the beach of troy
in the white noise
the gods return at the end of the broadcast day
their yearning burns for this pure rhyme
which changes a world to a desert a day to a dream
rhymes are jokes in einstein’s eternity
the light wave emits no foam from the sea
brecht’s monument is a barren plum tree
and so on what language produces
or the dictionary of german rhymes
the last programme is the fiction of silence
i aJaX who sheds

[1994]31

italics indicate english in the original.

Popular expression, the german word for bowl or basin, Becken, like the Latin word
pelvis, means both and allows for the humorous double entendre for the reliability of
the birth-control pill (anti-babypille) and the extra precaution of using ‘ajax’, idiom
for a douching or using a foam spermicide after coitus.
Mercedes star, a rotating sign atop the europa-center building and a famous landmark of
west berlin.
alcmene, mother of heracles (the allusion is to his difficult birth).
Peter Zadek (1926–2009), german theatre director responsible for the so-called western
invasion which revived the berliner ensemble following reunification.
shows berLin his teeth, a phrase often associated with advertisements for berlin’s
museum of natural history and its famous skeleton of a tyrannosaurus rex, nicknamed
‘tristan’.

154
During the Peasants’ Revolt . . . the Reformation, these lines begin and end with a paraphrase
of one of brecht’s footnotes to Mother Courage and her Children in which he saw the
protestant reformation as a positive force ‘in regard to the social [dimension]’ even
though ‘commerce and cynicism remained’.
nineteen forty-eight, the early, idealistic period of communist east germany’s founding.
Directorate of Cultural affairs, the Berliner Kulturverwaltung, the official arts and culture
agency of the berlin senate.
Phidias (480–430 bce), the greek sculptor whose works decorated the parthenon.
Rug merchant . . . poLydorus, attributed to polydorus of rhodes, a rival sculptor, in
pliny’s Natural history.
why . . . Lies,’ a variation of goethe’s famous aphorism from Faust i (lines 2802–4),
which substitutes ‘money’ for ‘gold’.
Einar Schleef (1944–2001), east german dramatist and actor.
fraudvictim, an allusion to events in sophocles play ajax.
Stalinstadt, a former east german planned community called the ‘first socialist city on
german soil’.
climate change in Moscow, an allusion to the fall of the soviet union and formation of the
russian federation.
shredder, there is no english equivalent for the german word, Reißwolf (literally, rip wolf),
a compound that imparts the image of teeth tearing at flesh.
aLL or none, an allusion to brecht’s song ‘Keiner oder alle’.
KauLich, fictional character representing the many german communists imprisoned
by the nazis.
the abc / of Communism, the ‘elementary textbook of communist knowledge’ by nikolai
bukharin and yevgeni preobrazhensky, intended to inculcate the proletariat with the basic
tenets of communism (for example, sharing).
rhyming doggerel, the propaganda poetry and songs that east german writers were
expected to produce for their proletarian state.
biLd fights for you, the motto of Bild, the popular german tabloid.
totems are for sale, an ironic observation made on the collecting soviet and east german
memorabilia, including statues of stalin, with comparison made to the peculiarly german
market for american indian artifacts.
During his night . . . Lenin dada, these lines imagine a despairing stalin in 1941, when
he retreated from his leadership duties following the german invasion, as well as Lenin
during his final illness in 1923 and 24, when he began to mistrust stalin.
Malevich, Kazimir malevich (1878–1935), russian painter and founder of the avant-
garde suprematist movement.
The Tartar, an allusion to Lenin’s alleged ethnicity.
hamlet the Jew, in the sense, perhaps, that hamlet seeks justice (‘an eye for an eye’).

155
Bukharin, nikolai bukharin (1888–1938), russian bolshevik revolutionary executed
during the great purge.
the aurora, russian cruiser that played a role in the october revolution of 1917.
burning woman, an allusion to the aeneid, in which queen dido of carthage commits
suicide on her own funeral pyre.
o night bLacK mother, an allusion to the line spoken by the chorus in aeschylus’
play The Eumenides during the trial of orestes for killing his mother, clytemnestra.
the third Rome, moscow, in eastern orthodox tradition.
with us you sit/in the first row, slogan of the german zdf cable television
network.
white noise (weißen Rauschen), the german word rauschen can also mean the sound of
the surf.
plum tree, an allusion to ‘der pflaumenbaum’ (the plum tree), a short lyric poem by
brecht.
i aJaX who sheds, in the german, this line literally ends ‘i aJaX his bLood’ in keeping
with the original syntax of line 156, which is to be repeated here to create the effect of
‘switching the poem off ’ too, like a television. thus the english should be in keeping
with its own syntax so as to be ‘faithful’.

156
in the mirror my dissected body
in the middle parted by the operation
which has saved my life what for
i ask myself with a look at the mirror
for a child a wife some late work
to live to learn with half the machine
to breathe to eat the question prohibited what for
which comes easy to the lips death
is a simple thing an idiot can die

157
Showdown
in a cage made of glass we saw standing
the murderer and victim unaware
of each other neither knowing yet who
was to kill whom trapped inside the glass
we stared with others eager to witness
the victim’s neck in the murderer’s hand
death our material from which we build cities
held together only by a fear of death
and the hope to breathe in the grey of dawn
no one can stand up when no one else falls
the places are marked out the where the when
the coastline could care less if a ship’s wrecked
the battle begins inside the glass man on man
the final stranglehold will pay the rent
better for money than wild in a dark wood
one man and it is on that ghost ship
bobbing in the depths of his breast
wins the finishing touch first as murderer
fear of the voyeur’s dying and not knowing
whose neck broke like glass whose hand
what is left is an abyss horror or lust
in this country or in some other one.

[29.11.1994]32

italics indicate english in the original.

158
ibsen, or death as an embryo
rides through a strange city

for fritz marquardt

in the cafeteria of the berlin ensemble

called the casino since the fall of the wall
in the theatre of brecht talking about ibsen
on slow trip home through a strange city
in which i have lived for fifty years
ibsen confined to his little state
with the dynamite of his forbidden love
in his too-serious brain and who was everywhere
applauded to death that which allows him time
for a late work with avalanches and heavy seas

1.12.9433

Fritz Marquardt (1928–2014), east german director and actor.

late work, refers to ibsen’s last play When We Dead awaken (1899).

159
stage death

an empty theatre. on the stage dies

an actor playing by the rules of his art
with dagger in neck. his passion released
in a final solo courting applause.
and not one hand. in a box seat, empty
Like the theatre, a forgotten dress.
the silk whispers what the actor declaims.
the silk turns red, the dress becomes heavy
with the actor’s blood bleeding out in death.
with the chandeliers turning the scene white
the forgotten dress drinks the dying man’s
veins dry, he who just looks like himself now
no more wish or dread for the change of scene
his blood a paint stain of no return.

[autumn 1994]

160
dream forest

tonight i walked through a forest in a dream.

it was filled with terrors. after the alphabet
with empty eyes no look can apprehend,
stood animals between tree after tree
carved in stone by the frost. from this line
of spruce before me walking, crashing through
the snow i dream, i see what i see
a child in armour, helmet and visor
under his arm a lance. its tip flashes
in the spruces’ gloom, which the sun drinks
the last trace of day a golden streak
beyond the dream forest, inviting one to die
and in that blink between the thrust and the stab
my face beheld me: i was that child.

1994

161
welcome to santa monica

a dying man enters the hotel foyer

where other dying people kill their time
short or long between birth and death
with business or alone with the glass
in which forgetting resides the new guest
is marked by another death
his face his hands look and walk
already half an angel or a copper engraving
by dürer the pedant of melancholy
a man embraces him he looks good in the flesh
his days are not numbered yet
if one may believe in appearances
they disappear behind a column
made of fake marble after a time
an outtake as though from an old film
i see between a potted palm and a column
sitting in an armchair the healthy
and a hand already almost fleshless which
sweeps once several times over his head
it cannot stop it counts the hours
outside the embassy of our pension
with the defective heating of old world charm
a sign on the building and entry reads prohibited
a veteran cries for his tomcat
which is hiding in the pension’s garden
he’s my only friend in life you know
i watch him i’m not allowed to enter the garden
i’m afraid they stole him the name is tiger
Life is not the highest of assets
tiger’s the name tiger tiger

[21.12.1994]34

embassy of our pension, villa aurora in pacific palisades, once home of Lion feuchtwanger and
a meeting place for german émigrés and their american friends during the 1930s and 40s.
müller stayed there in 1994–95.

162
pier paolo pasolini

fragment to death

i come from you and go to you,

a feeling born with the light, with the heat
which aroused the first cry as joy
i, baptized and known as pier paolo,
at the beginning of a restless epic:
i walked into the light of history
but was always heroic under your dominion:
my being you my innermost thought.
in your path of light,
in the horrific uncertainties
of your flame, the course
of the world, of history:
and in your light it truly existed,
it lost life so as to win it back:
and life really only existed when it was beautiful . . .
first the urge to confess
then the fury of clarity,
which came from you, a wrong, dark
feeling! and now
they also love vilifying each of my passions,
besmirching me, calling me degenerate,
perverse, possessed, dilettantish and perjurious:
you especially make me, give me that confidence to survive:
i am on the funeral pyre, playing the trump card of the flames
and win this, my minimal
inner happiness, win this infinitely
miserable pity, which makes a friend for me:
my righteous anger
as i have suffered you so much.
i come back, come home to you
the way one returns to the village of an emigrant, and rediscovers it:
i have made my fortune (in spirit)
and am happy the way i

163
once was, released from being coerced.
in my breast a black rage, poetry.
a demented old age in adolescence.

once your joy was mixed

with horror, so it was, but now
it is with this other joy, darker
and nearly dryer: my disappointed passion.
now you truly strike me with terror,
for now you are really by me, enclosed
in my anger, my dark
hunger, my fear—you are almost a new life.

i am sound, as you would have me,

the neurosis puts forth its branches from me
i am desiccated with exhaustion, but
it does not have me: beside me
laughs the last glow of youth.
i have everything that i ever wanted:
i have gone further than certain hopes
for the world: you
are now drained here inside me, you fill
my time and these times.
i was rational and
irrational: both to the core.
but now . . . oh, desert, dazed
by the wind, by that gorgeous and dirty
african sun, which illuminates the earth.

africa! the one way

left to me . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
.......................

[1994/95]35

Fragment to death, a translation of müller’s german rendering of pasolini’s 1958 poem

‘frammento alla morte’.

164
 PART THREE

Unpublished Verse
(1945–1995)
baLL sonnet
music turns green in the hall. a faint stench
ever so blends in, indefinable,
for everyone has suddenly lost face.
the pimply whores smile languidly, sickly.
the dance numbers beat themselves to a pulp.
they are like beasts, intense. his breath came deep
as her leg wrapped around him spiderlike,
until she, inside a small cloud, felt a need . . .
to go well beyond the door, the one all fogged
as he made love to her under a thin moon,
someone had to puke distressed by the schnapps.
in the ballroom another spitefully cuts
the air into hard little evil pieces
and goes, for he sees himself as vacant space.

[1945–47]36

this poem may refer to a dancehall that müller recalled in the resort town of waren
near berlin, during the immediate postwar, Jahr null period, a blend of ‘the end-time
and carnival’. as it often happened at the ‘dance palace’, the toilets became clogged,
forcing dancers to relieve themselves outdoors. once, when müller attempted to defecate
in the bushes, two russian military police caught him and forced him to pull up his
pants and go back to the dance.

167
cultural outing to chemnitz
(Flower of Hawaii )

we had to do something
cultural once,
we thought.
what now?
we were at a loss.
Just what would we do?
then some tickets were purchased.
(we had to race to the station.)
we wanted to pick flowers in chemnitz.
and The Flower of Hawaii in fact.
nothing against operetta!
but if the soubrette
had only not been gap-toothed.
the screeching (pardon: the singing!) was still bearable.
but those who sang—the cast!
they were either underfed
or too fat.
only the make-up was
chic
to the far side of us bread and butter was consumed,
apparently well attended.

[late 1940s]37

Flower of Hawaii, or Die Blume von Hawaii (1931), an operetta about the fall of the
last queen of hawaii, Lili‘uokalani, by the hungarian Jewish composer paul abraham
(1892–1960).

168
aLbum verse, 1948

1
you drunk from the moonlight coupling on the park benches
why, when the parks are drowning (perhaps) with love and moon
in the coming flood?
2
all of you just calmly browse the flowery edges of life
(very well, why not, who is going to make life bitter)
sip lemonade, amid the effulgence of the thunder
until death glazes your view and the still-fissured cities.

[late 1940s]

169
a brief hymn (in winter)

you whip the world with anguish

so you must go and pray
in forests which stand
leafless in the vast cold.
the forests are made
of silence and branches
when the sky is bare-boned
and cold and lets you
see its bright expanses,
then you must scream, scream loud!
perhaps it is terrified
of your screaming and imploring.

[late 1940s / 1950]

170
epitaph
for
bao dai

hey, can you swim, bao dai?

hats off, sir!
the dew beads red.
a shark drifts with the other corpses.
the moon is on high.
hail to the vietminh!

[late 1940s / before march 1951]38

Bao Dai (1913–97), the last emperor of vietnam, whose abdication in august 1945 was
a boon to the independent democratic republic of vietnam, for it conferred on ho
chi minh considerably more legitimacy to the people of vietnam than the french colo-
nial and the us-supported governments in saigon in the late 1960s.

171
in the defeated cities:
emaciated sheep brushed white
with the moon’s milk. the fear fair-haired
in the frost of nocturnal animal calls.
hate befalls the streets.
in the squares a shadow
spreads red: blood from yesterday’s
stone heart: the future looms
with the final storms.
with the gusting wind
the dead blow in the window,
banging, when are they forgotten.
the night has you
you have tempted the night.
tomorrow ripens: your hand seeks
dream-heavy fruit.

[late 1940s / early 1950s]

172
[the Liberated]

1
they heaped stones on us, but that made our shoulders
no stronger, that we would have it easier.
it was said of our groaning: nothing but lies!
it was said that to be cheap in their markets
was commendable, and someday it would be
worth our while. and we decided that in view
of the muzzles of their cannons, not in light
of the weight, not to spare ourselves in bowing.
2
sometimes we still catch ourselves in bowing down
before a stool which is no longer there now.
while dust has long since drifted over the stones
nevertheless their shadows make us bend our backs.
we are learning slowly, like this new child—
who once lived where night was without end
unknowing, such that the roof of the sky always covered—
very slowly that day’s here, river and wind.

[1951]39

The Liberated, supplied from an earlier draft.

cheap in their markets, to the young heiner müller, the german proletariat had willingly
submitted to the nazis (his father being a prime example).

173
spring song in winter

in the winter you shouldn’t wear a hat.

snow falls in your hair, you barely feel it too,
slowly without stopping, turning to water
on your skin and so it becomes what it was.
this is the way you feel it, that it’s there and
how very fleeting it is and must disperse.
when you have felt it, it’s already water.
but you can feel it for a little while.

[december 1951]

174
bremen nursery rhyme, 1952

anyone with a face left

can see their armies.
anyone for not losing it
won’t believe his eyes!

[1952]40

during 1952, both west and east germany were re-arming and being incorporated into
nato and the warsaw pact, respectively.

175
remarKs for a generaL contract

who has no work

finds his livelihood
shooting
at workers.
fields
taken from farmers
shall be fertilized
with farmers.
children
shall be saved
from communism
with bombs.
the world shall be saved
from communism.
the world shall be destroyed.
the people
won’t be asked.
but they answer.

[1952]

176
eastern eXperience
he who set forth to conquer the east
easily, like the eater the meal
where is he?
he is
beaten. the meal
has beaten the eater.

[early 1950s]41

He, adolf hitler.

177
on the taboo of virginity

for this bit of skin in the way of pleasure

such an array of virtue, such a fuss!
who doesn’t lose hers in a bridal bed doesn’t lie
in a bridal bed. unless for money.
but they also say: what has a foot done
that hasn’t pulled on enough boots to see how they feel
a man’s no man if he doesn’t break ground!
(have no fear! the only danger will be to the sheets.)
so a man proves himself to a women
dropping the untrieds’ number with study
for the one prize in the end: the one untried.
what makes him stupid: not knowing eaters
should always praise the meal more than the cook
because cooking is far more fun than eating.

[1952]

178
gaLotti
here you see a one of the nobility
impoverished his money gone but still noble
he knows no reproach can touch the lusty prince
princes have the power if they’re reckless
it’s not recklessness but it might suit this one
that his shield should be tarnished dutifully
he runs his dagger right through the wrong breast
he might does feel sorry the girl won’t let him
the victim lies which is honour enough
for the villain who by his villainy
calls the police to prove the villain right
enough of a hero to defend his right
he bends blood on hand servant among servants
the knee dutiful even if in discontent

[1952]42

gaLotti, after Emilia Galotti (1958), an east german film based on the 1772 play by
gotthold ephraim Lessing (1729–1781). the poem meditates on the morality of the
honour killing of emelia galotti by her father odoardo to prevent her from becoming
the mistress of a corrupt prince.

179
address to a soLdier of the european army

you who shall conquer the east

for the conquerors
who have conquered you and everything that is yours
when you march, pull your coat on tighter!
attacking realize
that there are defenders!
whatever you attack
field, village, factory or dam
it will be defended
their builders stand ready.
who drives the tractor
can drive the tank
Likewise.
who carries a spade
Knows his rifle.
every patch of grass trampled
by your boots
will be avenged.

[early 1950s]43

european army, a us-backed nato initiative in the early 1950s to counter the
soviet union and its satellites.

180
the man in the bomber
who drops bombs
over the enemy’s city
on christmas eve
perhaps thinks about the tree
there at home
around which the children stand
perhaps he thinks about that
when he drops the bombs
but you
you who are there at home
underneath the tree
around which the children stand
think about the man in the bomber
who drops the bombs
over the enemy’s city
on christmas eve
you must think about him
because you are there at home
underneath the tree
around which the children stand.

[early 1950s]

181
portrait of gen. ridgway

paging through a magazine i find

a picture of the butcher.
he smiles, his teeth bared
for the smile as if for prey.
his wife at his shoulder, a mask
of smiling. smiling
too his child.
triple the happiness.
triple the satisfaction.
triple the smile.
paging on i see his
subordinates killing children
on his orders.

[early 1950s]44

ridgway, general matthew bunker ridgway (1895–1993), was a senior officer in the
us army. he served as the supreme allied commander in europe from 1952 to 1953,
relieving dwight d. eisenhower for the latter’s successful run for the us presidency.

182
songs of the homeLess

1
still don’t have anywhere to sit.
nobody will let me sit.
the chair gets pulled out from under my rear.
under the sky i must spend the winter
sometimes i would find a place to sit
they would have to, i would think, let me sit.
they pull the chair out from under my rear.
under the sky i must spend the winter.

2
we lie in the street
in the wind, the cold.
while we’re left to lie here
they get to sit on chairs.

[1952]

183
the peasants before their transport to the court

we don’t know how many lashes

the high court intends for us. for
the rulers know: the bleeding man
can no longer see injustice.
but he doesn’t remain blind for ever.
the one lashed forgets
the lash rather than he who lashes. thus
sit unsure the
dreaded ones, dreading
in the shadow of the knife.
pu songLing

[1952]

184
pu songLing

slaughtering piglets

when the government’s supreme sages

visit our spring planting
we slaughter the youngest pigs.
half the pigsty doesn’t sate
the very worthy officials.
the piglets will be eaten.
the taxes will be raised.

[early 1950s]

185
the fLag

1
of those who set forth on this path, only
a few see the goal. those who reach it
are many, but someone else.
2
he, who has the boot in his face, can
barely see the red dawn. he who lies
on the ground firmly holds the flag upright . . .
3
but it has this class, more faces
than there are boots in the world and
the blood in the face of the fallen
only makes the red flag easier to see

[early 1950s]

186
the mother of the high traitor, 1940

1
anna simon, your son
is convicted of high treason.
anna simon, the executioner’s axe
is cold.
the smoke rises
grey from the food.
in the cookpot fire
burns.
2
beg for him, anna simon
maybe he’ll be spared.
the smoke rises
grey from the food.
in the cookpot fire
burns.
3
if i wash the blood
from the executioner’s hand
who’s spared then?
the smoke rises
grey from the food.
in the cookpot fire
burns.

[early 1950s]

187
two stars

1
a star has been discovered
somewhere in the darkness.
what was seemed to get better.
the morning seemed not far.
the star didn’t last,
what its light had promised.
the world remained as of old,
and there came nothing after.
it didn’t keep the freezing warm.
the wind blew with the cold.
sadly, a star gone astray—
who knows where it is now?
2
a star has been discovered
just in the nick of time.
what is will get better.
the morning isn’t far.
the star has lasted,
what its light promised.
the world didn’t remain as of old.
something comes afterwards.
it warms those who are freezing
the wind has shifted direction.
whereby no star goes astray,
one that stands on earth.

[early 1950s]

188
good, to go
against the wind or
in the rain
to a door which opens for me
when i knock.

[early 1950s]

189
you happily let yourselves float in your rivers
during the summertime, when the sky burns.
in the rain you ask: how long will it keep
forgetting: it is the water you know.

may 1953

190
the trees are more visible than the forest.

you look at the little thieves, thieves

of silver tableware. with a finger
point them
out.
see the thieves of the nations stealing the freedom
of continents.
buying they steal.
in the canyons
of city’s outskirts murderers will be
pursued
unrelentingly out of necessity.
the murderers at the conference table
murderers from an excess of murderers
who beats chases kills them?

[early 1950s]

191
nursery rhyme
about a dead man
in a thick fog

everyone of you saw him

you covered by your roofs
standing stiff in the thick fog
from two holes in his head.
everyone knows what happened:
he’s not the only one,
but he stands for many there.
nobody can help him.
do not look down and keep straight
it can cost you your life.
for the one who murdered him
has a high position.

[early 1950s]

192
the sapLing which is smaLL
you have to be its friend.
so you don’t blow away
in the wind, which blows cold!
in summer, which gets hot:
happy is he who knows a shade tree!

[c.1953]

193
nursery rhyme
antiquity
the campaign is at an end
the hands are still empty
we have neither table nor walls
but troy is no more.
middLe ages
a dog on the high road
that was run over.
its life was hard
now nothing more can hurt him.
now it simply sleeps
in the bosom of abraham.
a calf on the high road
behind the butcher
he strikes it one time
then nothing more can hurt it.
then it simply sleeps
in the bosom of abraham.
a child on the high road
who’s overcome by cold.
its life was not easy
now nothing more can hurt it.
now it simply sleeps
in the bosom of abraham.
a child, a calf, a dog
stretched out on the high road
by wheel and axe and snow.
i ask: is that good for you?
how large, i simply ask
is the bosom of abraham?
modern times
my child, just sleep
close your little eyes!
the neighbour hangs from the tree
you get to have some plums.

[early 1950s]

194
riddLe

your stomach is a full stomach

mine is an empty one.
an empty or a full stomach—
which likely as not weighs more?

[early 1950s]

195
question

why do the little people die?

what have the great ones done?

[early 1950s]

196
driving by
past chaotic heaps of debris
Leafing through the survivors in the biographies
of generals.

[1953–54]

197
in the hothouse
the butchers sit.
no longer dreaded, but
visible.

[early 1950s]45

butchers, refers to former nazi militarists, officers and the like. see also ‘about some
drummers’, p. 207.

198
on the pLatform
three birds.
small, unmoved
by the train’s din.

[early 1950s]

199
her sons feLL
in the uniform of the butchers.
she worships the bloody ones.

[early 1950s]

200
Love poem

alone
Like a freighter without freight.
me: a sail without wind.

[early 1950s]

201
1
i found and broke off many flowers
and they soon withered away.
Long did i not find the one
which is blossoming for me.
and while i only looked for it
it simply waited for me.
neither of us knew the other.
it grows in a strange garden now.
it grows in a strange garden and
still it is blossoming for me.
Lovelier than all those i found and broke
and neither does it wither.
2
i will dig it up by the roots
and plant it in my garden.
then i won’t have to search any more.
then it never needs to wait.

[early 1950s]

202
who showed us one another
who lay next to each other
the moon inside of two days
you who were curved towards us
we haven’t noticed the moon
we lay inside your light
thus in the course of two days
your coming and your going
for we see nothing at all
thus do we know in lying
underneath the drifting clouds
that we have too noticed you

[early 1950s]

203
taLKing about some beautifuL things

1
isn’t the sky wonderful?
the trees: vast fabrications
(the pines are the most beautiful,)
and the girls with their high
breasts, for which there is no rhyme.
2
when it concerns the sky
much of what comes from above
explodes on impact.
nothing against pines.
you can’t have it all
when it involves girls.

[early 1950s]

204
from the forests

1
in the morning you must look at your forests too
turning green: the sun shines upon them.
you must look up, up into the highest treetops
should the wind blow. into the sky too, turning blue.
2
don’t forget to praise the leafless tree as well:
it has no more foliage, however, in a year
it is once more filled with leaves as it was.
the wind blows above its treetop too.

[early 1950s]

205
our love is strong
like fire.
Like the fog which haunts the asphalt cities
like the sun before which the landscapes are naked
like the moon spins over the city squares
like the wind: that drummer in the trees
like the forest from which coffins are made

[early 1950s]

206
about some drummers

who drum in the hothouse

who dispensed death
a thousandfold
fat fingers trembling over the table
fat fingers drumming on the table
fear drums like this.

[early 1950s]

207
between two blasted walls
they lay.
they made themselves small
so that no fire found them.

[early 1950s]

208
my father walked into a movie theatre
when the war began.
my father, he had to come out—
my mother fell in a movie theatre.46

[early 1950s]

My mother fell, perhaps ironical. as Leni riefenstahl points out in her memoirs
(Memorien, 1987), the german cinema of the second world war featured mostly banal
and escapist fare intended by the nazi regime to make the german people forget about
the hardship of the war.

209
standing outside the slaughterhouse i heard the cows
which bellow loud with enormous eyes under the axe blow.
and i shed a tear for the cows
standing outside the slaughterhouse in shoes made of cowhide.

[early 1950s]

210
between the scaffolds and ruined walls
it was evening, when i held your hand.
between the ruined walls and scaffolds
i kissed your red lips.

[early 1950s]

211
it was summer and it was noon
when we sat on the mountainside.
it was summer and the mountainside.
i put my hand on her breast.
then we left the mountainside.
but the cold forest wasn’t cold
to us and the rough bed of leaves
and branches weren’t rough to us.

[early 1950s]

212
he whom i carried in my body
carries the flag no more.
and i haven’t prayed for him
for i loved him too much.

[early 1950s]

213
the horse has no rifLe

(8th august. the) dog day sun

heats the cobblestones. towards noon
hoof beats. stone thuds.
‘who rides?’ ‘a horse, alone?’
pedestrians fleeing. a hero:
a walking stick against a horse’s hooves!
behind the windowpanes are
open mouths: a horse. indeed.
running wild.
how?
a horse dies
on the cobblestones.
‘what missed him?’
‘a rifle.’
(Laughter)

[early 1950s]

214
1
i knew an old dapple grey, which
pulled a wagon with beer for the people
until yesterday. now he pulls no more
there’s nothing more of him since yesterday.
2
early today around eight someone shouted
and i saw people running into their houses.
then i heard the horse alone in the street
there was nothing more to know.

3
this wagon, which he pulled
with our beer, so where is he now?
the people asked. what flew through the street
was a horse no more, said the people.

4
from then on the gendarmes had no problem
with that horse, because they were borne
by horses. now there’s no longer a dapple grey.
another horse pulls the beer wagon.

[1953]

215
six years, so that nothing failed their masters
they marched obediently, bloody and blind.
Liberated (from blindness too?) they looked closely
for whether a hair could be found in the soup.

[early 1950s]47

hair, the irony of those east germans who made petty complaints against communism
vis-à-vis their loyalty to the nazis.

216
a bastard who just leaves his lover
sitting because she has lice. did i? i did.
a hungry man, i found some hair in my soup,
‘send it back to the kitchen!’ did i? no.

[early 1950s]

217
your hunger burns bad, soldier.
do you have some bread in your pack, soldier?
fine was the night.
but morning fell
over the stars hard.
drunk was the night.
don’t cry, child, the larder’s bare
your bread, eaten up.
Long was the night.

[early 1950s]

218
critique

1
from your desK
you have Lost sight
of the cLass.

the class has lost

sight of me
i move forward.
they fall behind.
LooK up from under
what you have put above.
Leave your desK.
what do you see?

nothing new.
step out of the car
grab the shovel
what do you see?
the class
has overtaken me.
you need to catch up to them.
move faster:you need them.
move faster:you must Lead them.
they need you.

[early 1950s]48

Critique, i.e. of a schoolteacher by the party.

219
thirty-one
they don’t stand there like recruits, parallel
they just grow, which suits me better, crooked.
they were white once. that was long ago.
but when they start to bite, they hit the mark.
they are worth more to me than thirty gold ones
the thirty-one. (a shame that one’s missing,
which rotted too soon—o glory of the world!)
i hope i take a dozen to the grave.
enough to rise into heaven. for they
are strong, these teeth, which i have in my mouth
reliable and they never failed me.
but i still ask (i’d almost forgotten)
why not one of them lent me its sharpness
for one last wish: o if i could eat iron!

[early 1950s]49

The thirty-one . . . one’s missing, which equals thirty-two, alludes to the number of adult
teeth.
Glory of the World, from the Latin phrase Sic transit gloria mundi.

220
baLLad of the striKebreaKer

My mother who slaughtered me

My father who devoured me
My sister little Marlene
Looks for all my little bones . . .
and when they said: you bring grenades
the workers are on strike. that said: no.
my father sat before the empty bread bin early.
he said: i will not be a traitor.
my mother pointed at me: will you betray that man?
my playmates said to me
that i was the son of a traitor.
i saw their shirts, which had patches
and i saw my shirt, which was new.
then i said: he didn’t betray me.
and i laughed at my playmates.
but i didn’t get to laugh long.
their shirts were grey, which they put on
and the slaughter was pretty bad.
then i asked: did my father betray me?
and i asked my same mates in the war:
you realize that someone betrayed us?
this was when as i fell into the pit, which
my father had dug for me.
who, asked those of who were left: who betrayed us?

[1953/54]50

My mother who slaughtered me . . . little bones, from philipp otto runge’s fairy tale ‘the
Juniper tree’ (Von dem Machandelboom).

221
Legend of the dead miLKman

1
a milkman, with the devil on his back,
sold a half litre of milk
to a washerwoman on credit
and then died. he seemed to be bitter.
2
the matter bothered him to the bone
he arose to take care of business.
and neither earth nor tombstone helped.
the milkman’s corpse began to wander.
3
on the third day he marched tall—
stinking as well and not just a little—
off to that offending washerwoman
to demand her seven pfennigs.

[early 1950s]

222
fairy taLe

once there was a fisherman, who

fished in grim waters (long ago)
the pond got grimmer, the catch large.
he fished for seven years.
seven years and many, many more.
then came an expert on the subject
who built a sewage-treatment plant.
this put our man in question.
the question didn’t remain open long:
the grim fisherman has drowned.

[early 1950s]

223
Legend of a dead general

the little people wanted a bit of happiness—

and the fish love the sea—
then some people felt the wind at their back,
and they cried: we have to have an army!
the general cried out for drums,
a child beat a drum.
do you feel the wind at your back, general?
a child battered the drum.
the drumming stopped and not one soldier
reported for duty
ah perhaps the dead will serve
from the deepest reaches of hell.
they crawled up in the morning haze
from grave and crater bed,
shot through to pieces marching like never
before with skeletons drifting.
many tailcoats came forward as well,
from this and that concern
they talked the people into
fending off the red menace.
glory is eternal, crowed one tailcoat
and: once won’t hurt for freedom and justice
and: it’s cheap for you and for me it’s right
and: only vermin thrive in peace.
you get your own uniform too . . .
the dead smiled wanly.
the world was cold and the wind enormous
and the sky above was barren.
they moved closer, a silent curse
silently and without footsteps.
overhead, the flags snapped
moving with the sky.

224
the general saw grey faces:
Just branches filled the sky.
nothing was behind it.
this nothing was what remained.
and this nothing fell upon the tailcoats,
and upon the general too.
the dead arched above him
a grave vault made of bones.

[early 1950s]

225
the red parrot

a gift was brought to me from annam

red like a peach blossom, talking
in a human tongue. as always with the wise, the eloquent
they locked it up
in a cage with strong bars.

bai Juyi
[early 1950s]51

Annam, vietnam.
Bai Juyi (c.772–846), chinese poet of the tang dynasty (618–907) who rejected the
courtly style and used elegant, simple verse to protest against the social evils of his day.

226
tree pruning

before my window trees stand, hindering

my view of the green mountains. thus,
one morning, i took axe and knife and
trimmed away the foliage. ten thousand leaves
fell. a thousand mountains arose
before my gaze. so it is: good is not achieved
by good. indeed i loved
the green of the trees. but the green of mountains
i loved more.

after bai Juyi

[early 1950s]

227
three foLK songs

1
i’m lying on the pillow at the north window.
come and play with me!
be smart, learn the games of lovers!
if the sky remained the same, wouldn’t you be tired of it?
2
i put on my robe, but not the sash.
with painted eyes i stepped to the open window.
when the silk is in motion, it is less a bother.
when it opens, i say: it was the wind.
3
when my lover rode away to yangchow
i could accompany him to mountains of chu.
as he embraced me in farewell
i thought, stop the river from flowing.

[early 1950s]52

adapted from arthur waley’s Chinesische Lyrik aus zwei Jahrtausenden [chinese poems
from two thousand years] (1951).

228
early today to the hunt rode shu.
no man is left in our street.
yes, many men are in our street.
but no one is quite like shu.
off on a boar hunt rode shu.
no man drinks wine in our street.
yes, many men drink wine in our street.
but no one drinks quite like shu.
into the wild forest rode shu.
no man rides through our street.
yes, many men ride through our street.
but no one rides quite like shu.

[early 1950s]53

adapted from waley’s Chinesische Lyrik.

229
mr chu defends his property

1
mr chu wanted to build a hut
when he found his axe no more.
then he watched mr chin and thought:
who has stolen it? that’s who.
2
and he stopped looking.
he watched mr chin early and late.
he thought: his face is an axe thief ’s
he walks like an axe thief walks.
3
then he found his axe again.
there where he left it lying:
then he grabbed it firmly and said
to himself this:
4
chin’s face is an axe thief ’s
chin walks like an axe thief walks!
brother chu, if your axe is dear to you
you know what is at stake!
5
deciding to win what was at stake
he didn’t hesitate and went forth
with the axe and with that axe smashed
in mr chin’s skull.

[early 1950s]54

after the parable attributed to the daoist philosopher Liezi, or master Lie, of the
hundred schools of thought (c. 5th century bce).

230
mr chu and his monKeys

mr chu had seven monkeys

and he fed them twice a day.
while they were eating, he could see:
that their hunger was untold.
then there came an increase in price.
and that meant: hunger, leave me in peace!
then the seven cried out for food.
then mr chu spoke to them.
‘Know, brothers, that the times are bad
and that fodder’s very scarce.
that you are hungry nonetheless
of course, is quite clear.
it’s hard to provide food for eight!
but i can guarantee you
three sheaves of straw in the morning
and with evening four
i cannot provide you with any more.
have you enough inside there?’
‘no,’ exclaimed the seven monkeys
and they saw he was hungry.
‘well,’ said mr chu, ‘you shall live!’
(he was shaking as he did)
‘i will provide you with four sheaves then
mornings and evenings three.
i cannot provide you with any more.
will that be enough?’
‘yes,’ exclaimed the seven monkeys
and thus were they happy and content.

[early 1950s]

231
mr chin and the gods

mr chu had a withered tree as well

in his garden. which no longer bore fruit.
then mr chin told him over the fence
it would be good to chop down the tree
as a withered tree would bring misfortune.
then mr chu chopped down the withered tree
for he very much feared the gods.
then mr chin came to him from over the fence
and asked that the tree be entrusted to him.
he no longer had wood to make a fire.

[early 1950s]

232
dear son, join the bundeswehr
then you can learn discipline
army regulations and herr corporal
that will teach you discipline.
dear mother, when i lie in a hero’s grave
then you can learn discipline
you can come and sort through my bones
that will teach you discipline.

[after 1953]55

Bundeswehr, the federal defence force, or the west german army, founded in november
1955 to honour its commitment to nato. east germany responded in march 1956,
forming its national people’s army (Nationale Volksarmee).

233
marceau

humanly performing
for his human audience
on a lit stage, he resembles
everyone and no one. he wears a mask, one that
reveals.

[1953 or later]56

marcel marceau (1923–2007), the french mime and actor; best known for his stage
persona, bip the clown.

234
this one and that

this one and that cried out

foaming at the mouth
against the dead man from gori.
what does the foam hide?

[1953]57

Gori, the birthplace of Joseph stalin, who died in 1953, when this lyric was composed.

235
a girL going to fetch water
this thing wore only a thin blouse
the sun seemed to pass through it
early at the cool fountain.
i saw her going to the water again
and had already seen more of her
in the moon at the cool fountain
as by day in the sun.

[1953]

236
during the first night the rain came down.
during the second night the wind in the pines fell from the south.
the sun rose for us during the third night.

[1954 or later]

237
the rain
has let up. beyond the trees
floats the last cloud, red.

[1954 or later]

238
maybe the sky above was entirely blue.
but the side of a house stood there at the window
which made it so that you saw no sky
from there, where i lay with this woman.
maybe her face was bright and friendly.
it lay in the shadows, so i didn’t see it.
as it would be for me who lay by her, except
that her sex which was dark and in the light.

[1954 or later]

239
the sun was shining as we Kissed, but
Lying underneath this tree i
heard the wind already rising vast and cool in the
thick foliage between earth and sky.

[may 1954]

240
1
there is the bridge
and i see you walking
across planks made of wood.
three are missing in the middle.
i put out my hand for you
and you don’t see it.
you see the water under you
and the wind, which is strong.
then my hand trembles
in the middle between water
and wind.
and there is the bridge. i. s.
2
Looking into the water i saw
your eyes looking for me. there
i found myself. and i feared the wind
no more. it bore us
who held on to each other’s hand. h. m.

9 november 195458

I.S., inge schwenker, second wife of müller, had composed at least 300 verses in her
lifetime; only a few were ever published, a majority of which appear in the anthology
of east german poets, In diesem besseren Land (1966).

241
sleep, tuppa, quickly
the sandman lifts his trowel
outside in the tree
waits a dream
seven stars with monkey’s teeth
ride a roller coaster in the sky
the sandman lifts his trowel
sleep tuppa, quickly
(here and now)

[after 1954]59

Tuppa, an interchangeable sobriquet for inge and heiner müller which acknowledges
their collaborative relationship.

242
duet for tuppa + pepe

t sleep, pepe, under the green blanket

in your bird house.
when the stars are hiding behind the sun
i’ll let you out again.
p sleep, tuppa, under your white blanket
and dream of the green forest
you conduct a vast choir of birds
we sing so loud that it echoes.

[after 1954]

243
no poem tonight
did he-tuppa write
neither does he tomorrow
if she-tuppa won’t sleep
now i’ll still owe 30
oh tuppa get busy.
for 3,000 nights times 3
there’re 3,000 kinds of verse.

[after 1954]60

3,000 nights times 3, the number 3 may refer to the number of times a married couple
should have intercourse according to various sex manuals and studies.

244
the sun has gone to sleep.
the wind has gone to sleep
she-tuppa lies likewise
zzz zzz zzz.

[after 1954]

245
onetimesone + abc
the forest is of wood, the snow from water
the night from day + day from night
she-tuppa is made out of he-tuppa.

[after 1954]

246
your eyes are like the water
which comes from the mountains: translucent.
but there is
visible a sadness too: shadows
of unnecessary trees.
axes
help then.

[after 1954]

247
riddLe

my father has two legs

there’s one made of wood.
he got it from the war: now guess:
on which one is he proud?

[after 1954]

248
germany, 1945

STREET SCENE

a coffin on a handcart.
a child on the drawbars.

249
STREET SONG

the butcher shop up in flames

the hams hung in the smoke.
when the smoke had flown away
the hams had done as well.

250
ROMANCE

she stood at her mother’s grave

and with easter water washed
the blood from her hands
and bared her breasts.61

Easter water, the water gathered by young girls on easter morning to ensure marriage,
fertility, beauty and so on. the ‘easter water’ quatrain appears in ‘denazification, 1945’
on the following page, in which this ‘rite’ alludes more to the rapes of german women
and girls by soldiers of the red army in april–may 1945.

251
Denazification, 1945

the sky has clouds

the shooting has an end.
she stood at her mother’s grave.
with easter water she washed
the blood from her hands.
she bared her breasts.
the tanks stand still
anything with legs runs.
she stood at her mother’s grave
with easter water she washed
the blood from her hands.
she bared her breasts.

252
LANTERN SONG
outside the house burns the lantern.
the house flies away, the light goes out.
Lantern
sun, moon and stars.
what follows the lantern
and looks like a soldier?
Lantern
sun, moon and stars.
outside the house is a lantern.
my father, who comes home soon.
Lantern
sun, moon and stars.

[early to mid-1950s]

253
the big p
or, a request to think of pleasure

what dangles between your legs

men isn’t exactly a bayonet.
and it can do more than just pass water
when it isn’t dangling, but standing tall.
a spear, to impale tribulation
so keep it ready, keep it sharp
a thing that gives pleasure. when you use it
don’t just think of its own needs!
you only have your face because of a mirror.
and ask yourself before you pleasure it:
what will this pleasure cost? and you mustn’t
run blindly into every open hole,
not only can you burn your fingers
and who gets it regrets it. think about that too!

[after 1954]

254
first suggestion for improvement

there is a lack of paper as well

surfaces (walls, sides of buildings, wooden fences, etc.)
which could be hung
with banners.
one should
come up with a process which makes it possible
to conspicuously label the foliage of trees leaf for leaf,
with familiar slogans
Like: i’m growing ahead of schedule to celebrate the 31st of february.
the familiar slogans
become more familiar
the relationship of the masses to trees
would become greater. coniferous forests
could then be cut down being unnecessary
and used for the production
of paper.

[after 1954]

255
second suggestion for improvement

the torture of people, in which a hole is drilled

into tooth or jaw, could be alleviated if
an apparatus were installed in dentist’s drills
which plays
a new song for the torture victim
for example: the young guard Laughs courageously
or
fritz the tractor driver.

[after 1954]62

The Young Guard Laughs Courageously and Fritz the Tractor Driver, popular 1950s east
german songs which encouraged singers and listeners to emulate a heroic young com-
munist soldier or a collective farmworker, respectively.

256
chronicLe

1
our mothers still stood by machines
with pregnant bellies. the racket
of those machines went through us, unborn like
a heartbeat inflicting pain. in the womb
we were owned by the machines that our mothers didn’t
own.
2
our fathers didn’t know how to win.
wrangling over words they were defeated
with weapons.
3
we, the sons of the defeated, gorged ourselves
on the bread of defeat. we marched
the streets of betrayal, we very obediently
bore arms. shooting
targets.

[early to mid-1950s]

257
berLin eLegies

1
the forests are felled, those steaming
under the flock of birds. over the cities
the sky is not bright. through it
fly deadly black swarms.
the forests fell under the axe. steel
fells the cities. the forest grows
in the sons of the woodcutters.
7
osthaven: four in the morning. from the scaffold
Light falls on the rubble. two stand in the street
and are one shadow before the cracked wall.
i walk past. they kiss. Long afterwards
while looking back on my return i see them
Like that between the ruined wall and the scaffold.
i walk through the park, preoccupied
with a verse directed at a bad habit
of singing sad songs.
a young man is sitting on a bench.
i listen to him
singing a song with a ringing voice.
crossing the street i hear
bright in the sound of so many vehicles, a whistle.
an old man stands at the edge of the road
an elderberry leaf between his lips.
he blows.
in passing i tap my forehead with a finger.
he nods to me
graciously.

[early to mid-1950s]63

Osthaven, a berlin neighbourhood on the river spree.

258
Lear
he steps down from the throne, regards himself tall
he has erected his own monument
stands on the earth, which bottomlessly
spins beneath this monument of flesh that falls.
rain washes over him. then he remarks: this is no joke.
he roars, stretched over corpses. no coffin remains empty.
above the fool’s babble fLesh begets carrion
Laughter of locomotives. he no longer hears it.

[mid-1950s]

259
a fish carcass with a silver belly
bulged around the charred body, drifting
towards the sea in the fire-eating river
a fleet of meat rotting amid the smoke.
at the helm hamlet, son of a good house
has no nose for incinerated flesh.

[mid-1950s]64

drafted under the title ‘opheLia’.

260
reutlingen elegies

1
we don’t kill flies for the stains left on the wallpaper.
we tip the hat for anyone who kicks us in the ass.
unless he is barefoot.
in the evening we buy cinema tickets:
red Lips. blue beans.
one mark centre two, side balcony.
where bolsheviks sit on the throne
man is not even half as free.
2
we haven’t read The Sorrows of Young Werther.
what is goethe to us, a man, no faster than a post horse!
or Kant, for example—if he met us on the road,
what would he, following this encounter, refute from the impact of
our fast cars?
our cars go faster than any thought.
(we say: the dead must come up on their own.)
in a parking space too, cornered in the nightmare of a knife thrower,
surrounded by armed pedestrians, shouting: get off.

[mid-1950s]65

Reutlingen, city and district in the swabian region of southwest germany. müller
channels not only swabian prejudice (in german humour, swabians are not unlike the
american ‘booboisie’) but also his resentment over his father who lived in reutlingen
after leaving east germany for the west in 1951.
Red Lips. Blue Beans. Rote Lippen–blaue Bohnen, the german title of the 1955 french noir
film Vous pigez (literally, ‘get it’; dubbed in english as Diamond Machine).the titular ‘blue
beans’ is slang for synthetic diamonds and sapphires.
nightmare . . . pedestrians, a similar line occurs in the fourth act of Hamletmachine.

261
bunchuK
(after sholokhov)

put away the revolver.your wife

waits with everything you love.you’ve shot
three peasants today, adversaries with
hands calloused from heavy work. Kept
in ignorance by your and their
mortal enemy they have for bread ripped up
the rails ahead of the armoured train.
if you must KiLL no more, honour those
who must KiLL those LiKe you as weLL.
put away the revolver. your wife
waits with everything you love. why
fail your flesh.you haven’t failed.

[1956]66

Sholokhov, mikhail sholokhov (1905–84), russian novelist and author of the four-
volume epic And Quiet Flows the Don (1925–40) as well as other works about the don
cossacks during the russian revolution and civil war.

262
faLstaff’s epitaph
nothing was spoilt
that came before his mouth. before he died
he sunk his teeth into the stone of the city.
then the earth ate him, he wasn’t full.

[mid-1950s]

263
back from the shattered lands the war finally hit
their own, recognized by a few in the glow of
familiar fires
those who finally opened their eyes were hanged by the blind
from the cities’ extinguished lamp posts.
cowards called
the brave a coward who was too late and too early and alone.

[mid-1950s]

264
mother germania between the rhine and elbe
took her wolves once more to her breast
and once more was the whore of corporations
and bared her shame in neon light.

[mid- to late 1950s]

265
portrait of f. b.

1
he did not lie so as to tell lies
Just to keep his position.
(he was slapped in the face
he didn’t fall on his head.)
he spoke the truth
in private gatherings.
until one saw his mouth
the forked tongue inside.
thus was his mouth gagged
with a flag.
(thus did he go where no one’s
mouth is gagged
who keeps his mouth shut.
thus he sits, putting on weight.)
2
it turned out:
that truth funnelled into heads
isn’t the same
as nails pounded into walls.
the hammer is good for the nail
it isn’t good for the truth.

[after 1956]67

f. b., perhaps alluding to an east german bureaucrat.

266
on my wall hangs some paper, newspaper, with no frame
a photograph of bertolt brecht’s death mask.
with the window open describing the struggles of the workers
for power in their country
occasionally looking up i see how the wind stirs his image.

[1957]

267
a farmhand picked up a potato
number 33 and ate it.
the field belonged to a Junker, to the dog
who found what the farmhand did impudent.
he said: i counted the potatoes
and i see you don’t know that’s wrong.
i’ll show you. and he flogged the other’s back.
then the farmhand knew what a farmhand is.
and as it turned out: run, Junker, run
hand over what you own!
and: farmhand, stay here and set yourself up,
thus did the farmhand find it impudent.

[mid-1950s]68

Junker, a noble honorific but also a term of disparagement in east germany for any pri-
vate farmer during the period of agrarian reform when large estates were converted
into collective farms.

268
rammler got up in the night
for one of his sows wandered off.
and when the sow didn’t come back
rammler called his people together
rammler ran to mayor beutler
bacon fell from his pocket as he shouted:
mayor summon the city council
and ever since throughout the nation
dog and child and man and woman searched
for rammler’s missing sow.

[mid- to late 1950s]

269
this is the way to heaven for little money
with skin and hair and flesh, which sweats and weeps.
in the latticework of the breast, as long as it holds
the heart.

[mid- to late 1950s]

270
writing in the open

the birds sing like they do in the spring.

the trees are perfect and the sky.
no wind. Looking up from these sentences, which
you write with a somewhat sure hand on rough
paper you can hardly stand the silence.

20.3.1959

271
sleep, wolfkin, sleep
wolfkin catch a sheep
father hangs in the tree
catch the plums childkin.

[early 1960s]

272
on wednesday after the last shift
we appeared en masse
three marks extra for my motorcycle
i was the pride of the class.
the night was long, on thursday morning
the machines were up
on monday production was running
export to 13 countries.
for socialism and a motorcycle
who has both goes fastest.69

We appeared . . . class, the context is a student brigade of ‘shock workers’ assigned to finish
the construction of a factory.
Three marks . . . motorcycle, the shock workers could earn extra wages, in this case, for
having a motorcycle maximizes the owner’s time and labour commitment.

273
at his smallest scale the thinking man
overcame the storm. then came the calm.
at his greatest scale the thinking man
overcame the calm. (wiped away
will be he who does little. perhaps he who does big
will be wiped away too. perhaps means hope.)
the thinking man sets every sail when
the wind dies. no wind isn’t no wind.

22.4.196270

In his smallest magnitude, a paraphrase of brecht’s formula from The Baden-Baden Lesson
on Consent (1929), essentially, the picaresque wisdom of maintaining a low profile in
resisting authority. this poem was originally dedicated to his friend, the east german
musician, poet, theatre director and dissident wolf biermann, whose work was often
censored.

274
fountain, you that drinks me and makes my face
thirsty mirrored on your surface: lost
when i drink from it, and newly reborn.
sun, you that burns me out in the night.

8.5.1962

275
the agitation (1963)
i’m an iron caster in the r. steelworks.
i said: the economy’s not my concern
it goes on without me in its green future
permit me to show you my workplace.
(the bar counter is brought forward)
please, gentlemen: that was is in the past.
my place of work is in the foundry.
(the bar is taKen away and a cast shop is
brought forward)
who doesn’t have a black mark on the cadre’s record
you might just not lose your head over it.
(i am the living proof of that.
heat makes you thirsty and my work is hot.)
(with every payday i would sign over
my forty per cent. the consequences are inevitable.
and when meat falls under the table and the sausage
runs out and the kids want to bike and have to walk
of course you go and get drunk again
and of course you get thirsty again from drinking.
not to mention some of the agitators
who gave me an earful about morale
until i didn’t know forwards from backwards
and once more hoisted my own flag
and gave in to the power of prayer
until i saw once more how the world turns.)
i have, this isn’t hearsay from a phoney source
poured more schnapps down my throat than steel
into my moulds over the past year
it’s in the newspaper and it’s true.
you won’t believe how much my pay envelope weighs
it bulges in my jacket, but i can afford two tuxes
and would make you think that now they give
bonuses for drinking in the r. steelworks.
my bonus, gentlemen, is my profit
from what i pour into my moulds.
the steel pays off, the schnapps says: pay up
that’s the difference between schnapps and steel.
i wouldn’t have come to that so soon on my own

276
the brigade has got me under control.
they knew: what makes a man is a woman
they came to me through a snowstorm to röderaue
on a sunday between morning and ten
i could barely stand on my legs
sitting at my table and them inside
my wife pouring my coffee. she was all ears
for their sermon. and they calculated
on my newspaper with a long series of numbers
three tons of steel i chased down my throat
three ice boxes, a washing machine and a trabant.
and my wife added it up again in the newspaper margin
one thing leads to another, she’s always saying that
and she added a hundred kilos of coffee in
the plumber and seamless pipe in and kid’s shoes
she even added a vacuum cleaner in
this was too much for my stomach.
the cauldron battle surrounded me for three hours.
during the fourth, i made a sortie.
gentlemen, before your throats run dry
from coffee and since things agitate better
with a bottle, let me go to the cellar and come right back.
the answer was no and a sidelong look
from eight eyes and: sipping the coffee
these hypocrites didn’t turn red either
and then we’ll drink schnapps once more on may day
and the coffee urn will be closed. for i had stiffened my weapon.
and on blue monday i was the first to see
the red sky over the foundry. nor did i turn red either.
and as our foreman counts the brigade
someone was missing from my agitators.
then i asked: is today the first of may?
someone’s got an old calendar. Let me break it to him.

[1963]71

a dramatic monologue related to winter battLe, 1963 (p. 106 in this volume).
Agitation, in the context of east german labour practices, a brigade of workers tasked
with encouraging their fellows to be more productive and to curb unproductive habits
that have a deleterious effect on the socialist economy.

277
r., refers to riesa, a town in saxony.
cadre, factory management team.
forty per cent, reference to the income-tax rate.
falls under the table, euphemism for something given up for being too expensive.
Röderaue, a municipality in the district of meissen in saxony.
Trabant (literally, satellite), the once-ubiquitous automobile of east germany.
plumber and seamless pipe, modern indoor plumbing was a luxury in east germany,
whether it was replacing old or non-existent pipes—or plumbing ripped out by the
russians as reparations following the second world war.
cauldron battle, a battle of encirclement (for example, ‘stalin’s cauldron’ is a euphemism
for the german defeat at stalingrad in 1943) as well as a double entendre—in this con-
text, the german means a battle of the coffee urn.

278
epitaph for guevara
now you know everything, che
the return of the sierra
the asthma in that cold grass
the rostrum
in waves pounding in the night
and how one puts up fruit
and on yokes.
and death, che.

[1967/68]

279
on the occasion of the murder
of martin Luther King
the preacher against violence has been murdered.
the voice of the nonviolent has been choked with his own blood.
violence for violence, his silence says.
he was a bell which tolled for peace on the eve of battle.
he will be sword in the struggles to come
in the hands of the garbage men of memphis,washington, detroit, chicago,
new york
and the peasants of vietnam.

[1968]

280
fareweLL hemingway, sofia, 1969
a restaurant in the suburbs. outside the proprietor
an old surgeon, twenty years in germany. from there
he came back with a wife. she is a diligent
a nondescript german, running around
feeding the chickens. he drinks beer.
his hair
grey a year ago, is turning white.
some things come back and some don’t.
he looks like hemingway to the tourists.
a dead germany in his heart, he sits
under the sun like old snow.
if he were ever to raise his eyes
above his beer glass, he could
see the city clutching at him, that enormous
drinker of sweat, and at the ancient
Landscape, which has drunken blood
of the sons of the people and their enemies, the capital
which is always growing and still grows, fast
Like grass, the new sofia with the life
of its spartakiads, concrete against melancholy.
but he doesn’t raise his eyes
above his beer glass, an old man without a sea.
with his dream fish, which he finds at the bottom of the glass
from which he drinks his beer, the children play.72

[1969]

Spartakiad, an olympic-style international sports event that was sponsored by the soviet
union, and were held between 1928 and 1937.

281
for ekkehard schall

when for 532nd time the actor

ekkehard schall stood on the stage
in the role of arturo ui, the person he played
adolf hitler, being curious about this famous portrayal
(its fame having spread far and wide
even among the dead), secretly left his bunker grave
and joined the audience in the berlin ensemble
and, as it so happened, he wasn’t recognized
before his more faithful likeness, and instead, unnoticed
disappeared, his trapdoor getting smaller + smaller
such that he was called from now on
by the other dead no longer by his
temporary name
adolf hitler, but rather just:
arturo ui.

heiner müller
13.1.197473

Ekkehard Schall (1930–2005) german actor and director.

Arturo Ui, the mobster boss from brecht’s play The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui (1941), a
satirical allegory of the rise of adolf hitler set in 1930s chicago.

282
i don’t know where i’m returning
i know where i’m leaving
(‘anyone not alive before the revolution
doesn’t know the sweetness of life.’ talleyrand)
the trees in pankow will look like tin soldiers
after i have seen the trees in texas, stunted + beautiful.
and my mask in pankow
will have so many holes that no one (what is no one?)
sees my face any more.

[1975]74

Anyone . . . life, after a remark by charles maurice de talleyrand-périgord (1754–1838)

and, perhaps, an allusion to the epigraph that appears at the beginning of bernardo
bertolucci’s 1964 film Before the Revolution (Prima della rivoluzione).
Pankow, one of berlin’s major boroughs and once the neighbourhood in which many
members of the east german government resided, such that pankow came to mean the
east german regime.
After I have seen the trees in Texas, in december 1975, müller visited the united states for
the first time, where his banned play Mauser (1971) premiered at the university of texas
at austin.

283
you’ll remain here, i’ll leave
you don’t know where i return
i don’t know from where i leave
you know from where i leave
i know where i return.

[1975]

284
 DAY AFTER DAY
THEY SEND MY FRIENDS AWAY
TO MANSIONS COLD AND GREY
TO THE FAR SIDE OF TOWN
WHERE THE THINMEN STALK THE STREETS
WHILE THE SANE STAY UNDERGROUND
...
perhaps i will survive it all
what i have loved and not loved
women friends thoughts
DAY AFTER DAY
THEY TAKE SOME BRAIN AWAY
THEY TURN MY FACE AROUND
TO THE FAR SIDE OF TOWN
AND TELL ME THAT ITS REAL
THEN ASK ME HOW I FEEL

or die, for example

in a burning plane or
being stabbed in soho
or in a hospital bed, from indifference
since i have survived my love
my hate and my contempt
an old man in an empty land

197775

italics indicate english in the original, quoted from the 1970s song ‘all the madmen’ by
david bowie.

285
between the battLes over me
these being my works
(service branch and fighting methods vary)
(one of us always wins, mostly
it is the other)
Lies a dead time versified with
feasting intercourse drugs gossip: life.
it is too long, the wounds
close too quickly.

[1977–79]

286
money for spain

a monthly report from gestapo

headquarters berlin from the year
of hitler’s olympiad and franco’s
war with spain informing on the basis of
evidence from the general population
a communist could be apprehended
in a house on zionskirchplatz collecting
money for spain on behalf
of his banned party money
for communists travelling to spain
to fight there for the spanish republic
a man without a name age face
one fallen unidentified in the great
world civil war that is still ongoing
a soldier in the shadow army
on some sector of the frontlines
on whom no light
falls at all or only
after the fighter’s death
graveless buried who-knows-where
his only monument
a gestapo report written
in his blood in the language
of his enemy which
is our language but
his enemy is our enemy
in the dark stairwells
on zionskirchplatz
the house still stands in which he
was betrayed
destroyed during the war against which he
climbed the steps maybe out of breath
to the thirtieth step
(how old was his heart how consumed
were his lungs by tobacco or work
in the poisoned kitchen of industry)

287
Like a thief like a tramp
Like a pedlar hope
his stolen goods his wares
the revolution (how many customers
did he find before death
found him)
Knocking on familiar doors
and sometimes perhaps
they would be opened by comrades no longer
but rather
marked by surrender
pounding on strange doors in a cold sweat
and always new that awful realization
that a face could be
an abyss or a wall
something we forget we betray a gestapo report
should not be the only memorial
for this unknown pedlar of revolution
at zionskirchplatz for spain
this white smudge his face
a scar on our memory

[19.6.1987]76

year / Of Hitler’s Olympiad, the 1936 summer olympics, officially known as the games
of the Xi olympiad, was held in berlin—nazi germany had won the bid to host the
event over republican spain.
Zionskirchplatz, or zion church square in the rosenthal, once a working-class neigh-
bourhood in the berlin borough of pankow.
world civil war, a term used by Lenin to describe the communist goal of world revolution.
we betray, this poem, written in 1987, is also an indictment of public apathy about the
stasi and its legion of police informants.

288
forget the yes + no
there is nor king nor queen
when we are dead we’ll know
how stupid we have been77

[1987]

in english in the original.

there is nor king nor queen, possibly adapted from thomas gray’s translation of the saxon
poem ‘on death’ by John Lydgate of bury (c.1370–1451), which reads ‘wellaway there
is nor king nor queen / that shall not drink of death’s drench / man ere thou fall of
thine bench / thy sun thou quench.’

289
delphi: between me and the gods
screams a beast in search of prey

[mid-1980s]

290
torso

the breasts your eyes behold me

how long do i hold to the vision of rosebuds
when will your torso throw me into the quarry
for your rubble’s head your arms’ hands

[after 1985]

291
anatomy of
(a) Love
you will always
be there for me
you say
you will always
be against me then
a wound
which death
scars over

[1988]

292
goodbye
1
you are leaving the clocks
toll my heart when you come
2
yesterday i started
to kill you my heart
now i love
your corpse
when i am dead
my dust will cry for you
3
cities landscapes beset with sadness
i cannot see them any more with your eyes
YOU WERE BREASTS THIGHS BUTTOCKS NO NAME
you will be bone dust no memory
4
don’t touch me
the hour when the heart dies
5
on my balcony the birds cry
they know about nothing me
why should i cry, old
sixty and a year i know all

[late 1980s / early 1990s]78

italics indicate english in the original.

293
orpheus pLoughed (ii)
when the thracian women dismembered the handsome singer orpheus
they used ploughs for song spared the singer and everything
had sung the plants and beasts and the limbs of his body
of love coming apart the bloodletting of war as well and death and
dreams and the silence of the gods in the empty sky. he orpheus
comrades outer space is darK reaLLy darK
but not toil breaking a sweat and a farm implement thus did he die
in a forgotten song

[late 1980s]79

this poem, from the late 1980s, is the second to use this title and the orpheus-motiv
(see also ‘orpheus pLoughed’, p. 37 in this volume). a draft variant is dedicated to
east german dissident philosopher wolfgang heise (1925–87).
comrades . . . darK, a quote attributed to yuri gagarin (1934–1968), the first man
in space.

294
Lear, an associative space (no commentary)

an old man gives up his shop

with a backache from standing at the sales counter
two daughters stroke his beard with eyes at the till
the youngest has eyes only for him which doesn’t count
now the shop is only split into two shares

[1989–90]

295
travel notes
toKyo–osaKa eXpress
enthroned on the platform between trains
a young man his realm a garbage bin
his clothes are dirty probably
he stinks / his long hair is tied in a ponytail
his / face empty no joy no pain
he is out of the running
night fLight, franKfurt–toKyo
stewardesses bustle
through the flying coffin
the corpses
sleep
tomorrow morning if god wiLLs
business
smaLL town near osaKa
mothers standing around
offspring in arm
Lucky turtles

[late 1980s]80

italics indicate english in the original.

Lucky turtles, perhaps a reference to the shitennō-ji temple in osaka, known for its moat
and hundreds of turtles.

296
a mons pubis black in twilight
under heavy breasts
a märkisch lake
before a dreamt night

[late 1980s]81

Märkisch lake, the rural district of märkisch-oderland between berlin and the polish
border.

297
Love nothing any longer and no one is any good for the lonely
death has no terror who lives in nothing needs no home

[early 1990s]

298
m
is a scatterbrain
h
h
is a lamebrain
m
m
if would be a lamebrain
h
h
would no longer be a scatterbrain
m

[early 1990s]

299
1
i entrust my cock into your hands
darling give it baptism with your spit
jerk it off in both hands lick its head
with your cunning tongue take every bit
with your lips now and inside your mouth
dandle my nuts cradle them in your hand
until they’re huge and my ball sack bursts
then get to the bottom of things dearest
and shove two fingers deep inside my arse
do it with tenderness and do it rough
he me we love it you this way and that
and bite my cock + listen to me scream
let the neighbours hear and be witness
drink my semen pleasure the two of us

(after aretino)
[1991]82

Aretino, pietro aretino (1492–1556), italian poet and author of many satirical and porno-
graphic sonnets.

300
Liebeserklärung
(declaration of love)

in your eyes grey

my childhood grows my death
dies

for brigitte
10.12.1991 heiner83

italics indicate english in original.

this poem is dedicated to brigitte maria mayer, a german photographer and filmmaker,
married to müller from 1992 until his death in 1995.

301
ancestraL broth
deadly humankind’s rapid multiplication
each birth one death too few murder a gift
each volcano hope praised be the typhoons
not Jesus herod knew the ways of the world
massacres are an investment in the future
god is no man no woman is a virus
a disease which you meekly get used to
in the flesh underground
in the coughing of bronchitis
the voice of the Last Judgement
in der spiegeL’s reportage
about the world’s growing problem
with the disposal of our leaking remains
referred to as fLower fertLizer in romantic poetry
the dead nursing the descendants by moonlight
and without risk of sunlight
ancestraL broth of today’s gravediggers
contaminated by drugs polluted by progress
dead we devastate our environment surroundings
what a word we are the radiating centre
how else you go on living knowing that you’re poison
you live another way people require people
death to the offspring better we turned back time
our personal stake death and no more birth

[1992]84

ancestraL broth, a german euphemism for noxious cemetery leachate.

spiegeL’s reportage, for example, in the 15 february 1993 issue, the german news weekly
published an article about soil-and-water contamination caused by crematoria and ceme-
teries and their attempts to reduce it.

302
nature morte
the moon had not yet risen
three would no longer see it
as their bodies swung from the branches
it looks beautiful over the mountains

[1992–93]

303
Lament of the historian
tacitus in the fourth book of the annaLs bemoans
the duration of the era of peace, barely unbroken
by some trifling border wars, with whose accounts he
had to make ends meet, filled with envy
for the historians before him
whose mammoth wars were at his disposal
waged by caesars for whom rome wasn’t big enough
subjugated peoples, captive kings
riots and government crises: good material.
and tacitus apologizes to his readers.
for my part two thousand years after him, i
don’t need to apologize and i can’t
complain about the lack of good material.

16.8.199285

Tacitus . . . bemoans, see Annals 4.32: ‘much of what i have related and shall have to relate,
may perhaps, i am aware, seem petty trifles to record. [. . .] my labours are circumscribed
and inglorious; peace wholly unbroken or but slightly disturbed, dismal misery in the
capital, an emperor careless about the enlargement of the empire, such is my theme.’
the lack of good material, an allusion to rome under tiberius and east germany under
Joseph stalin.

304
dying man with mirror

pushkin dying
from his duel wound
requested a mirror
and a bowl of millet gruel
LiKe a monKey he said
spooning in his reflection
in all probability we will
not see each other again we need
no longer deceive ourselves there is likely
no longer anything new but there is likely
nothing whatever that may be
even the crack in the mirror brought us
no closer to each other glass tinkles
Like women shrieking

[october 1992]86

LiKe a monKey, apocryphal self-disparagement of the african heritage of the russian

poet alexander pushkin (1799–1837) who died two days after a duel with his wife’s
alleged paramour. the poem is addressed to müller’s second wife.

305
the rhinoceros has a horn
the horn is in the front
were the horn behind the rhinoceros
the rhinoceros would be an arseros

[late 1992]87

rhinoceros (Nashorn), literally ‘nose-horned’ from the greek.

306
misprint
(after goethe)
the gods stand in fear of
the human race

[1992]

307
across a page of poetry
fresh from the typewriter
a (small) insect runs
i don’t know if i would have appreciated it
but i do know that i would have killed it
ten years ago without
hesitation what’s changed
me or the world

[1992–93]

308
a teacup cracks in one’s hand after getting up in the morning
in the puddle (of tea) distantly floats a dream from last night
in the taxi inaudible news on the radio. the world is a murmur
during the hours of work.

[1992]

309
urban traffic
a woman waiting at the intersection for the green light
inspects her nails a picture from an advertisement
ten minutes later she will be dead and gets
in the newspaper tomorrow for the first+last time

[late 1992–early 1993]

310
Learning process
Learn learn once more learn (Lenin):
i can still see the beggar on the kerb
when i cross the street to purchase cigars
or the woman from bosnia with the child on her arm
sitting next to the dustbin and my hand
starts in my pocket for spare change but man is
a learning animal i learn soon enough
i will learn to see no beggars and no want
there are no beggars there is no want

21.10.199388

Learn . . . learn, after a russian maxim attributed to Lenin and once found in the class-
rooms of east germany, the soviet union and other communist societies.

311
the pLeasure of fear
for anna
sometime between night and morning
i see you surrounded by dogs
dogs with bared teeth
and you reach for their paws
and you laugh into their teeth
and i wake in the sweat of fear
and i know that i love you

22.10.199389

dedicated to anna brigitte müller (b. 1992), daughter of heiner müller and brigitte
maria mayer.

312
blueprint

sleepless in the window the night

asks me what’s the point of it all
for i don’t know the answer
the moon provides no details
i go back to sleep
perhaps morning knows otherwise

[october 1993]

313
for a year and longer have i not seen my friend
how did you get by those twelve months or so since
i asked him my father is dead
he says and once more i know that he’s my friend
a man after his own heart incorruptible

[late 1993]

314
marx is dead he wanted to change the world
of the criminals which god made down
with freud who wanted to make us believe
that there is something which we don’t know
einstein the Jew incinerate his ashes
built the atom bomb ever since
our existence is relative the Jew
is our misfortune hitler knew it
a simple man from braunau his wisdom
was educational material during germany’s greatness
she has borne fruit throughout the world
a taxi driver in new york a romanian
said to me YOU GERMAN GERMANY GOOD
DO YOU KNOW THAT HITLER WAS CRAZY YES
i said BUT DO YOU KNOW WHY
he said BECAUSE HE DIDN ’T KILL ALL YEWS
EVEN HERE THEY ARE IN POWER AND
I HAVE TO FIGHT THEM SO WHY i asked
DID YOU LEAVE ROMANIA ALL YEWS
he said BREZHNEV CEAUşESCU ALL YEWS BUT HOW
i asked DID YOU GET OUT OF ROMANIA
MONEY MONEY he said and rubbed
thumb and forefinger ALL YEWS
thus does the world make sense life
easy

29.11.199390

italics indicate english in the original.

Braunau, braunau am inn, upper austria, the birthplace of adolf hitler.

315
court ruLing
after the death of sejanus decreed by tiberius
whose bloody right hand he was in life
with an ill-defined mandate carried out by public fury
Juvenal describes how his monuments were toppled
in the course of his tenth satire his description
after two thousand years a hot and cold bath between hope
for another kind of narrative and the despair
over the return to narratives familiar and old

[1993]91

Sejanus, in Juvenal’s ‘tenth satire’, on the emptiness of power (lines 56-113), the roman
poet describes the fall of sejanus, an ambitious soldier who, until his downfall in 31 ce,
governed the roman empire in the reign of tiberius. early drafts of this poem suggest
parallels between twentieth-century politicians, heinrich himmler and Lavrentiy beria.

316
HAIKU IN SLOW MOTION the strawberry shirt
my daughter, two years old
eats strawberries hand to mouth
across her wrist
the juice drips down to the sleeve
of her t-shirt. while i watch this
red on white, fearing that it could be blood
matthias, my friend, the new beau
of my daughter, slices up a lemon
and his index finger. my daughter
climbs into his lap, smearing the juice
he is still fussing over his index finger
on his silk shirt. he, matthias, with a tragic look
at the stained silk, now ripe for the dry-cleaner:
my shirt is a strawberry shirt

28.2.199492

italics indicate english in the original.

My daughter, anna müller.
Matthias, matthias Langhoff (b. 1941), german theatre director, who collaborated with
müller on a number of plays, including Anatomie Titus Fall of Rome Ein Shakespearekom-
mentar (anatomy titus fall of rome a shakespeare commentary, 1985), to which
müller was drawn for its semblance to contemporary splatter films.

317
conversation with yang zhu the pessimist

does it pay to take care of one’s body

being mortal
such that lasts longer
and why
when we know that only death is hereditary
Life is a joke it has this twist
Live as you please or live on a leash
immortality is against nature
Life
don’t take it too seriously my son
Life is nothing new + remains the same
with joy + with sorrow rich + poor
order + chaos until cremation
better one short than one long lingering
nor is death new die unhurried
the grave can wait dying’s a snap
don’t take it seriously it’s a joke like you

28.6.199493

Yang Zhu (450–360 bce), a chinese philosopher and rival of confucius who believed,
as summarized by will durant, that life: ‘is full of suffering and its chief purpose is pleas-
ure, that there is no god and no afterlife; men are the helpless puppets of the blind natural
forces that made them, and that gave them their unchosen ancestry and their inalienable
character. the wise man will accept this fate without complaint, but will not be fooled
by all the nonsense of confucius and mozi about inherent virtue, universal love, and a
good name: morality is a deception practised upon the simple by the clever; universal
love is the delusion of children, who do not know the universal enmity that forms the
law of life; and a good name is a posthumous bauble which the fools who paid so dearly
for it cannot enjoy. in life the good suffer like the bad, and the wicked seem to enjoy
themselves more keenly than the good’ (Story of Civilization, Volume 1: Our Oriental
Heritage [new york: simon and schuster, 1935], p. 679).

318
vision impairment

for h. J. schlieker

my friend the painter confides in me i paint

blindness because i won’t look up any more
it’s because i am paying for every glance
with my eyes for me childhood was my death
the darkened bedroom the light under the door
the white terrors that were waiting to close in
how can i conceal my night from the day
death is an obligation Life is the cure
Let me live in the brightness of my shadow
egoless in the zones of my pathogens

7.7.199494

dedicated to german abstract painter hans-Jürgen schlieker (1924–2004).

319
Letter to the romans
since he was unhorsed he knows where god dwells
for whom all are the same who spares no one
who doesn’t live life following his line
for god is the creator of nature
when man lies with man woman with woman
for example, he’s angry for he keeps count
with lightning he tells you what is proper
his bread the sinner in the way of the world
his hunger requires that men be sinners
from the priest to the child yet to be born
father killing son was a heathen rite
be it a club be it sacrificial fire
he slaughters the son in his afterbirth
death on a wood beam the price of our sins
such are his sustenance and his pleasure
an avenging angel lives in his breast
who stood for us on the cross as scapegoat
the novelty from god’s pad of miracles
when he pulled the roots out of our guilt
with all fours because that hope was futile
of life without death father why
his last cry the addressed remained silent
he raised our sins to the power of two
every nail in the wood is a betrayal
to live with Jesus is dancing with knives
not the glans’ but the heart’s circumcision
to rest in faith from the world’s hue and cry
Life is atonement dying is the fee
happy is the prey that loves the hunter
who returns them to the elements
until he trumpets the resurrection
on the day of wrath his harvest festival
where he separates the goats from the sheep
opens and heals wounds with sword and balm
each his own per the fundamental law
in the swirling of planets without a net
his selection means redemption too

320
with his stigmata the mistreated son
is allowed to sit on the judge’s bench who
is his murderer across from the mother
because she most virgin gave birth to him
every birth leaves the fig leaf torn apart
whether maculate or immaculate
the fathers of gods keep undercover
they lower themselves down as swan as bull
the holy spirit is new in the game preserve
he requires a virgin since carnal lust
is the devil’s frustration’s the divine’s
she performs her work without getting paid
Listlessly painfully bearing him a son
which guarantees her a place in the canon
where the madonna rules hearth and home
the son has a voice father swallow your sword
it is not worth the wounds which it opens
you are not the one here passing judgement
for you have never lived in your own world
i have brought something back with me father
from my night into your eternal day
none was none is and none is ever good
do you see that cross it waits for your blood

199495

Letter to the romans, after romans, the sixth book of the new testament, by st
paul the apostle.

321
ajax
perhaps prometheus should have waited for the
new human race that zeus had in mind or already
on the drawing board.
the crime is the impatience. stalin knew that
the prerequisite of the new man was the extermination
of the old.
lenin had it right when he said to trotsky: we
deserved the gallows.

[autumn 1994]96

ajax, the title and first three lines are addressed to the protagonist of sophocles’ Ajax and
his disappointment in his fellow greeks after he loses achilles’ armour to odysseus, each
character representing the ‘old’ and ‘new’ greek hero, respectively.
new man, the ‘new soviet man or woman’, whose primary attribute would be self-
lessness.
lenin . . . gallows, an apocryphal statement but based on authentic (and fatidic) quotes
from the bolsheviks and the world press about the risks and perils of a failed revolution.

322
surfacing in the isolation ward
from the black hole of the operating table
the rendezvous with death occurred
in hindsight no trace colourless
lightning in the darkness a mute storm
under the knife the categories fall apart
on the drip-feed philosophemes
couple
hegel and kant marx kisses nietzsche

[october 1994]

323
dialogue
what do you have in me an invalid who sometimes
observes you from afar
an idiot what you know of love

[october 1994]

324
berlin 14.12.1994
strange perspective goodbye to berLin
outside my cell facing the blank page
a drama for no audience in mind
the victors are deaf the vanquished are mute
a strange perspective of a strange city
the clouds stretch grey-yellow in the window
the pigeons shit a white-grey on berlin

325
empty time

in my shadow from yesterday

the sun burnt away
in a tired april
dust on the books
in the night
the hours go faster
no wind from the sea

31.12.1994

326
passing by the bookcase
i see a title
The green hills of Africa
how long will they still be green?
what bullshit. is my reaction
to this title nothing more than
the desire for a world
or country that has nothing to do
with what i am forced
to write about, by whom?

[early 1995]97

italics indicate english in the original.

The green hills of Africa, ernest hemingway’s Green Hills of Africa (1935), an account of
the novelist’s hunting expedition in east africa.

327
forget the theatre and take heed of the: noh
forget the noh and take heed of the actors
forget the actors and take heed of the heart
forget the heart and you will understand noh
zeami

[1990s]98

zeami, zeami motokiyo (c.1363–1443), Japanese playwright and actor. this aphorism
is translated from one of his treatises on noh (literally, talent, craft and the play itself).

328
viLLa aurora the trees bow down
before the wind off the pacific wise
to how much time a city of a million has
Waiting for doomsday conscious unconscious
Of its fate rising from past and Asia

[early 1995]99

italics indicate english in the original.

329
the scientists live in horror
and europe gives up the ghost
wyndham Lewis chose blindness
rather than give up his mind
night under the wind in the carnations
the petals are almost still
mozart, Linnaeus, sulmona,
when your friends hate each other
how can there be peace in the world?

[early 1995]100

müller’s translation of the first nine lines of ezra pound’s ‘from cXv’, that fragment of
the canto which is an elegy for the english painter and writer wyndham Lewis (1882–
1957), who, in 1951, refused surgery on a tumour pressing on his optic nerve which
risked death or brain damage.
carnations, pound uses the italian ‘garofani’ (dianthus caryophyllus) to impart the tradi-
tional funeral flower (rather than stray, perhaps, into hothouse-grown boutonnieres).
Sulmona, an allusion to the birthplace of ovid in the italian province of aquila.
hate each other, pound’s allusion to Lewis’ disdain for and isolation from many of the men
and women of their generation (‘one’s friends’), including pound himself.

330
vampire
the masks are timeworn fin de partie
proletarian and murderer farmer and soldier
no sound comes from the borrowed mouths
the power is dispersed on which my verse
broke rainbow-coloured like the surf
in a fence of fangs the last scream died
weLcome to vorKuta commisar
instead of walls mirrors surround me here
my gaze searches for my face the glass is empty

[early 1995]101

vampire, in other words, the writer after the holocaust, in keeping with the context
of müller’s last play, Germania 3: Spectres by the Dead Man (1996).
fin de partie, french for ‘endgame’.
Proletarian, from the german Prolet, which is typically a disparaging term in the same
sense of a prole or plebe (with the added connotation of an ‘uncultured person’). in com-
munist east germany, however, Prolet was the diminutive of Proletarier (proletarian) and
meant a member of the working class.
vorKuta, a russian labour camp during the soviet era.

331
in a true man
a child is concealed
who will die

[1995]

332
MONTAIGNE MEETS TASSO 1
tasso in abruzzi, in that flight from his madness his trading clothes with a
peasant. Lenz in the mountains near strasbourg, pursued by büchner.
hölderlin in the tower, rhyming to himself. montaigne, if he had had more
time than one day in ferrara, where he saw tasso mad,‘with more annoyance
than sympathy,’ what could he say to him.what are words to a man who has
eaten his fill of them and will no longer spit them out.

[1995]102

italics indicate english in the original.

MONTAIGNE . . . , in november 1580, the french philosopher michel de montaigne
(1533–92) allegedly visited torquato tasso (1544–95), then confined to the prison hos-
pital of sant’anna in ferrara, and described in his Essays tasso’s ‘pitiful state, surviving
himself, not recognizing himself or his works’.
Lenz, a reference to the mental breakdown of the german writer Jakob Lenz (1751–
92) which is also the subject of novella Lenz (1836) by georg büchner (1813–37).
tower, the hölderlinturm (hölderlin tower) in tübingen, a private home where friedrich
hölderlin (1770–1834) was transferred from a mental asylum in 1804.

333
poetry and prose
for norbert blüm
Unemployment benefits should be paid at ‘market value’
dpa hamburg—in order to economize on social welfare payments, the fed-
eral government no longer will calculate unemployment benefits based on
the last net salary. as of 1 april 1996, the unemployed will instead be paid
at the current wage they would achieve in the actual labour market.
this means: the Labour bureau will in the future determine the current
‘market value’ of the beneficiary and, on the basis of that, the level of his
benefits. the Labour ministry confirmed this on saturday in statement to
the ‘bild’. the spd and trade unions rejected these plans as inhumane.
until now the employment promotion act sets the bar for unemployment
benefits and who is entitled to them. a spokesman for the Labour ministry
stated that switching the calculation from the last net salary to current
incomes was one of the seven points for the planned reform of the unem-
ployment compensation law.
but he could not say how the ‘market value’ will be calculated and who will
ultimately decide if the parties concerned are in opposition. the details are
still not definite.they should be worked out in a draft of the law, which will
be ready by the summer recess. cuts in unemployment benefits amounting
to 3.4 million dm have been made in the 1996 federal budget.

the minister of Labour

corrected his polish mistake
marX Lives Jesus is dead
his cross is the market value
a pyrrhic victory
for utopia

august 1995103

Norbert Blüm (b. 1935), german politician, federal minister for social affairs and Labour
(1982–98).
dpa, deutsche presse-agentur (german press agency).
Polish mistake, an allusion to communist poland’s experiments with ‘market socialism’
and liberalization during the 1980s, the years of labour unrest, solidarity and martial law.
marX . . . Utopia, in a less sanguine draft, müller saw ‘exploitation’ of the working class
‘replaced by exclusion—the auschwitz principle’, that is, removing the problem of the
unemployed with a payoff.

334
memo 409

If your song won’t help you to live

Thus will it help you towards death
(Brentano)

the sky promised a beautiful day it begins

with reading the newspaper in the hotel bar
a survivor describes a bloodbath
i Lay under i don’t Know how many dead
afraid that someone’s aLive and moving
or starts screaming above me they shot
at anything that moved or made a sound
LucKiLy everyone was dead
the luck must reach to the ceiling
alive because everyone is dead a human dream
idle time one day tosses me to the next
axel manthey is dead they should write a comedy
Life in this cloudy human broth
with happy idiots in front of the screen
Last night i dreamt i was actaeon
i was being chased by seven women
an actress led them on
through forest and field we trampled the flowers
they hunted me with a wire garrote
i bombarded several friends with questions
about my new play i am irritated
said the most tactful the others were silent
my wife asked me do you need that
gründgens dines with göring the hunter-gatherer
in the cellar the gestapo give
the communist hans otto singing lessons
i am an actor not the peopLe hamlet says
when Laertes gets political for his part he
Knows how you twist and turn in
conversing with murderers from a love for art
i mean to sLeep for a Long time
was the last thing they heard from him
hamLetwaLLenstein to his killer

335
had to break his legs because the coffin
turned out to be too short our hamlet
in plato’s cave althusser for example
a communist massages his wife all along
her neck had been made stiff by his
ground-laying scepticism all along he wanted
as some graffiti says on the wall of the école normale
to be a manual labourer
o mother mother
what have you done
or pasolini
give me your arse peLosi i
want your dirty arse son of itaLy
a whore of marLboro and coca-coLa
give me your dirty
a bloody marriage
with that class which carries the future
on its shoulders tattooed by capital
the red dawn of one night the night
of the red dawn
then pelosi put the car in gear
and drove it over the owner
now paoLo you are one with your itaLy
or st martin forest and garden gnome
in leather shorts waiting for the führer
. . . his beautifuL hands Jaspers
in his black forest where Kafka the eternal Jew
saw the hunter gracchus the dead who
did not learn mortality that master from germany
who warms his hands in the blood of his animals
anyway he knew st martin
ever since crossing the middle of the Jordan
as the bottom of the abyss is life a leap
for god is dead his orphaned angels
no longer lend out their wings
his skeleton circles in outer space
in the hotel bar a drunken guest bores
a waitress she takes her break and must
sit at the bar with his dead wife’s cancer

336
then they talk about dogs
i LiKe chow chows says the waitress
because they’re so LittLe pLease where is
my drinK the drunk shouts i hate dogs
they tooK my time when i Lived with my wife
and she’s dead now and the dogs tooK my time
yesterday i saw teorema
i died for this company
says the tired capitalist in the railway station’s strip
how is the world supposed to end if the money tires
the rent boy already undresses on the platform
amid a crowd of passengers into nothing
the world is described no more place for literature
who’s knocked off a barstool by a good rhyme
the last adventure is death
apart from myself i will return
one day in october in the falling rain

baden-baden october 1995104

409, possibly an allusion to 409 bce, the year sophocles’ Philoctetes was first performed
in athens and a play that müller adapted (see p. 10 in this volume).
Brentano, clemens brentano (1778–1842), german romantic poet.
Axel Manthey (1945–95), the german costume and set designer who died from aids in
october 1995.
Gründgens, gustaf gründgens (1899–1936), german theatre actor whose career spanned
the weimar, nazi, and postwar periods; played hamlet as a heroic figure, in keeping with
nazi ideology, in the 1936 berlin deutsches theatre production.
Hans Otto (1900–33), german actor and one of the first communist artists to be executed
by the nazis.
i am an actor . . . the back-cover copy of HamletMaschine: Tokyo Material (1996), in
which this poem was first anthologized, states that ‘the contribution of an actor to the
emancipation of the spectator is his emancipation from the spectator’.
i mean to sLeep . . . , the curtain line spoken by the titular hero of friedrich schiller’s
trilogy Wallenstein (1799).
Althusser, Louis althusser (1918–90), who had allegedly strangled his wife, sociologist
helene rytmann, in 1980.
école normale, the École normale supérieure in paris, where althusser lived, worked and
taught.

337
O mother . . . done, from brecht’s adaptation of Coriolanus.
peLosi, i.e. giuseppe (pino) pelosi (1958–2017), an italian youth accused and later exon-
erated of the murder of pier paolo pasolini.
St Martin, philosopher martin heidegger (1889–1975).
beautifuL hands, after heidegger’s remark on the philosopher Karl Jaspers (1883–
1969) when he asked the former, ‘how can such an uneducated man as hitler rule
germany?’ heidegger replied, ‘Look at his beautiful hands!’
hunter Gracchus, the short story ‘the hunter gracchus’ by franz Kafka.
crossing the river Jordan, literally, after the idiom ‘having kicked the bucket’.
Teorema, a 1968 film directed by pasolini.
railway station’s strip, where streetwalkers roam (herumstreichen) in and near european train
stations.

338
in search of odradek

after the disappearance of mothers the trauma of the second birth

and what i saw was more than i could bear

[late 1995]105

Odradek, the toy-like, enigmatic, immortal and homeless creature (of ‘no fixed abode’)
in franz Kafka’s allegorical story ‘the cares of a family man’ (Die Sorge des Hausvaters)
who, ‘because he has no purpose, cannot die’.
After the mothers . . . bear, from a speech in brecht’s unfinished play Der Untergang des
Egoisten Johnann Fatzer (the downfall of the egotist Johann fatzer, 1926–30), which
begins ‘situations are the mothers of people.’ müller edited the text and first staged the
play in 1978, which reimagines the ‘second birth’ as three soldiers exiting a tank behind
enemy lines towards the end of the first world war and a future with a communist
revolution—as well as the loss of the self, the ego, the individual, for fatzer, the ‘egoist’,
is killed by his comrades for being one. the secondary literature on the meaning of
Kafka’s seeming german–czech neologism ‘odradek’ points in many interpretive, even
anarchical directions (one who has no counsel, who dissuades, who lacks roots and so
on). however, the last line of the story suggests another kind of ego that outlasts the
human self (Ich in the german) which goes on living: ‘he does no harm to anyone that
one can see; but the idea that he is likely to survive me i find almost painful’.

339
end of handwriting
Lately when i want to write something
a sentence a poem some wisdom
my hand resists the compulsion to write
(my head will make it submit)
the writing is illegible only the typewriter
Keeps me from the abyss of silence
which is the protagonist of my future

[1995]

340
before my typewriter your face
your eyes which ask me what will you say
against this world how can you bear it
what will you do to make it collapse
i sit hunched over my typewriter
it is now midnight and next door
our daughter sleeps what she needs i can do
or is it her death that i can wait on
your look keeps me fixed in your eyes
i hear myself say that not only by us
is my life worth living on this earth
with your eyes i see myself in my child
how long will she be spared by the world
if i am the woman and you are not the man

[late 1995]

341
all my life i have regarded the lines in my palms
the two different lives left + right
both deeply creased but the left with the lead
as a right-hander i would grow older

[november 1995]

342
drama

the dead are waiting on the opposite stage

sometimes they hold a hand into the light
as if still alive before they withdraw completely
into their accustomed darkness which blinds us

[november 1995]

343
in the skull kingdoms universes
the bleak remains suspended by tubes
a bag chemicals terminal cancer on the heels
a cyclone squeezed into a dust speck

rushing from the bowels into stillness

poison forests blossom a landscape in orange
sleepless the night no longer parted by day
death is a home a divine melange

[december 1995]

344
menelaus the banker
helen the most beautiful call girl in the western world
kidnapped in the east to drive up the price of oil

[december 1995]

345
a child cries in the cafeteria
the child is a monster from the nightmare factory
a variation on a theme by spielberg
the mother a mountain of cold fat

[december 1995]

346
timon
...
what is mine is not mine take take take it all
rejoice
beasts that you are and more bestial than beasts
which only know hunger not greed and envy
i sense rats snakes a jaw and tiger tooth
and from hyena’s breath a carrion odour
an aroma of sewers which are your wellspring
and your final destination
hail
timon the generous hail timon

sheriff timon laughs

this is what i have mine
to seize a body not until the worms take
it into custody god’s police when he takes back
the borrowed flesh
the remnant bones of no special attention
quaking in the dust in christian anticipation
the resurrection in eternal flesh
on which rats can eternally gnaw

[december 1995]

347
yesterday a man sat across from me
on half a leg the left foot
with a prosthetic below the knee already another
plus cancer diabetes and high blood pressure
happily catholic waiting for death
and the resurrection of all flesh

[december 1995]

348
i chew the hospitaL food death’s
taste comes through
after the last endoscopy in the eyes of the doctors
my grave was open i was almost touched
the sadness of the experts and i was
almost proud of my invincible
tumour
for one long moment flesh
of my flesh

12.12.1995

349
 PART FOUR

Drafts and Fragments

(1950s–1990s)
1883 on the fourteenth day of the third month
died mourned by the oppressed in every land
(the changing world) in London in exile
Karl marx
mover of the world, explorer
of humankind. take
his path to the end which
will be our beginning.

[early 1950s]

353
the world was cold: we wanted to be colder
the heart full of love we loved in the smoke.
to be stone was good the heart of stone beats too
the infernos spoke: become stone
peace came with the consumption of alcohol
we were drunken ships, swilling wine
paid with blood then life broke
inside us like a flood we are a sea a breath
of spring wind unfurled us sleepers
like flags

[early 1950s]

354
the hungry cry for bread
it gave them soil.
the freezing begged for warmth
it gave them the mines + the factories
the ignorant wanted instruction
it gave them the power.
marching it drew up the marching orders
it celebrates a victory while fighting for the next victory
in which it leads, it inspires the masses
nothing can stop those not stopped by themselves.
(in the final advance.)

[early 1950s]1

It, the socialist unity party of germany (sed) also known as the east german com-
munist party.

355
a brazilian battleship is adrift in azores
in the azores, i hear, a battleship is adrift, which
was lost.
on the seas, i hear, is a place
for the battleships of the world
to be adrift.
on earth, i hear, is a place
for the crews of every battleship in the world
to live.

[early 1950s]2

in september 1951, the brazilian dreadnought São Paulo, under tow to shipbreakers in
great britain, was lost in a storm north of the azores.

356
you poachers in women’s crotches
lest you should lose your stamina
for riding their fleecy nakedness
lest some reckless shot castrates you
you marathon dancers with nervous
appendages flying in a sweat
lest they should rip clean from your body
pulled clean by the suction of the bomb . . .
you groggy drinkers with your nasty
faces that are soaked in schnapps
but don’t seek to solve the riddle
like one who drinks without a throat.
what’s all this about
the things they do with you
who still has an ear
will know what they want
ask and when they give no answer
beat them because it’s about love (lust, schnapps) and life . . .

[early 1950s]

357
ah where bread is dispensed the oppression
is a back-stabber who is full, who gave
into the eater. having no bread
then only shows courage. a lunch
is a battle lost. but who
starves hasn’t won,

[early 1950s]

358
a plum fell from a branch.
this worked for one fellow.
a plum is a fact
he shouted and snatched it.
but the plum didn’t want
to relinquish itself
and demanded short and sweet
a valid contract
as soon as he tore off
a leaf from the plum tree,
the contract was drawn up
and it was over for the plum.

[early 1950s]

359
not knowing what he wore, willingly
wearing the uniform of the butcher
from him the chest strap, which held up the brown shirt
from him the hair tearing, which the helmet tamped down
he denies the new life.

[early 1950s]3

an earlier version of this draft was titled ‘the poet’ (Der Dichter).

360
cXLvii
my love a fever which has this desire
to go on, seek what foils its abating
grasping all which makes the malady worse
to nurse this hunger sick and unaccustomed
for my reason, my love’s physician, leaves
me in darkness, to this madness made deaf
to warning signs. desperate, i know this now:
Longing is death by no doctor conceived
i the incurable of reason wholly devoid
and wholly confused and restless evermore
i think no more only yield like a fool
with a thick tongue senseless word after word
i have praised you as fair and thought you good
but you are as bad as hell, black as night.

[early 1950s]4

translated from a german rendering of shakespeare’s sonnet 147 (‘my love is as a fever,
longing still’). although the rhyme is not preserved here, the syntax and sense of the
word choice are. this poem is discussed in miguel ramalhete gomes, Texts Waiting for
History: William Shakespeare Re-imagined by Heiner Müller (2014).

361
on some motives in schiLLer’s poem ‘the waLK’

god gave masters boots, the backsides of servants to boot.

(what? does the kicked man cringe? if only! where is the greatness
of the great, when those who rear up boldly on their
backsides are the grandees standing tall?! o divine order!)
you who are kicked, suffer the blows with meekness! see, it’s worth it:
this delightful classic attentively praises you with peals of verse—
rejoice with this perspective, you who hunger!—the belly of your master
grows round.

[early 1950s]5

motives, that is, the self-serving kind given schiller’s dependence (and, by extension,
that of weimar classicism) on noble patronage.
‘the waLK’, considered one of schiller’s greatest poems, ‘der spaziergang’ (1795).
round, a frequent preposition and adverb in schiller’s poem, used here as a verb and key
to the ironic commentary on the poem’s hostility to french thought (the ‘foreign spirit’
in english translation) and the french revolution (‘a tigress [. . .] so arises man with
the fury of crime and misery’).

362
cLinicaL observation

during the meeting i noticed near the podium

a man, stricken
by some terrible disease
shaken by a tremor every time, whenever the speaker’s voice spoke out,
the hands of the man, his palms striking
against each other such that sweat
appeared on his forehead. and
when a second voice spoke out against the (first) speaker, i saw
the same palms striking together, the sweat
appearing on the same forehead.
(then i knew:
a disease, terrible and little understood, had power
over this man.)
(what, i thought, if some day
the tremor didn’t let up?)

[early 1950s]

363
women over 40, betrayed by men and regimes
(they believed everything and anyone.) mothers without children:

hans d., fleeing frozen to death 1945, a month old,

tossed in the snow from a slowly moving cattle car

siegfried n., hanging from a lamppost fourteen years old, (tongue protruding)
a sign on his belly: coward! cutting down forbidden!
Lina K., crane operator, mother of three, widow of a murderer:
(sa man, six communists to his credit. suicide 1945.
with a clothesline in the attic drying loft.) she tied his noose.
her children learn the abcs of composition with furrowed brows.

[early 1950s]

364
the stamp
in shanghai, i read, a leaflet is kept
a bloody footprint on a torn piece of paper.

[after January 1953]6

after an old chinese communist party propaganda leaflet which listed crimes perpe-
trated by the ruling class, with the characters typeset in a way that they resembled a
bloody shoe print.

365
this was something he didn’t understand:
faces, turned to stone like the wall
at the backs of those betrayed early
when the first locomotive’s bell drowned them out.
and he asked: do you want to always be hungry?
and the hunger was their argument.

[early 1950s]7

locomotive’s bell, that is, to mask the report of a firing squad.

366
there was a day when we laid in the grass:
rain fell on us. a wind came up
from the south. and we saw ourselves and
Looked up into the sky.
there comes a day when we lie in the grave.
but still, when we have rotted away
the rain above us will fall
the wind above us will pass.

[1.2.1954]

367
when i was a child, i didn’t know
what bertolt brecht wrote about climbing, since he
had no time for climbing, but
i climbed. in trees, high and low.
rising from branch to branch, clinging to
the trunk. there was a tree that threw me down.
i fell. but i took a branch with me. it
didn’t hold me. i held it.

[mid-1950s]8

wrote about climbing, after ‘vom Klettern in bäumen’ (of climbing in trees), a poem by
brecht published in 1926.

368
1
fathers get up so that children sleep through the night
made restless by their struggle. and soon the hand too small
makes a fist. it cannot hold the flag.
2
even before it starts the war starts. unknowable
to the unknowing (whom it devours if they remain that way). the fear of many
makes it great. to the eyeballs of the few at first, it is
virtuous in appearance, skittish before it emerges terrible.
for those who didn’t kill it killing in the gun smoke.
6
we saw mothers who blindly gave the fruit of their wombs
(and knew not what they were doing) to the butcher who flattered them.
they saw the flag, the great cross therein, they didn’t see the hooks.
Lay in the dust before the cross, on whose hooks hung their sons.
as they still ate the expensive bread, the purchase price was buried already.
7
to remember them, fathers dig children an open grave.
8
he who wields the knife at the fire, cuts the unscathed
the heart rises into the head. the hand which hesitates to pull up
the thicket because it flourishes (and bars the way!) withers on the way.
5
what fear cannot do, hunger can, the old hound chase.
the one stolen from bends his neck to the thief who stuffs his mouth
with bread. how hard it is for the hungry to learn to spit it out.

[mid- to late 1950s]

369
in the shadow
of class warfare lovers lie
they don’t hold out on the sidelines, both upholding
this light, which they see, their eyes closing in their
embrace. when they rise from their beds
they radiate it.

[mid- to late 1950s]

370
activist rhyme

who is this bubiak

who is an activist.
bubiak knows how come
bubiak isn’t dumb.
a chair here and a chaise lounge
carpet there and a console tv
so, and now leave me be!
who is this bubiak
who is an activist.
bubiak isn’t dumb
bubiak knows how come.

[1958]9

Bubiak, müller uses the same name for the eponymous hero of the play Bubiak, Bagger-
führer (Bubiak, Excavator Operator, 1958).

371
war or peace. start or finish.
since yesterday the world no longer has a centre line
maybe my century will still see the arrival of
maybe my century will still see peace.

20.3.195910

yesterday, on 19 march 1959, the soviet premier nikita s. Khrushchev challenged nato
countries to a summit to prevent a future war over berlin and to finalize the long-delayed
peace treaty with the remnants of nazi germany: east and west germany.

372
the stone dances. choreography: a high-rise crane
an airplane beyond gravity
old faces under a new hat.
they wear out their shadows with their shoe soles
fools have seen reason
the mirror sees no more grimacing

[late 1950s–early 1960s]

373
his grandfather fell
at Leuna perhaps:
his during the
storming of essen for
a better germany.
perhaps his father died in the barbed wire
of buchenwald,
under freisler’s axe.
how were they taught
in those other schools
in crisis + war
in which
germany, were they victorious?

those still alive—what did they learn?

do they think the same thoughts?

will the same teachers
drag out the same bloody
history, here as there?

what do they put in their school bags?

what is in their history books?

[c.1960s]11

Leuna, ig farben Leuna works, the second largest synthetic oil plant in nazi germany.
Storming of Essen, literal translation of Sturm auf Essen, a 1930 non-fiction book by the
german writer hans marchwitza (1890–1965), in which he describes the communist
resistance to the Kapp putsch of 1920 in the industrial city of essen (translated as Storm
over the Ruhr).
Freisler, roland freisler (1893–1945), the infamous nazi judge who was the president
of the nazi people’s court from 1942 to 1945.

374
erhard the miser
1
sing the anger of erhard the miser, muse, sing cheaply
for the man has no more money! indeed he is as stout as the last miser
(this iron hermann the good, who fed on guns for twelve long years
Left all the butter to the people. heaven reward him
god the father himself gave him his fat, which he goes without down here!)
but what makes him fat is water, his bread-giver’s spit
which he licks up while his people sip champagne at banquets.

[early 1960s]12

erhard, Ludwig erhard (1897–1977), west germany’s minister of economic affairs

from 1949 to 1963 and architect of its economic recovery, the Wirtschaftswunder or
‘economic miracle’.
iron Hermann (Eisenherrmann), ironic comparison to the german hero arminius (18 bce–
21 ce), who led a coalition of germanic tribes to a decisive victory over the romans
in the battle of the teutoburg forest in 9 ce.
fed on guns, that is, east german propaganda (and envy) attributed the economic miracle
to west germany’s rearmament and incorporation into nato.

375
i cannot lay the world at your feet
it doesn’t belong to me. + pluck
no star: the stars grow too high in the sky.
i have no money for flowers and no time
to write a verse only for you: my life
will only be full this way and thus too short.
if i said that i would do anything for you
i would be telling you a lie
(you know) i don’t know what i should tell you.

[april 1962]

376
at midnight in february
my sleep was disturbed
by a cry from the west
by music as well
and like from a royal crypt
came the smell of decay on the wind.
as though on the wings of this song
i sought the source of the stench
i saw between the rhine and rhône
high in the sky above the current events
namely in diluvial seams
unsaleable piles of coal
in pluralistic formation
haunting the grand coalition:
from the mountains, from the valleys
through the lines of a free electorate
ride the chiefs of the cdu
they ride to the rendezvous
with their allies. (expenses
paid by the industry.)
they ride there on strange horses
which have two rather than four legs
going at the same pace, not one rearing up
and their tails are bridled
and on closer inspection
you see they walk tail first
backwards through their own shit
because this is the way to the top
and when the clouds had cleared
you saw the horses were social democrats.
brandt prances under Kiesinger
for the common fatherland
of corporate interests. and
you see strauss giving wehner the spurs
as he licks his (left) shoe
for a healthy cdu.

377
through the haze on carlo schmitt canters
the master of Kz-architecture.

[1967]13

piles of coal, an allusion to the coal crisis of 1967, which saw unemployment in the mining
and steel industries.
Grand Coalition, the coalition government between the christian democratic union
party of west germany (cdu), the christian social union (csu) and the socialist
party of germany (spd) between 1966 and 1969.
Brandt . . . Kiesinger, the grand coalition was led by Kurt Kiesinger (1904–88), chancellor
of west germany, while willy brandt (1913–92), leader of the spd, served as the vice
chancellor.
Strauss . . . Wehner, franz Josef strauss (1915–88) and herbert wehner (1906–90), min-
isters of finance and all-german affairs in the Kiesinger cabinet.
Carlo Schmitt, carlo schmid (1896–1979), member of the spd and minister of the affairs
of the federal council and states.
master of KZ-architecture, Kz is the german abbreviation for concentration camp.

378
they have sown the wind it is a storm
the violence has changed direction
under the sun of torture
mankind is created anew
the violence has changed direction
they have sown the wind it is a storm
africa the staggering broad back
of a badly sleeping star
they have sown the wind it is a storm.
the violence has changed direction
vietnam’s blood versus napalm.
USA heart of the beast Chile
the cleared forests grow
on underground
the history of mankind begins
under the sun of torture
they have sown the wind we are the storm
Look around at the flaming trees
pygmies swarming with axes
but the head which grows
writes into a capsizing sky the first wisps
of a red dawn
the violence has changed direction
the history of mankind begins

[c.1972–74]14

italics indicate english in the original. this poem responds to conflicts and political
issues that engulfed the world during the early 1970s that many loyal communists saw
as setbacks (for example, the guerrilla war in angola, the air war in vietnam, the cia’s
complicity in the fall of the allende government in chile and the logging of rainforests).

379
when we’re playing the bowandarrowgame
you lie on the table it’s inside you
i.e. my cock is inside your cunt we
are (one) bow and arrow start to finish
you don’t know what i mean you don’t notice
when i bend myself backwards how my cock
connects with your clit closer through distance
+ cock + cunt fuck a piece of poetry
when i make a manly show of my dick
or gape (with lust) enamoured by your cunt
at heart i can only dream but one dream
that i am your wind and you are my tree
i wish you my cock i wish me your cunt

[mid-1980s]

380
the dueL

where dweLLs my foX in winter

where sLeeps my snaKe
1
Long have i wanted to write a poem anna seghers
about my reading of your short story the dueL
i’ve procrastinated on the work before me
Like sisyphus did each day with his
pushing the stone anew against the force of gravity
why do my impressions resist versification
why does my verse stagnate with every new attempt
it cannot absorb so much prose is it that
the traitor the courtier the accomplice to power
and the lover of order (poetry
must see where it ends up in the time of prose)
2
where peneLope sLeeps
in the arm of the unrefusabLe suitor
weaving from fLesh and bone
a foundation on the Loom of years
narratives are read some other way at some other time
the wounds close the scars bleed
but not all the dead remain young
we and history were a pretty pair
suddenly the bride began addressing us [formally] with Sie
we haven’t looked around ourselves for eurydice
now she awaits another death
forgetting has the status of a science
and is being taught at our universities
in the name of the love for life life means
forgetting what cannot bear thought is this
Life the dead are better at the art
of forgetting death is its mastery
i hear my verse sigh we are
on the subject of death the power food of poetry
(poetry doesn’t matter)
down with the art of cannibals

381
3
a story about a worker (who as they say)
(is) assigned to a course of study
in the era of
reconstruction
how strange these old words
how much of the old (then) was rebuilt
he survived the war with just as much or as little
blood on his hands as
was necessary for survival in the slaughterhouse
it is assumed that he learnt the main thing
the main thing meaning who whom
the bright tomorrow
of a simple variation now another film is rolling
in the shifting sands of history the swim meet of the fronts
their resurrection in concrete
the catalepsy of utopia before the counters of the world bank
the worker is sentenced to learn who says a
must say b teachers are needed
the conquest of the universities
is the programme the worker struggles with maths
how do you pound
a nail into a number
the laws of economics stare cold

[1986]15

where sLeeps my snaKe, from the poem ‘1915’ by paul Klee.

Anna Seghers . . . the dueL, the story, set in the early postwar years of east germany, is
about a ‘duel’ of ideas between a communist geometry professor, bötcher, and his former
colleague, winkelfried, who pledged his to the nazi regime. the latter fears a cultural
decline in the face of power now shifting to workers and peasants, whereas bötcher
proves the professor wrong by tutoring four of winkelfried’s working-class students at
night.

382
i love
the autumn of your eyes
the summer of your skin
the spring of your limbs

[2.11.1991]

383
faced with the death of a man
who doesn’t want to think about humankind
how can this assembly of the living + dead
be unanimous in open and secret ballots
about the possible but perhaps
unnecessary lives of the
yet unborn
thumbs up or thumbs down

[february 1994]

384
personaL 1

how shall i tell you that i want to live with you

in the face of my death which is already on the calendar
and waits for me with open arms
i love you and will never forget
your first glance (into my eager eyes)

[1994/95]

385
(1) time poem

my cancer knows i am no nazitank

you shouldn’t be pointing at your wounds
in this time of hyenas/jackals says the law of the prairie
from which the indians died this way + that
(but) i am no indian

[1994/95]

386
i press my hand on the glass
through which your face shines
i put my foot on the grass
that means my death
my death will come
with your face

[1994/95]

387
the pain a quote

you are gone my fist to your

forehead my farewell the dials
pulsate to my heart. for an hour
i know how to kill you
costs a smile in my chest
the mechanism mutters
needles count the pages
of an ancient calendar

[after 1991]

388
bucolic landscape
the peace of verdun’s
cows the memory
of the dead
buried
under the kitsch of the monuments
——the bad conscience
of the survivors
needs the kitsch—
on the autobahn between
the high-tension wires
for the first time again the
beautiful feeling
of being alive above the many
thousands dead

[21.9.1995]16

in late september 1995, müller was invited to participate in a french theatre project
to mark the eightieth anniversary of the battle of verdun with the staging of Germania
3 on the eponymous site ‘Le mort homme’. at a press conference, however, he made
disparaging remarks about the site that resulted in a wave of protests that led to his
pulling out of the project.

389
description of a death death in progress

i chew the invalid’s fare death’s taste comes through

suck suck the gall-bitter vinegar sponge
+ the sustenance goes / makes its way to the drain
following the endoscopy the eyes of the doctors
saw my grave open i heard the shovels
clang as i watched their eyes + i was almost
moved to pity by their helpless expressions
more than by me whom no one can help any more
outside of a miracle or a god or me
i will no longer eat breathe etc.
Love a woman a man a child an animal
(and) eating is an art / now i learn that eating is an art
with stomach / gastric cancer
+ death + love are 2 things
shit on this cancer which stops once again
did i say that dying is (like) being mocked
but with good intentions from a fool
how long have i lived with my death

[december 1995]17

vinegar sponge, an allusion to the holy sponge, one of the instruments of torture and
humiliation in the passion of Jesus christ in matthew 27:48, mark 15:36 and John 19:29.

390
 go, ariel, silence the tempest +
wash the bewildered upon the beach i need them
alive so that i can kill them off
mir[anda.] father
why

[20.12.1995]18

a speech fragment from müller’s notes for shakespeare’s The Tempest.

391
amid the room amid the time
amid the room of history
amid the time of humanity
is the room is the time of the poem

[1990s]

392
TRANSLATOR’S AFTERWORD

For a historian and a poet do not differ from each other because the one
writes in verse and the other in prose [ . . . ] they differ in this, that the one
speaks of things which have happened, and the other of such as might have
happened. Hence, poetry is more philosophic, and more deserving of atten-
tion, than history.
—aristotle, Poetics

in 1951, heiner müller was a young man in his early twenties when his
father, mother and younger brother walked across the potsdamer platz, under
the barrier, and into the american sector. the elder müller, the socialist
mayor of a small saxon city in east germany, had been blamed for the col-
lapse of a recently constructed building and he assumed that not only was
his career over but also that his punishment would be severe. heiner müller
saw the german democratic republic (gdr) as the one chance to build
the utopian vision of a communist germany—what inspired the young
man’s tentative verses—indeed, everything that his father had once stood for
and now abandoned for a so-called better life in the west, on the opposite
side.
müller recalled the day his family left. he returned to an empty flat and
read poetry. when he felt the need for companionship at last, he ventured
out to a dance hall and befriended a woman he found drinking alone. he
asked her to come home with him, showed her his parents’ bedroom and
made love to her in their bed rather than his own narrow cot. before she
went away, he gave her chocolate and cigarettes and was left with the strange
feeling that he had only got so far with her because he was a mayor’s son, a
member of the privileged caste. perhaps already, in derrida’s parlance, müller
felt what it might be like to be this presence without presence—the spectre of
the spectre of communism.

reimund heiner müller was born in mittelsachsen, eppendorf, in 1929, and

spent the first two decades in a region dominated by the industrial city of
chemnitz (the ‘saxon manchester’), where germany’s marxist parties

393
enjoyed great support among the many factory workers. his father, Kurt
müller, supported the family as a minor official in the socialist workers’
party, a marxist splinter group that fell between germany’s social demo-
cratic party (spd) and communist party (Kpd).when hitler was appointed
chancellor in 1933, all the left-wing parties were outlawed and their officers
rounded up. among them was müller’s father, whose arrest left the five-
year-old müller traumatized.
while his father was imprisoned in a concentration camp, müller’s
mother, ella, found work as a seamstress in a textile factory. eventually, in
the late 1930s, müller’s father was released—after making a declaration of
loyalty to the nazi regime—and allowed to work on the construction of
the autobahn and later as an agent for the government health-insurance
agency. the son, raised as a marxist, learnt to keep his thoughts to himself
so that he could attend school and not get the family into any more diffi-
culties—something his father failed at—he made a joke about the irony of
hitler making a non-aggression pact with stalin, and was dismissed and
drafted into the german army.
in 1940, müller joined the hitler youth and served in german labour
battalions. it was not until late in the war that he was conscripted into the
‘volkssturm’, home guard units whose ranks were filled by elderly men and
teenage boys. his unit, however, marched west to surrender to the americans
in 1945 rather than fight the red army during the final days of the third
reich. following the german surrender, müller traded a can of tinned meat
for a civilian coat and walked out of his pow camp after a friendly conver-
sation with one of his american guards. (müller’s facility with english came
in part from reading shakespeare—evinced by the way he slips in and out
of english in his plays and poems.) then he made his way back to the soviet
occupation zone and the saxon town of waren where his family resided.
in the aftermath of the war, and with the return of the spd and Kpd
leaders from the concentration camps and exile, Kurt müller’s fortunes rose,
and he was appointed mayor of the saxon town of frankenberg.this modest
post came with some perquisites, including a job for his eldest son as a
‘denazification’ librarian in charge of removing nazi books. such work gave
heiner müller both time and a milieu to pursue his literary ambitions, and
to earn his Abitur certificate so that he could attend university.

394
 as müller said in an interview, no state really existed in germany during
the aftermath of the third reich. thus, he enjoyed the irony of being
‘liberated’ by the red army, of seeing its soldiers among a people who had
been in large part their mortal enemy only months earlier. as the cold war
began, however, the occupiers began to transform their half of germany into
a new communist state modelled after the soviet union.this new germany
became an especially slavish and model exponent of the cult of personality
around Joseph stalin. in 1946, the spd and Kpd were compelled to unite
by their soviet masters to form the socialist unity party (sed).
nominally a member of the sed, the younger müller only did what
was obligatory and kept to his rigorous self-study, writing poetry, a radio
play and literary reviews. after his family defected, müller moved to berlin,
where the postwar literary life saw a revival with the return of bertolt brecht,
anna seghers and other established marxist writers who had gone into exile
in the 1930s.
during his first year in berlin, müller hoped to join brecht’s berliner
ensemble and become one of the great man’s protégés and master appren-
tices. he managed to secure an interview with brecht, who asked him var-
ious questions and what he did for living, to which müller said he wrote
poetry. then brecht asked him to read some and, satisfied, sent müller to
see his secretary, who was also brecht’s mistress at the time. but the secre-
tary-mistress and müller disliked each other and müller failed at his test of
adapting a worshipful russian play in which stalin was a character. Later,
müller felt a certain contentment in being seen as brecht’s successor. but
this came with the realization of how difficult and long it took to assert him-
self in brecht’s shadow.
müller could have used the money, for he had a family to support. in
that same year, 1951, when young people in east germany enjoyed a kind
of sexual liberation, informed by the equal status of women and marxist
ideology as it applied to orgasm, the young poet impregnated his girlfriend,
a young nurse named rosemarie fritzsche. duty bound as a proper com-
munist man, müller married her before she gave birth to his first child, a
daughter, regina.
being a faithful husband, however, in east berlin’s bohemia tested the
marriage as did müller’s spotty income from his writing reviews of books he
didn’t like and hackwork—rhymed and metered translations of paeans to

395
stalin, mao and Kim il sung, as well as extolling communist liberation
movements—which surely helped him in being admitted into the german
writers association (dsv).what did more to help him in his career was his
meeting ingeborg schwenker, an ambitious writer like himself, whose expe-
riences during the war years had been far more harrowing: she had seen her
parents killed in the allied bombings; she had served as one of the Trümmer-
frauen—the rubble women—who had cleared away the ruins of german
cities to make way for their rebuilding; she had married twice and had a
young son (bernd, whom müller later adopted). inge, as she was called, had
more experience in the theatre world and in getting her work published.
they eventually moved in and married in 1955 (after müller divorced his
first wife for the second time).together, the couple began to collaborate on
theatre pieces for the stage and radio.
the sensual and collaborative nature of the marriage—testified by the
‘tuppa’ poems in this volume—was beneficial to both artists and paralleled
those years in which müller achieved his first real success with a stage adap-
tation of John reed’s Ten Days That Shook the World (1957). brecht had
died the year before and the young müller and his wife soon filled some of
the void with the plays Die Korrektur (the correction, 1958) and Der
Lohndrücker (the wage squeezer, 1958, translated into english as The Scab),
both staged at berlin’s maxim gorki theatre, where müller was appointed
dramaturge. both inge and heiner müller received the coveted heinrich
mann prize for Die Korrektur and Der Lohndrücker in 1959. but heiner’s rep-
utation soon eclipsed that of his wife’s, whose mental instability and affair
with his younger brother left the couple estranged. müller had also run afoul
with the east german government in the early 1960s, when one of his new
plays was banned for ‘counter-revolutionary tendencies’. expelled from the
dsv, müller had to live off royalties from a detective mystery for radio he
had written under the unambiguously brechtian name ‘max messer’. the
poems he wrote during this period, however, still reveal his unshaken loyalty
to marxism—a loyalty he hoped would gain him favour with the sed’s
central committee.
the long setback in müller’s career also had a desultory effect on inge
müller’s work and delicate mental health. she had attempted suicide numer-
ous times and succeeded in 1966 when she took an overdose of sleeping
tablets. she had earlier put her head in the oven, much like sylvia plath,
which set the stage for müller to become the ted hughes to this tragedy—

396
a tragedy that reverberates not with silence but that informs his poetry
and theatre work and leaves the reader to judge whether a debt is owed or
paid. and, as though to compound the curse of inge’s death and neglect,
müller enjoyed a second wave of success in the theatre that would eventually
last a lifetime, beginning with his adaptation of sophocles Oedipus, Tyrant
(1967) which opened to great success at berlin’s deutsches theatre. he also
remarried a new collaborator, a young bulgarian theatre student, ginka
tscholakova.

the poems from the 1960s to the mid-90s parallel and virtually document
müller’s growing reputation and range of work vis-à-vis the two germanys.
poetry is where müller contemplates his intellectual life, what animates him,
from his sense of history to his rampant eros, his theatre work, his travels,
the ironies of communism and capitalism, his various heroes and villains and
those grey men caught between both considerations. müller’s poems docu-
ment his reputation as it begins to wax in the 1960s, and they record its
counterpoints: his vulnerability and regret over his dead wife and his increas-
ing estrangement with soviet communism. fundamentally a democrat
(even when it came to audience and their ‘role’ in his plays), for müller the
suppression of the hungarian revolution in 1956, east german censorship
and the prague spring of 1968 stripped away layers of his patience and tol-
erance if not his communist ideals. Like many writers behind the iron cur-
tain, he found ways to express his dismay and disappointment with the
system by indirect routes such as the playwrights and historians of antiquity,
the shakespearean classics and so on, once used to get past the philistine
ministers of kings and tsars before such bureaucrats became ‘cultural author-
ities’.thus, müller continued with his adaptation of classical works, including
sophocles’ Philoctetes (1968) which, along with other plays, led to his being
appointed dramaturge of berliner ensemble in 1970.
along the way, the poetry becomes increasingly dissident and—to me,
as a poet—truer as poetry.that said, i must admit that working with an east
german poet tested me. providentially, my first degree in modern european
history, my training as a history instructor and, most of all, my growing up
in that time when american children were told to hide under our desks
when sirens warned of russian missiles, provides for much rapport with
müller and his work, even with my objectivity shaped by the gulag revela-
tions by solzhenitsyn and other dissidents—and the long bubble bath of

397
cold war culture that americans of my generation endured. (when müller
came to america for the first time in the 1970s, he forced himself to watch
walt disney’s 1940s film Fantasia and came away wondering how any
american child would ever appreciate classical music without the horrendous
images of mickey mouse and dancing hippos scarring his or her brain.)
that said, i found müller’s thing with history to be the modality for
accepting all his work in verse (for the most part!). and some of the best
poems and prose pieces in this volume are taken from the greek playwrights
whom müller adapted for his own theatre—and his translations of chinese
poets reveal his connection to our own poet of history, ezra pound (whose
work müller esteemed if not his fascist politics).
müller is like one of our confessionalist poets. this is true even when
he writes of poems about heracles and odysseus, horace and seneca—he
is very comfortable performing behind their masks. müller, indeed, preferred
to write drama rather than fiction because it afforded him the opportunity
to wear a ‘mask’—this even though his verse often is quite personal, unmasking
the playwright as it were. the one he would seem to wear best is the death
mask of exposing germany’s skeletons in such plays as Germania Tod (1977)
and Germania 3 (1995)—and that of inge too. indeed, müller wears many
masks in his poetry and many only resemble his face. he is as dynamic a
character and audience of himself as he intended for his plays. perhaps his
purest emblem of melancholy is paul Klee’s painting Angelus Novus as inter-
preted by walter benjamin, the image which expresses something other than
good tidings and joy to the world. müller’s youth coincided with the second
great storm that ‘irresistibly propels’ benjamin’s angel into the future—the
collapse of nazi germany and the rise of the gdr.the east german state,
as opposed to its other, took the longest to rise from the ‘the pile of debris’
left by the allied bombs and stalin’s organs and shock armies, the aftermath
of the storm, the progress regarded sidelong by history’s angel—and history’s
poet and dramaturge, heiner müller.
initially, müller saw the historical process in which he developed as
‘progress’. the early poems are the works of a committed communist, com-
mitted to class struggle and world revolution, who saw west germany as the
puppet state. however, if one overlooks the loyal doggerel and pioneer songs,
müller seems to be initially modelling himself after brecht’s more optimistic
political verse and Lehrstücke (learning pieces). in some of these poems, he
is all in for the new german state carved out of the third reich by the

398
‘Liberators’, the red army. the new gdr would atone for the sins of the
nazis while becoming a free, anti-fascist state, a shining path into the future
of solidarity led by a party that truly reflected the people’s will.
nevertheless, müller’s gimlet eye for the ironies and inconsistencies of
the east german utopia under construction surfaces early in the poems.
and while a staunch marxist, müller grew into a dissident, one who read
solzhenitsyn. indeed, he embodied his conflicts and political ambiguities—
he famously claimed to be a left-hander who wrote with his right. his
heart—or ‘heartlessness’ as some said—was on both sides of the wall, the
wall running through it. to him, one germany would have to be romulus
and the other remus. both suckled on the wolf of the third reich, and
one would have to murder the other. indeed, he saw most of his life as being
the victim of german history. but this was the heroic challenge, the dare,
the match-up that german history presented. to müller a writer needed
such a monstrous enemy and germany—nazi, west, east, reunified—did
not fail him in that way. he also saw the west germans as nothing but ex-
nazis, and yet their theatres were more open to his work, his withering
critique of german history, and his identity crisis and their own. he gave
many interviews and they became an extension of his theatre—and poetry
too—and made such interviews a genre almost specific to him.

the renderings of this collection are all from heiner müller, Warten auf der
Gegenschräge: Gesammelte Gedichte (2014), edited by Kristin schulz. for the
most part, i have preserved her arrangement, which begins with a volume
of poems prepared by müller himself. the subsequent parts are chronolog-
ically arranged, either based on müller’s notes or on ms schulz’s impeccable
scholarship. these consist of poems published in müller’s lifetime, unpub-
lished poems and a fourth part comprising drafts and fragments. as a matter
of aesthetics, i have placed müller’s political songs and hackwork—to profess
the loyalty needed to survive in the gdr—in an addendum. the other
compromise made here is, in many instances, the omission of müller’s rhyme
scheme and prosody. müller enjoyed rhyme but he also enjoyed humour
and a certain syntactical delivery which cannot be translated into english
without losing a great deal of accuracy and, indeed, poignancy; the latter can
often disappear to our ears when the rhyme is too trite. wherever there is a
kind of blank verse, there is often the ‘spectre’ of a rhyming original. the

399
content, however, rises up stronger and reveals a world that is unfamiliar—
or becoming less so in our own interesting times.
the german edition is almost half afterword and annotations. i have
drawn on the latter, but for the most part the notes here are my own. the
readers of this volume may be very new to müller and the world from which
he comes, and they may require more context and background than they
bring to the poems unassisted.this is true not only of readers in the english-
speaking world, but i dare say german readers as well who might want to
supplement the german with my take on these poems. that said, i run the
risk of ‘interpretation’ or, at least, over-interpretation if a translator can be
seen also as a theatre director vis-à-vis müller’s texts. in praising the dramatist
robert wilson, müller’s american collaborator, he appreciated that wilson
had not ‘interpreted’ him in staging his plays. müller took pleasure in his
text not to be evaluated, coloured and interpreted—as impossible as this
might seem. instead, the interpretation should be the work of the audience
and must not be on stage per se but staged as this democratic conception of
the theatre.
can the same be said of a poem by müller? perhaps. but translation is
unavoidably ‘interpretation’ and ‘work’. sharing it is a form of democracy
too. so perhaps i have given the reader more to work with. that is one way
of seeing it rather than too much help from the rafters, whispering offstage.
and to remind: there is often very little distance between the poems read as
poems and the poems read as dramatic or, rather, post-dramatic texts. dating
müller’s work risks displeasing his ‘spectre’ too. müller often took years over
a text and only came around to dating his poetry late in his career. even so,
he saw in this the colonial politics and periodization of the editor or, in this
case, the translator. Lastly, are they really poems in the pure sense? some are,
to use derrida again, ‘hauntology’, which riffs his theatre work, verse and
prose semblables and which serve, as one critic put it, as tools for interpreting
müller’s plays. but they are more than that. the poems as a whole are
müller’s life-drama, which would end prematurely.

by the end of the 1970s, müller had visited the united states, where his
plays were produced for the first time and his influence began to ripple
through the american theatre in what came to be called post-dramatic
theatre. he had also written and premiered his most important work,

400
Hamletmaschine (1979) in france and west germany, where his stature as the
most important german playwright was established well before unification.
in the decade leading up to the fall of the berlin wall and the Wende,
the ‘transition’ from a divided germany, müller staged other plays and adap-
tations with wilson. his plays were translated and published in english
throughout the 1980s. and when the wall came down, he concentrated on
the rehearsals for an eight-hour performance of shakespeare’s Hamlet and
his Hamletmaschine as one work. he won virtually every german literary
prize and accolade that could be given in both germanys, and was even
appointed to the directorate of the berliner ensemble. this made him not
only a cultural institution in the newly united germany but also anointed
him the successor to brecht. and he played this part with utter authority
and authenticity, punctuating his increasingly loftier positions and grandiose
statements with his trademark montecristo havana cigar and sips of strong
coffee—that were killing him and which he seemed to know even without
consulting physicians, given the awareness of his mortality that surfaces
in his later poems. in this way, he is the man of controversial, pariahistic
verdicts—a precious few with all the subtleness stockhausen had for 9/11
as outsider art—such as müller seeing the holocaust as colonial genocide
carried out in europe instead of africa or asia. he was truly a united
germany’s bardic poet and would easily fit into that role-motif explored by
the late terrence des pres, whose posthumous book, Praises and Dispraises
(1988), has a chapter devoted to the poetry of brecht, in which he writes of
brecht’s tribe, of those who embraced his marxist vision, and the ‘tribe of
his mother tongue, the german nation that he attacked, blessed, defended
and called to like a prophet.’ müller belonged to that tribe and spoke to
them but without being prophetic. as he told a reporter—who found
müller preoccupied with rehearsals at the berliner ensemble while crowds
of thousands gathered at the wall: ‘i am no tribune of the people.’
nor was he a historian or chronicler despite the content of his plays and
poems. if müller had a purpose in life, it was that of the baron haussmann’s
artiste-démolisseur or destruction artist, whose works upset, confuse and disturb
established sensibilities. then the looming spectre of one germany became
a reality in 1990 and presented itself as the subject matter for a man who
was not only the new brecht but perhaps the new goethe too. he under-
stood that he would be making his own Wende, into this larger-than-life
‘world historical being’ and thus he rigorously maintained his human stature

401
in his poems and contemplated the black humour of himself and his fame—
including the accusations that he had been an informant for east germany’s
dreaded secret police, the stasi. poetry became increasingly important to him
after the wall and he produced his first book-length collection in 1992.
indeed, his poetry was as much the centre of his creative life as his theatre
work: from brief, allusive lyrics to long pieces that could easily be dramatic
monologues, such as ‘mommsen’s block’, in which he contemplated how
hard it would be to write about the new germany after living through the
failed experiment of the gdr, as though it has merely been a theatre of
socialism, a simulacrum, rather than its reality vis-à-vis market capitalism.
having divorced from ginka in 1981, müller married a young photog-
rapher, brigitte mayer in 1992; they had a daughter, anna, that same year.
he brought his radical vision of the theatre to bayreuth in 1993, when he
was invited to direct wagner’s Tristan und Isolte. the following year, he was
diagnosed with oesophageal cancer. despite the vicissitudes of surgery in
munich, he spent the winter of 1994–95 in Los angeles at the invitation of
the getty foundation and recovered even as he worked at the villa aurora,
the famous clifftop home of Lion feuchtwanger. the cancer looms across
the poems of 1995 as does his gradual acceptance of his impending
death and the possibility that he will not finish or produce another work as
important as the Hamletmaschine. after another round of chemotherapy in
november 1995, he remained hospitalized and wrote his last poems. he died
on 30 december 1995.

i wish to thank my colleague, swiss poet and translator daniele pantano for
his excellent suggestions in making these renderings as faithful as possible
and taking only the necessary risks that are essential for müller’s poetics. i
would like to thank my wife Lori for her support and advice in such a large
undertaking. and i would like to thank the team at seagull books.

402
 ADDENDUM

For Party Morale:

Lyrics, Verse and Translations
(1940s–1970s)
the peasants (1949)

1
there’s a village like any other
at the edge of the republic.
to its farmers it seemed hard
to live with wilhelm pieck.
2
they didn’t want to supply
those eaters in the city.
they sat upon their hams,
saying: who gets who has.
3
then came from their lord
the message: make no mistake!
it won’t be much longer
till we’re on the march.
4
everyone who read this
Left no bacon in the barn.
they carted up and drove
with a whip crack townwards.
5
they told the government:
Keep that man away!
and while unloading said softly:
for the republic.

[early 1950s]1

Wilhelm Pieck (1876–1960), german communist leader, president of east germany

(1949–60). although a supporter of small farmers and for the breakup of large estates—
he made famous the slogan ‘Junkerland in bauernhand’ (the Junker’s land in the farmers’
hands)—pleck was regarded with suspicion by farmers of mid-size estates. by holding
out for higher prices and government requisition policies, they would eventually be
met by an aggressive policy of expropriating farms and enforced collectivization in east
germany.

405
bruchstedt

the farmers’
lament.
wind and water took
away our houses.
debris without a name
bruchstedt is the place.
as the water rose
cattle died in the barns.
you had to leave them there
dying before the dawn.
yesterday god’s gift—
today people in need!
oh, we have no boat
for our belongings!
farmer, see the pale
moon standing on the gable!
you must leave it standing,
you must leave in despair.
water high and roaring
over the fields oh!
water high and roaring!
and men powerless.
a plea
to help the farmers
of bruchstedt
man on tractor
or at workbench
or on scaffold!
a village is sick.
a village is dying.
a village needs your help.

406
it’s sick. it’s dying. it needs your help.
it will die if you don’t help it.
you must help it!
three thousand farm people need you.
who lie upon the ground.
who have no roofs.
who are beaten by the high water.
the helpless need you.
you must help them!
the house which has no roof
must have a roof again.
build it!
in the square, where a house stood,
a house must stand again.
build it!
the village has been destroyed.
you must build it anew!
in one night the village was beaten.
in one night the high waters beat the village.
you will be needed longer,
that you build it anew.
but you may not tire
before it’s built anew.
it’s cold.
the birds of passage fly.
before they return
the village must be built anew.
so that the field can be farmed again
which lies ruined
so that no one must go hungry.
man on tractor
or at workbench
or on scaffold!

407
a village is sick.
a village is dying.
a village needs your help.
it’s sick. it’s dying. it needs your help.
it’ll die if you don’t help it.
you must help it!

[1950]2

Bruchstedt, village in thuringia, germany, and site of a devastating flood in may 1950.
the east german government organized a rebuilding effort which took 50 days and
thousands of volunteers.

408
song of chairman mao
(text: wai fung, german: heiner müller, music: Kwai bin)

mao zedong in praise

hums amid the ripened rice
from peking to far nanking
a joyous chorus of song:
mao, you saviour, red star—mao’s liberated us.
ai hai, ai hai, yo! mao’s liberated us.
wise and brave mao makes
withered trees blossom,
rise, you slaves of yesterday!
dig out of misery!
raise up forests of prosperity,
the fruits of our deeds.
ai hai, ai hai, yo! the fruits of our deeds.
flowers blossom red.
mao’s conquered death.
for the slaves of yesterday’s land!
free are land and plough.
people, take your welfare in your hand!
be your own master.
ai hai, ai hai, yo! be your own master!
eastwards flow the rivers
valleys of flowers fly.
hunger, cold are blown away.
people, led by mao,
Learn to go forward free from cares.
china, lift your head high!
ai hai, ai hai, yo! china, lift your head high!

[1951]

409
march of the army of Liberation
(text: Kung moo, german: heiner müller, music: cheng Lue-cheng)

forward!
host of freedom!
southwards!
push through heat and snow
freedom’s army!
china’s hope!
we are
a forest of strength.
victory
will be with us.
we the young
are strong and steadfast.
we the young—
the people’s fighting force.
people we love,
people we defend,
we’ll liberate you!
pursue chiang!
you, people, hold judgement day!
the drum rolls.
you, people, rise up!
rise!
storms rage. the drum beats,
freedom’s song rings.
forward!
rise, partisans, close ranks!
vanguard of freedom!
forward, forward!
south is the goal, there trees blossom
lush like a dream.
stab the heart of chiang Kai shek!3

[1951]

Chiang Kai Shek (1887–1975), leader of the nationalist chinese army.

410
unity is strength
(text: moo hung, german: heiner müller, music: Loo siad)

unity—source of our strength!

unity—source of our strength!
you the strength of iron!
you the strength of steel!

you a wall of iron.

you a forest of steel.

the fascists—crush them! crush them!

Let us stand together!

break the bondage!

victory of sun!
victory of freedom!

wake to a red dawn china’s people.

see the red dawn!

[1951]

411
song of the huang he

seven thousand times—

heart, oh turns to stone!—
the great misery burst
over them.
now they build the dam,
they lug the stones along:
oh, to subdue the great river,
which is hard!
seven thousand times
before the river behind
they each lugged their own.
no one bore so hard!
now they build the dam,
Lugging stones along:
those we lug oh the stones,
which are hard!
seven thousand times
the river drank their bread.
fast ran every foot
into starvation.
now they build the dam,
going slowly along
who carries much, must go slow,
which is hard!
seven thousand times,
themselves without a roof,
they built a palace
for their overlords, oh!
now they build a dam,
Lugging stones along:
those we lug oh the stones
which aren’t hard!

412
seven thousand times
boot kicks and blows!
till their lashes broke
and there came the day.
now they build the dam,
Lugging stones along:
oh, to subdue the great river,
it’s not hard!

[early 1950s]4

huang he, the yellow river.

413
greetings to Korea
(text: boyan balabasov, german: heiner müller, music: g. naumov)

1. greetings, Korea, to your land of three coasts!

your northern constellation shines bright:
five stars above forests and deserts.
a star of hope for a world in peace!
Kim ir sen has summoned you to battle.
his voice has awakened the nation!
defend your flag, people, your banners red!
arise, you people, like a typhoon!

2. the land was filled with wealth and resources,

this greedy fiend has come across the sea.
but all it took was your trampled flowers
for your brave people to take up arms.
Kim ir sen . . .

3. forward march! through the forests and ravines!

and liberate the last piece of land.
into the blue, into shimmering bays,
and into the storm overrun the foe!
Kim ir sen . . .

4. yes, these masters are tangled in evil!

partisans crush the life from this spawn.
while the enemy may have steel and soldiers,
the people will write the reckoning with blood.
Kim ir sen . . .

5. Korean people, push on! partisans!

your soil full of blood and full of sweat,
your crops, your cities and towns and banners,
defend them from the dollar’s vermin.
Kim ir sen . . .

6. take the flag, Korea, to victory!

Koreans, the world sends its greetings!

414
until and when the foe in this last of wars
is shattered against the wall of peace.
Kim ir sen . . .

[1951]5

müller translated the russian original for Leben Singen Kämpfen. Liederbuch der deutschen
Jugend (Live Sing Struggle: A Songbook for German Youth; berlin, 1954).
Kim Ir Sen, a variation of Kim il-sung (1912–94), founder of the democratic people’s
republic of Korea.

415
song of stalin
(german: heiner müller)

the land will freely thrive in peace.

and happiness and sun-drenched wine shall be.
no word, no song can contain all our joy.
songs, sing songs in a choir!
refr.: the homeland flowers,
by stalin freed.
he lives in song
as the era’s hope.
those nations, which live in peace,
follow stalin.
he fulfils
what he swore on Lenin’s tomb.
a choir of millions sings
the song of stalin—stalin, who vanquished war.
Kolkhoz brigades—storm-fierce blood,
a blast furnace steels our dreams.
today we build the young world of tomorrow.
a morning wind blows, brigades march!
brigades forge peace and happiness,
that light of tomorrow’s world in your eyes.
the morning sirens call: forward, shock brigades!
a dawn wind blows. brigades march!

[1951]6

Kolkhoz brigades, collective-farm workers, typically young people.

416
the song of stalin
(text: J. prutkoroski, german: heiner müller, music: m. olzarczyk)

proud choruses and songs,

singing in the machine shop.
again and again and again
his name rings like steel.
refr.: people of the world, one great
truth is clear and decided:
peace is stalin—
and stalin is peace.
war and terrible times
shall frighten mothers no more,
for their eyes will float
peacefully to his face.
sing, poland, now sing—
you Life, adorn your hair.
capital city and village, to him
now offer your grateful song.

[1951]

417
the march of the first corps / 1943
(text: a. wazyk, german: heiner müller, melody: ‘march of the allies’ by von baracz)

having crossed the countryside,

to stand on the seashore,
how far it still might be
to that rye field, that homeland of mine?
it’s time, stand ready, gird yourself well, soldier of the people—
march, march! push on first corps—
drive westward—lead the way west!
wait, maria, wait,
our march is hard—
and we are no longer far—
you my shining star, are no longer far.
weep not, my girl—you are no longer alone—
march, march! greetings first corps—
greetings from the east! Lead the way! forward west!
and a great joy—
a republic
a land, our land
of new heroes grows in village and town!
greet the day—eyes ahead! from crystal grows a house—
march, march! push on first corps
for the homeland, forward west!

[1951]7

First Corps, the polish first corps, part of the people’s army of poland (Lwp), which
fought alongside the red army during the second world war.

418
hey, my grey, gallop quick
(german: heiner müller)

grey, hey, grey, hey, gallop quick, hey!

stamp your hooves, my little beast!
to my dear and only girl,
my blue-eyed darling, on to you.
my pony’s neighs echo in the yard,
girl, hey, do you hear me?
ride, my darling, ride my dear!
darling, i await you.
he comes riding on his grey pony.
under the oaks so green
he undoes the reins, the golden reins,
and there his pony waits for him.

[1951]

419
sailor’s song
(german: e. burkert, h. müller)

oy, how i fare to here and there

soon upon the dark sea.
oh, when i set sail, woe—
for black the night and black the sea.
when a candle’s lit for you,
your boat will find its way to me.

[1951]

420
steel boot taps, spark a fire now
(folk song by masowien, german: heiner müller)

steel boot taps, spark a fire now,

hey, you’re worth it, my girl,
whether you are, whether not, my girl,
steep boot taps, spark a fire now.
refr.: huzzah, merrily, huzzah, jump!
our taps are made of steel,
the sparks are the proof!
huzzah, merrily, huzzah, jump!
hey girl, get up from the stove,
kids, one of you isn’t here . . .
here’s little mary, here’s little Kate,
but my sophie’s missing yet.
fiddler, you’ll dwell in heaven,
huzzah, you on bass, just the same.
the drummer will sit enthroned on high,
crashing cymbals with no equal.

[1951]

421
hey,you cracow boys
(folksong of the raftsmen of the cracow region, german: heiner müller)

hey, you boys, in the boats,

let’s dance today in town
with the pretty, with the little
girls of sandomierz.
cursing us, bargeman, does no good.
drop the oars and the ropes!
cracow’s pretty little eyes twinkle
hurry, there’re girls, hurry!
cursing us, bargeman, does no good.
away with the oars and lines!
cracow allows no girl to sit,
and we are from cracow.
at the dance, my dear bargeman,
we’ll carry off our maids,
while the devil, my dear bargeman,
will carry off your boats.

[1951]

422
march of friendship
(german: heiner müller)

neither the bottom of the sea, nor granite peaks

will stop this marching bloc of friendship.
through countries in struggle we march, we youth
invincible in vibrant ranks.
refr.: thus do we keep in step! and never tire!
even when the storm blows against our flags,
we will win the battle for peace.
foes of freedom here’s our fist!
young slavs, rise up! young greeks and spaniards!
the youth of china are on the march.
our brothers fight with us, the young negroes of virginia
and the malays, onwards the vietnamese.
march in step! up in front, Komsomol columns,
the singing children of liberation are on the move.
and through moscow and warsaw the song of our glory rings
and the youth of the world will bear it onwards.

[1951]8

Komsomol, the official youth organization of the communist party in the soviet
union.

423
our seal
(story, text: J. smeljakow, adapted by h. müller)

and it came to be the remaining parts—

in this great year the cost of production!—
when the people so spoke the council—
rose and were victorious: the delegates supply:
in an unheated from his workshop’s
Kremlin room red glare and smoke
a meeting came the smith has brought
together of the soviet. his hammer and wares.
the worker of the land from her village,
and seamstress the glory of the fields,
at the same table the peasant girl has
with blacksmith and weaver. brought her sickle.
and at the door stood and a golden
bearded and erect sheaf, ripe and heavy,
with a rifle the farmer brought
a soldier at his post. in his rough hands.
the council decided, with her freezing
we live upon the soil— boots stamping
let there be the soil now the weaver—
too on our seal here. her cotton cloth fire-red.
and on our seal the council made
as in the sky the great hammer
let there be the sun and the sickle
and a red star thereby. flashing into one.
and those sheaves no more could the soldier
which the peasant brought, remain silent there
were twisted round and lifts a hand:
with october’s cloth. so take my rifle too!

424
and our watchwords but wise stalin
were recorded tells him that he
in the cotton must never hand
true to ilyich’s word. over his rifle.
and ever since
our soldier stands
to defend our seal
with his rifle ready.

[1951/52]

425
song of soviet schooLchiLdren
(text: w. gussev, adapted by h. müller)

the school is new, and the flag

in the wind flies red over the school’s roof.
so they rise according to our plans,
schools which belong to us.
we come from factories and fields.
the path and the goal are set.
for our happy childhood.
for you, our happy land!
we’ll stand in sparkling rooms
before blackboards and maps.
and learn and study and dream,
and to see us makes stalin proud.
we come from factories and fields,
the path and the goal are set.
for our happy childhood.
for you, our happy land!
we’ll learn about our expanding earth
and about its massive structure.
when we are captains
on the seas, daring and blue,
in storms, then will we say:
the path and the goal are set.
for our happy childhood.
for you, our happy land!
so will we grow and learn
and be bold and healthy and strong!
and with a laughing mouth
we’ll climb the far blue reaches
and look around ourselves and say:
the path and the goal are set.
for our happy childhood.
for you, our happy land!

426
we’ll hold up the banner,
that it never falls to the enemy.
growing in the struggle like our elders,
in struggle we change the world.
we’ll fall into step and say:
the goal and the path are set.
for our happy childhood.
for you, our happy land!

[1951/52]

427
a speech by soviet writers on comrade staLin
(text: a. tvardovski, adapted by h. müller)

the word, the incorruptible, has might.

but there are feelings that cannot be
put into words: for a people’s love
so inexpressible, the might of the word pales.
for you, who is a friend and father to us,
mere words are not enough, for that
doesn’t last, no, this love, like that of a child,
is simple and compares to nothing else.
the people’s beloved, he whose boldness
for the world is a legend beyond belief—
who followed Lenin, follow you now
and will ever carry your image in their hearts.
bright as these days of our present era,
strong as youth, steadfast in loyalty—
as they stand, we stand gathered around him,
through whom we’re happier than anyone else.
he who pointed our land towards the right road,
so that we can live a far better life—
nothing’s enough to honour who gave us all this,
no matter what we can offer in thanks.
from every nation, from every race which
could appear here on this festive day,
the thankfulness of sons and their greetings,
let them be offered up to you by your sons.
thank you for leading us out of night and need
into the light and happiness of dawn!
thank you, you who put an end to evil,
lifting the land from misery and torment!
thank you too, for now the enemy once more
cries for war, wanting a world in flames—
there is one hope for the victory of peace,
which bears the name of stalin, your name.

428
words cannot express how dear you
are to free people and to those not yet free.
we are but the messengers of a love which
will never end, that only grows with time.
the entire nation in loyalty greets you—who
can never repay what you have given them—
may you live beyond us on for decades
in joy, joy that you shall create with us.
may the summer go on, year after year,
winding wreathes of leaves and bright flowers,
renewing themselves above your silver hair
kindling spring upon spring in this proud life.
for all this, all for you, our greetings and thanks.
from all, all whose hearts beat for you!
from all, all who carry the red banner
through tundra, snowy mountains and rivers long!
from all your children, greetings and gratitude!

[1951/52]

429
the 7th of november . . .

this the day of prisoners, of wage slaves.

those not yet alive.
they know that they will live for there is this day.
every year on this day a shadow falls upon the sun
of capitalism.
the colour of the shadow is red.
the blood of the oppressed . . . .
on this day they hoist the torches of their chalk-white
faces through the rusting steel of the world’s cities, and
before the breath of their glowing revolution the traffic
falters for long heartbeats.
on this day the dreaming prisoner writes on the
filthy wall of his cell in solitary confinement: october—Lenin—
and weary soldiers, charged with conquering nations that
will never belong to them, shoving the barrels of their rifles
(which don’t belong to them) in the sand.
on this day the prisoners of capitalism dream: metal workers
dock workers miners of a tomorrow when they from beyond
the ruins of their prisons, while thirstily drinking
the red of the flags, will for the first time see the light of the world (for
they have known only the dark) on an earth which turns to their will.
this morning will be cold, but it will be irrevocable.

[early 1950s]

430
song of the brigades

1 oh by itself will no stone

upon the other rise
what you break won’t come to you
you must go yourself.
girls pick out stones
choose one after another
boys for our house set
one upon another.
2 oh rubble won’t move by itself
from the site not at all
spades hoes shovels now!
shovel please, swift!
children clear the dirt aside
into a great pile
and make it swift: the trash must go
before it drowns us all.
3 take care of your roof
you who yet have none
berlin needs all needs all
it is our city
girls boys women, old men
one with the other
make it happen a millionwise
one for the other.

[1952]

431
building songs
for children

1
the children appeal
to the construction workers.
when you build the houses
on the new streets
leave us a wide patch
of green grass too!
there must be a lot of sand—
don’t overlook that—
on our playground too
so that we learn to build.
then between the grass and blue
we want to swing
on a swing, high
above the world.

[1952]

432
rise up, proletarian, and join in
this song is yours and mine.
when we are one we break
the power of the class enemy.
he sucked the money from our fathers
took our children’s bread
you stand alone, you won’t escape
Living or dead
rise up, walk together, proletarian
get in line for the march which goes
on to the end of the long march

[mid-1950s]

433
in the worKing-cLass district of Lahore
(text: nikolai tikhonov, adapted by h. müller)

when i set foot for the first time

in that land far to the south—
and it was no dream—the barren
shack, barely wide as a grave.
naked walls. made of mud and mould.
a dirt floor, sunken slantwise.
and a fragment of blue sky
hangs between dust and silence.
cobwebs in the corners.
straw for a bed, fit for a beast.
no man could live in such
a damp cave—so it seemed to me.
Just beggars at the grave’s edge,
blind from hunger now and deaf—
no, this grave of dust called
itself working-class housing.
and here revealed once more,
how man, so often deceived,
is harshly oppressed by man,
with no more hope of liberation.
thus abandoned to hunger,
at last dead from despair,
he has resigned himself
utterly to his slave’s life.
then i saw the eyes sparkle,
in my friend from pakistan:
‘many live this way in darkness,
those who’ve never seen the sun . . .
but there is in this world
still one great hope!
here!’ suddenly it opened wide
like a hole for a window.

434
it was on the wall to see,
where the light of day breaks—
stalin’s portrait!—‘that will be
clearer than the light of day . . . ’
before me was a man who had
not bowed to the long misery,
stepping from the shadows
he looked up to the red dawn,
what was on this crumbling wall
inscribed in plain sight:
‘this is stalin, everything dear,
every wonderful hope!’
‘his star upon our flag!
and where shadows were, is light!’
thus spoke this pakistani—
dust and sores on his face—
he who had live in the dust
of Lahore, this ancient city,
but he knows the new truth,
one that is for ever valid.

[1951/52]9

Nikolai Tikhonov (1896–1979), soviet writer.

435
Lenin song
ever before us his voice
Lenin’s living word.
his work we carry
onwards here and now:
the old game is played out
red armies, a sword a shield
they defend our might.
ever before us his voice . . .
no man is another’s servant
right is a duty and duty is a right
in our republic.
ever before us his voice . . .
one redoubles the other’s strength
Labour’s might and science
tomorrow becomes today.
ever before us his voice . . .
his work grows, soviet power
it grows in every class struggle
the unity of the party.
ever before us his voice . . .
the world was old, the time was long.
since Lenin they take our path
Lockstep with the revolution.

[1969/70]

436
at the 9th party congress of the sed in may 1976
from a speech by the general secretary of the central committee of the socialist unity
party of germany and chairman of the state council of the german democratic republic,
erich honecker, arranged by heiner müller

1
greatness was achieved
with the people’s strength for the people’s welfare
in brotherhood with the soviet union
never was so much done
in the community of socialist states
for peace and security
for the freedom of the nation
much remains to be done
in a communist way
year after year
2
we wiLL not forget
peace for the people of our continent is hard won
the nature of imperialism has not changed
peace will not just be given to us
we wiLL not forget
our solidarity with all who struggle for democracy
and progress in the world of capital
we wiLL not forget
every success of socialism contributes to the great
world revolutionary of our time
3
our combat League is united
today anyone can see:
that imperiaLism is on the defensive
that progress is on the march
with the strength of the entire nation
from the present age of sociaLism
into the future of communism10

choral music no. 5 for bass solo, choir and orchestra’ by east german paul dessau
(1894–1979).
combat League, the entire membership of the sed; the term harkens to the romantic
image of socialist and communist militant organizations that fought their nazi coun-
terparts during the weimar period.

437
First Lines and Titles

PART ONE | A Book of Poems (1992) 1

on meadows green 2

1949 . . . 3
and between abc and onetimesone 5
report from the beginning 6
fight on, you the victors . . . 7
images 8
phiLoctetes 1950 9
taLes of homer 10
conversation with horace 11
horace 12
on chamisso’s poem ‘the oLd washer woman’ 13
anna fLint 14
missouri 1951 15
a hundred steps 16
question and answer 17
LooKing bacK from foreign hiLLs 18
on the way into the land with 19
the emperor needs soldiers, father. 20
i was a hero, my fame wide 21
heroic Landscape 22
two Letters 23
mayaKovsKy 25
or büchner 26
brecht 27
Lesson 28
opera 29
L. e. or the hoLes in the stocK 30
father 31
oLd poem 32
seLf-portrait at two in the morning 33
uLysses 34
motif by a. s. 35
dan dee 36
orpheus pLoughed 37

439
the good fortune of productivity 38
he was the first of the best 39
napoLeon, for eXampLe 40
the JoyLess angeL 41

1959 . . . 43
commentary on oedipus 45
babeLsberg eLegy 1960 47
fiLm 48
to the mountain cLimbers 49
schaLL corioLanus 50
new year’s Letter 1963 51
chiLdhood 52
e. L. 53
you are gone the cLocKs 54
yesterday i started 55
steLLa sonnet 56
medea pLay 57
Journey to pLovdiv 58

1969 . . . 59
eLectra teXt 61
proJection 1975 62
yesterday on a sunny afternoon 63
aLone with these bodies 64
on the rereading of aLeXander fadeyev’s the nineteen 65
shakespeare the tourist 66

1979 . . . 67
fragment for Luigi nono 69
i am the angel of despair 70
night train berLinfriedrichstrasse franKfurtmain 71
while driving by the charlottenburg palace park . . . 72
sometimes when i enJoy my priviLeges 73
tooth decay in paris 74
fragmentary Letter to a Lost Lover 75
days with oLJa and things LiKe that 76
Letter to a. s. 77
cuLturaL poLitics after boris dJacenKo 78
reunion with my eviL cousin 79

440
1989 . . . 81
a light rain on light dust 83
teLevision 84
heart of darKness after Joseph conrad 87
seLf-criticism 2 broKen Key 89
JoyLess angeL 2 90
heracLes 13 91

PART TWO | Poems (1950–1995) 95

where? 97
one night during the war a man walked off 98
ballad 99
romance 100
epigram on Lyric poetry 101
tractor song 102
thoughts on the beauty of the landscape on a journey to the vast
construction site of ‘shwarze pumpe’ (1958) 103
bunchuk [i] 104
‘the reds’ 105
winter battLe, 1963 106
question for teachers 109
dt 64 111
blind and filled with deception is your way, o world 114
bulat okudshawa 115
(after Joris ivens) 117
Laugh ye not unLess it be a city faLLen 118
i don’t beLieve in reaLity 119
Prometheus 121
woman with dog 122
soap in bayreuth 123
coronary artery 124
seneca’s death 125
müLLer in the hessian hof 127
the empty staircase tells the horrors 129
with the return of colour looms 130
. . . and i go farther into a Landscape 131
LiKe a shadow god created man 132
visit with an eLder statesman 133

441
mommsen’s bLocK 135
i have eaten with spectres during the night 142
thinKing about micheLangeLo 143
tristan 1993 144
marKe to the dead tristan 145
birth of a soLdier 146
rudoLf augstein, 70 147
bLacK fiLm 148
scipio 149
ajax for example 150
in the mirror my dissected body 157
showdown 158
ibsen, or death as an embryo rides through a strange city 159
stage death 160
dream forest 161
welcome to santa monica 162
pier paolo pasolini, fragment on death 163

PART THREE | Unpublished Verse (1945–1995) 165

baLL sonnet 167
cultural outing to chemnitz 168
aLmub verse, 1948 169
a brief hymn (in winter) 170
epitaph for bao dai 171
in the defeated cities 172
[the Liberated] 173
spring song in winter 174
bremen nursery rhyme, 1952 175
remarKs for a generaL contract 176
eastern eXperience 177
on the taboo of virginity 178
gaLotti 179
address to a soLdier of the european army 180
the man in the bomber 181
portrait of gen. ridgway 182
songs of the homeLess 183
the peasants before their transport to the court 184
slaughtering piglets 185

442
the fLag 186
the mother of the high traitor, 1940 187
two stars 188
good to go 189
you happily let yourselves float in your rivers 190
the trees are more visible than the forest 191
nursery rhyme 192
the sapLing which is smaLL 193
nursery rhyme 194
riddLe 195
question 196
driving by 197
in the hot house 198
on the pLatform 199
her sons feLL 200
Love poem 201
i found and broke off many flowers 202
who showed us one another 203
taLKing about some beautifuL things 204
from the forests 205
our love in strong 206
about some drummers 207
between two blasted walls 208
my father entered a movie theatre 209
standing outside the slaughterhouse i heard the cows 210
between the scaffolds and ruined walls 211
it was summer and it was noon 212
he whom i carried in my body 213
the horse has no rifLe 214
i knew an old dapple grey 215
six years, so that nothing failed their masters 216
a bastard who just leaves his lover 217
your hunger burns bad, soldier 218
critique 219
thirty-one 220
baLLad of the striKebreaKer 221
Legend of the dead miLKman 222
fairy taLe 223
Legend of a dead general 224

443
the red parrot 226
tree pruning 227
three foLK songs 228
early today to the hunt rode shu 229
mr chu defends his property 230
mr chu and his monKeys 231
mr chin and the gods 232
dear son, join the bundeswehr 233
marceau 234
this one and that 235
a girL going to fetch water 236
during the first the rain came down 237
the rain 238
maybe the sky above was entirely blue 239
the sun was shining as we Kissed, but 240
there is the bridge 241
sleep, tuppa, quickly 242
duet for tuppa + pepe 243
no poem tonight 244
the sun has gone to sleep 245
one times one + abc 246
your eyes are like the water 247
riddLe 248
germany, 1945 249
STREET SCENE 249
STREET SONG 250
ROMANCE 251
Denazification, 1945 252
Lantern song 253
the big p or a request to think of pleasure 254
first suggestion for improvement 255
second suggestion for improvement 256
chronicLe 257
berLin eLegies 258
Lear 259
a fish carcass with a silver belly 260
reutlingen elegies 261
bunchuK 262
faLstaff’s epitaph 263

444
back from the shattered lands . . . 264
mother germania . . . 265
protrait of f. b. 266
on my wall hangs some paper . . . 267
a farmhand picked up a potato 268
rammler got up in the night 269
this is the way to heaven for little money 270
writing in the open 271
sleep, wolfkin, sleep 272
on wednesday, after the last shift 273
at his smallest scale . . . 274
fountain, you who drinks me . . . 275
the agitation (1963) 276
epitaph for guevara 279
on the occasion of the murder of martin Luther King 280
fareweLL hemingway, sofia, 1969 281
for ekkehard schall 282
i don’t know where i am returning 283
you’ll remain here, i leave 284
day after day 285
between the battLes over me 286
money for spain 287
forget the yes + no 289
delphi: between me and the gods 290
torso 291
anatomy of (a) Love 292
goodbye 293
orpheus pLoughed (ii) 294
Lear, an associative space (no commentary) 295
travel notes 296
a mons pubis black in twilight 297
Love nothing any longer and no one is any good 298
m is a scatterbrain 299
i entrust my cock into your hand 300
Liebeserklärung 301
ancestraL broth 302
nature morte 303
Lament of the historian 304
dying man with mirror 305
the rhinoceros has a horn 306

445
misprint 307
across a page of poetry 308
a teacup cracks in one’s hand . . . 309
urban traffic 310
Learning process 311
the pLeasure of fear 312
blueprint 313
for a year and longer have i not seen my friend 314
marx is dead . . . 315
court ruLing 316
HAIKU IN SLOW MOTION the strawberry shirt 317
conversation with yang zhu the pessimist 318
vision impairment 319
Letter to the romans 320
ajax 322
surfacing in the isolation ward 323
dialogue 324
berlin 14.12.1994 325
empty time 326
passing by the bookcase 327
forget the theatre and take heed of the: noh 328
viLLa aurora 329
the scientists live in horror 330
vampire 331
in a true man 332
montaigne meets tasso 1 333
poetry and prose 334
memo 409 336
in search of odradek 340
end of handwriting 341
before my typewriter your face 342
all my life i have regarded the lines in my palms 343
drama 344
in the skull kingdoms universes 345
menelaus the banker 346
a child cries in the cafeteria 347
timon 348
yesterday a man sat across from me 349
i chew the hospitaL food . . . 350

446
PART FOUR | Drafts and Fragments (1950s–1990s) 351
1883 353
the world was cold: we wanted to be colder 354
the hungry cry for bread 355
a brazilian battleship is adrift in azores 356
you poachers in women’s crotches 357
ah where bread is dispensed the oppression 358
a plum fell from a branch 359
not knowing what he wore . . . 360
cXLvii 361
on some motives in schiLLer’s poem ‘the waLK’ 362
cLinicaL observation 363
women over 40, betrayed by men . . . 364
the stamp 365
this was something he didn’t understand 366
there was a day when we laid in the grass 367
when i was a child, i didn’t know 368
fathers get up so that children sleep . . . 369
in the shadow 370
activist rhyme 371
war or peace. start or finish. 372
the stone dances. choreography: a high-rise crane 373
his grandfather fell 374
erhard the miser 375
i cannot lay the world at your feet 376
at midnight in february 377
through the haze on carlo schmitt . . . 378
they have sown the wind it is a storm 379
when we are playing the bowandarrowgame 380
the dueL 381
i love 383
faced with the death of a man 384
personaL 1 385
(1) time poem 386
i press my hand on the glass 387
the pain a quote 388
bucolic landscape 389
description of a death 390
go, ariel, silence the tempest 391
amid the room amid the time 392

447
Translator’s Afterword 393

ADDENDUM | For Party Morale:

Lyrics, Verse and Translations (1940s–1970s) 403
the peasants (1949) 405
bruchstedt 406
song of chairman mao 409
march of the army of Liberation 410
unity is strength 411
song of the huang he 412
greetings to Korea 414
song of stalin 416
the song of stalin 417
the march of the first corps / 1943 418
hey, my grey, gallop quick 419
sailor’s song 420
steel boot taps, spark a fire now 421
hey,you cracow boys 422
march of friendship 423
our seal 424
song of soviet schooLchiLdren 426
a speech by soviet writers on comrade staLin 428
the 7th of november . . . 430
song of the brigades 431
building songs for children 432
rise up, proletarian, and join in 433
in the worKing-cLass district of Lahore 434
Lenin song 436
at the 9th party congress of the sed in may 1976 437

448