Bread
Three quarters of a loaf of bread lie on the table,
it is coupon bread, given out for ration cards.
As I devour the white-rye bread with my eyes,
these thoughts run through my head:
A street...in the midst of the traffic and noise,
in the gutter, on the pavement, or on the sidewalk,
Bread sellers stand.
Excuse me, sir? – No need.
They praise their white bread, they praise their rye bread,
the deluxe or black, "two-tone" bread.
A young vendor presses a loaf
against his dirty black shirt.
He holds it tight, like a valuable treasure,
A large, white, fragrant loaf of wheat bread.
Basket by basket, like troops in formation,
How much bread is at the market today!
Haggling and shouting, curses, oaths,
Around the sellers, circles of buyers,
extended arms, feverish faces,
the street sells bread, the street buys bread...
The street...a man lies stretched out
across the sidewalk like a crumpled rag.
[...;part here severely water damaged]
[...] nimbly avoids streetcars,
a man runs, pursued by a policeman’s truncheon.
To this he pays no mind and voraciously devours
chunks of bread, eager for once to eat his fill.
The indifferent street, dumbfounded, has stopped,
blows rain down upon the man’s bones,
never mind that he is hungry, beat him mercilessly,
never mind that the policeman abuses him so,
this is how it should be, the street says so:...
The street...beneath the separation wall,
beneath a barrier to protect against typhus,
a quiet whisper, an agreed-upon sign, and over the barrier
a sack full of bread is tossed.
Quickly the bread is seized, wrapped in old rags,
the faster to escape the nearby watch.
Yet smuggled bread without ration cards is expensive
and a poor man can only dream about it.
Only for some, those chosen by fate,
does the Community or the ŻYTOS offices distribute bread.
So for a change, another picture – an office,
behind a small table, a clerk armed with a pen;
shouting, hubbub, tumult, raised voices,
it’s stuffy, crowded, hot, there’s smoke, cigarettes,
and at the door, there’s a line that stretches far.
They jostle, hunger won’t wait, it has no patience.
A policeman or janitor, deaf to entreaties,
lets the next ones through, slowly, and drives away the screaming ones,
So one, another one, a tenth one stands and waits
for bread, the bread they have dreamt of, tallied in decagrams.
For the bread tallied in decagrams, almost in grams,
bread which, alas, so often we do not have,
bread which has become a dream, has become a poem,
its prices are the main subject of conversations today.
I...do not listen to these conversations, they cannot fill one’s stomach,
what’s the use of talking...it’s better for hunger to be hidden.
Why upset both others and oneself?
It’s best to say nothing today, and that’s what I do.
Never mind that there’s constant pressure in your stomach,
pain for oneself, but a smiling face for strangers,
and though sometimes with difficulty because it’s almost through tears,
laugh, brother, laugh, because people like you
must endure, and mustn’t cry.
A time will come when there will be
plenty of bread for everybody, for everybody! You hear?
A time when life will start anew.