Bertolt Brecht: poetry written in and for dark times

In dark times there is always the poetry of Bertolt Brecht 

On the Critical Attitude

The critical attitude
Strikes many people as unfruitful
That is because they find the state
Impervious to their criticism
But what in this case is an unfruitful attitude
Is merely a feeble attitude. Give criticism arms
And states can be demolished by it.

Canalising a river
Grafting a fruit tree
Educating a person
Transforming a state
These are instances of fruitful criticism
And at the same time instances of art.

The Active Disconnected

The active disconnected, your great teachers

Worked out the structure of a community

Where man is not wolf to man

And discovered man's delight in eating his fill and having a 

                      roof over his head

And his wish to manage his own affairs

They did not believe the preachers' babble

That our terrible hunger will be appeased once our bellies

                      have rotted

They chucked out the dishes full of bad food.

They recognised the man they were told was the enemy

As their hungry neighbour.

They were patient only in the struggle against the oppressors

Tolerant only of those who would not tolerate exploitation

Tired only of injustice.

He who kicked away the chair on which he sat uncomfortably

Who drove the ploughshare an inch deeper into the earth than

                    any before him

The discontented man, he shall be our teacher

In reconstructing the community.

Those however

Who gorged themselves full on a plate of promises

Shall get their bellies ripped out.

Hiding their crooked bones

In a waste of a spoonful of sand.