2 What a melting pot was America in those days -- celebrated
by poets! God's own country! Invoked just by the initials of its names: U.S.A. Like an unmistakable childhood friend whom everyone
knows.
3 This inexhaustible melting pot, so it was said Received everything that fell into it and converted it Within twice two weeks into something identifiable All races which landed on this zestful continent Eagerly abandoned themselves and forgot their profoundest
characteristics Like bad habits In order to become As quickly as possible like those who were so much at home
there. And they received them with careless generosity as if they
were utterly different (Differing only through the difference of their miserable
existence). Like a good leaven they feared no Mass of dough, however enormous: they knew They would penetrate everything. What fame! What a country!
4 Ah, those voices of their women coming from the sound-
boxes! Thus they sang (take good care of those records!) in the
golden age. Harmony of the evening waters at Miami! Uncontainable gaiety of the generations driving fast over
unending roads! Mighty lamentations of women singing, faithfully mourning Broad-chested men, but ever surrounded by Broad-chested men!
5 They collected whole parks of rare human specimens Fed them scientifically, bathed them and weighed them So that their incomparable gestures might be perpetuated in
photographs For all who came after.
6 They raised up their gigantic buildings with incomparable
waste Of the best human material. Quite openly, before the whole
world They squeezed from their workers all that was in them Fired rifles into the coal mines and threw their used-up bones
and Exhausted muscles on the streets with Good-natured laughter. But in sporting acknowledgement they reported The same rough obstinacy in workers on strike With homeric exaggeration.
7 Poverty was considered despicable there. In the films of this blessed nation Men down on their luck, on seeing the homes of the poor
(which included pianos and leather couches) Killed themselves out of hand.
8 What fame! What a country! Oh we too demanded such broad-gauge overcoats of rough
material With the padded shoulders which make men so broad That three of them fill the entire sidewalk. We too sought to brake our gestures Thrust our hands slowly into our pockets and work ourselves
slowly Out of the armchairs in which we had reclined (as for all
eternity) Like a whole State turning over And we too stuffed our mouths full of chewing gum (Beech-
nut) Which was supposed eventually to push forward the jawbone And sat with jaws ruminating as in endless greed. To our faces too we wished to lend that feared impenetrability Of the _poker-faced man_ who propounded himself to his fellow-
citizens As an insoluble riddle. We too perpetually smiled, as if before or after a good piece
of business Which is the proof of a well-ordered digestion. We too liked to slap our companions (all of them future
customers) On arm and thigh and between the shoulder-blades Testing how to get such fellows into our hands By the same caressing or grabbing motions as for dogs. So we imitated this renowned race of men who seemed
destined To rule the world by helping it to progress.
9 What confidence! What an inspiration! Those machine rooms: the biggest in the world! The car factories campaigned for an increase in the birthrate:
they had started making cars (on hire purchase) For the unborn. Whoever threw away Practically unused clothing (but so That it rotted at once, preferably in quicklime) Was paid a bonus. Those bridges Which linked flourishing land with flourishing land! Endless! The longest in the world! Those skyscrapers -- The men who piled their stones so high That they towered over all, anxiously watched from their
summits the new buildings Springing up from the ground, soon to overtower Their own mammoth size. (Some were beginning to fear that the growth of such cities Could no longer be stopped, that they would have to finish
their days With twenty storeys of other cities above them And would be stacked in coffins which would be buried One on top of the other.)
10 But apart from that: what confidence! Even the dead Were made up and given a cosy smile (These are characteristics I am setting down from memory;
others I have forgotten) for not even those who had got away Were allowed to be without hope.
11 What people they were! Their boxers the strongest! Their inventors the most practical! Their trains the fastest! And also the most crowded! And it all looked like lasting a thousand years For the people of the city of New York put it about them-
selves: That their city was built on the rock and hence Indestructible.
12 Truly their whole system of communal life was beyond com-
pare. What fame! What a country!
13 Admittedly that century lasted A bare eight years.
14 For one day there ran through the world the rumour of
strange collapses On a famous continent, and its banknotes, hoarded only
yesterday Were rejected in disgust like rotten stinking fish.
15 Today, when the word has gone around That these people are bankrupt We on the other continents (which are indeed bankrupt as
well) See many things differently and, so we think, more clearly.
16 What of the skyscrapers? We observe them more coolly. What contemptible hovels skyscrapers are when they no
longer yield rents! Rising so high, full of poverty? Touching the clouds, full of
debt? What of the railroad trains? In the railroad trains, which resemble hotels on wheels, they
say Often nobody lives. He travels nowhere With incomparable rapidity. What of the bridges? The longest in the world, they now link Scrapheap with scrapheap. And what of the people?
17 They still make up, we hear, but now It's to grab a job. Twenty-two year old girls Sniff cocaine now before setting out To capture a place at a typewriter. Desperate parents inject poison into their daughters' thighs To make them look red hot.
18 Gramophone records are still sold, not many of course But what do they tell us, these cows who have not learned To sing? What Is the sense of these songs? What have they really Been singing to us all these years long? Why do we now dislike these once celebrated voices? Why Do these photos of cities no longer make the slightest impres-
sion on us? Because word has gone around That these people are bankrupt.
19 For their machines, it is said, lie in huge heaps (the biggest
in the world) And rust Like the machines of the Old World (in smaller heaps).
20 World championships are still contested before a few specta-
tors who have absent-mindedly stayed in their places: Each time the strongest competitor Stands no chance against the mysterious law That drives people away from shops stocked to bursting.
21 Clutching their smile (but nothing else now) the retired world
champions Stand in the way of the last few streetcars left running. Three of these broad-gauge fellows still fill the sidewalk, but What will fill _them_ before nightfall? The padding warms only the shoulders of those who in inter-
minable columns Hurry day and night through empty canyons of lifeless
stonepiles. Their gestures are slow, like those of hungry and enfeebled
beasts. Like a whole State turning over They work themselves slowly out of the gutters in which they
seem to be lying as for eternity. Their confidence, it is said Is still there; it is based on the hope that Tomorrow the rain will fall upwards.
22 But some, we hear, can still find jobs: in those places Where whole waggon-loads of wheat are being shovelled into
the ocean Called pacific. And those who spend their nights on benches are, we hear
apt to Think quite impermissible thoughts as they see Those empty skyscrapers before dropping off to sleep.
23 What a bankruptcy! How Great a fame has departed! What a discovery: That their system of communal life displays The same miserable flaw as that of More modest people.
(Brecht, "Late Lamented Fame of the Giant City of New York" [1929-1933], _Poems, 1913-1956_, ed. John Willett, et al., NY: Routledge, 1976, p. 167-174) -- Yoshie
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