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I read through the collection of Bertold Brecht’s Poems 1913-1956, w/ a focus on “The Impact of the Cities,” 1925-1928. Adding to these bits the piece Mark put up a while ago, “Of Poor B.B.” (who was “carried off to the asphalt cities/From the black forests”), I’d say Brecht, too, is not exactly the advocate for urban play I’m looking for….

Some excerpts:

“Of the Remains of Older Times”
Still for instance the moon

Stands above the new buildings at night
Of the things made of copper

It is
The most useless. Already
Mothers tell stories of animals

That drew cars, called horses.
True, in the conversations of continents

These no longer occur, nor their names:
Around the great new aerials

Nothing is now known
Of old times.

“Song of the Machines”

…This isn’t the wind in the maples, my boy
No song to the lonely moon
This is the wild roar of our daily toil
We curse it and count it a boon
For it is the voice of our cities
It is our favourite song
It is the language we all understand
It will soon the world’s mother tongue.

“Ten Poems from a Reader
for Those who Live in Cities”

…The man who hasn’t signed anything, who has left no picture
Who was not there, who said nothing;
How can they catch him?
Cover your tracks….

When I speak to you
Coldly and impersonally
Using the driest words
Without looking at you
(I seemingly fail to recognise you
in our particular name and difficulty)

I speak to you merely
Like reality itself
(Sober, not be bribed by your particular nature
Tired of your difficulty)
Which in my view you seem not to recognize.

“Poems Belonging to a Reader
for Those who Live in Cities”

The cities were built for you. They are eager to welcome you.
The doors of the houses are wide open. The meal is
Ready on the table.

As the cities are very big
Experts have drawn maps for
Those who do not know the programme, showing clearly
The quickest way to reach
One’s goal….

Everything is completely ready.
       All you
Need to do is come.

“Concerning Spring”

We swooped on  oil, iron and ammonia
there was each year
A time of irresistible violent leafing of trees
We all remember
lengthened days
Brighter sky
Change of the air
The certainly arriving Spring.
We still read in books
About this celebrated season
yet for a long time now
Nobody has seen above our cities
The famous flocks of birds.
Spring is noticed, if at all

By people sitting in railway trains.
The plains show it
In its old clarity.

High above, it is true
There seems to be storms:
All they touch now is
Our aerials.

“Late Lamented Fame of the
Giant City of New York”

…what a melting pot was America in those days…
This inexhaustible melting poet, 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 receive them with careless generosity as if they were utterly different
(Differing only through the difference of their miserable existences).
Like a good leaven they feared no
Mass of dough, however enormous: they knew
They would penetrate everything.
What fame! What a century!....

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.