Poems
In Praise of Self-Deprecation
by Wistawa Szymborska
The buzzard has nothing to fault himself with.
Scruples are alien to the black panther.
Piranhas do not doubt the rightness of their actions.
The rattlesnake approves of himself without reservations.
The self-critical jackal does not exist.
The locust, alligator, trichina, horsefly
live as they live and are glad of it.
The killer-whale's heart weighs one hundred kilos
but in other respects is light.
There is nothing more animal-like
than a clear conscience
on the third planet of the Sun.
"A Worker's Speech to a Doctor"
Bertolt Brecht
When we come to you
Our rags are torn off us
And you listen all over our naked body.
As to the cause of our illness
One glance at our rags would
Tell you more. It is the same cause that wears out
Our bodies and our clothes.
The pain in our shoulder comes
You say, from the damp; and this is also the reason
For the stain on the wall of our flat.
So tell us:
Where does the damp come from?
http://www.noutopia.com/poem_self_deprecation.html
http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/9875/9875.ch01.html
by Wistawa Szymborska
The buzzard has nothing to fault himself with.
Scruples are alien to the black panther.
Piranhas do not doubt the rightness of their actions.
The rattlesnake approves of himself without reservations.
The self-critical jackal does not exist.
The locust, alligator, trichina, horsefly
live as they live and are glad of it.
The killer-whale's heart weighs one hundred kilos
but in other respects is light.
There is nothing more animal-like
than a clear conscience
on the third planet of the Sun.
"A Worker's Speech to a Doctor"
Bertolt Brecht
When we come to you
Our rags are torn off us
And you listen all over our naked body.
As to the cause of our illness
One glance at our rags would
Tell you more. It is the same cause that wears out
Our bodies and our clothes.
The pain in our shoulder comes
You say, from the damp; and this is also the reason
For the stain on the wall of our flat.
So tell us:
Where does the damp come from?
http://www.noutopia.com/poem_self_deprecation.html
http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/9875/9875.ch01.html