Lullaby

Georg Danzer

If you are followed home tonight

Don't get uptight.

Don't get uptight.

It's just they think your radical.

Don't that beat all?

Don't that beat all!

And so whatever you may do,

Just keep in mind

They'll see it too.

Don't ask, insulted, why they should.

They'll say it's just for your own good.

So go to bed now, and sleep tight.

They'll watch you through the lonely night.

There is no reason to take fright;

They'll watch you through the lonely night.

Play deaf and dumb, refuse to see;

They might be kind and let you be.

But if you hope for social change,

You are deranged.

Oh yes! Deranged!

And if you're sexuallly aroused,

They'll find it out.

They'll find you out.

For not a thing escapes their eye,

Those agents from the FBI.

Sleep well, sweet dreams, and never fear.

Big Brother's day is drawing near.

Don't get upset, he'll be right here.

Big Brother's day is drawing near.

Those who denounce their fellow man

Are well-rewarded in this land.

They help maintain the status quo.

For them a black-list is unknown.

The Constitution protects those

Who are well off---and I suppose

It is one's duty to obey--

No questions asked, or else you pay.

But go to bed now, and sleep tight.

They'll watch you through the lonely night.

Big Brother's right there out of sight.

He'll watch you through the lonely night,

And so good night, and so good night.

Good night!

Pornography

Anywhere you may go, you’ll find
Keepers of our morals watching
What we say, what we do,
They make sure we don’t become too shocking..
‘Don’t think you can rebel wildly.
Sex can not be taken mildly!
And wherever we go—Oh!
We can find a trace of porno!’

Ladies old are so cold;
When it comes to love, they are mistrustful.
Only hate, even power
Can awaken feelings that are lustful..
Put guns in the hands of your children.
Patriotism will kill them,
But wherever you go---oh!
You will find corrupting porno!

‘What a pig! Dirty swine!
How degenerate! How disgusting!’
One bared breast can arouse impure thoughts—
And set the sterile cussing!
Make sure your clothes have a loose fit.
Don’t you dare show what’s beneath it!
For wherever we go, Oh!
We detect a trace of porno….

And desire is a trap
Sprung by nudists of both genders;
If you show what you want,
You’ll be in the file of sex-offenders.
The Just are one hundred per cent sure:
‘We want your acts and your thoughts pure.
And wherever we look---OH!
All we find is filth and porno!’

And just who decides what we read or we see?
Where’s the harm?
You tell me!

What is pornography???



Georg Danzer, ca. 1979

Tequila

I’m sick and tired of smoking marijuana.
I’m sick and tired of hashish and cocaine.
And if you ask me, I’ll say ‘I don’t wanna.
It’s tempting, but I’m broke, thanks all the same.’
Last night I went downtown to see my dealer
And told him ‘From now on, I’ll take tequila…
And with salt, not to mention
Sun-ripened lemons!’

I’m really sick and tired of loving fat girls.
They always seem to sap my strength away.
But when I turn around and check out thin girls,
I find that they don’t move my either way….
I hear you ask yourself, ‘So what’s his problem?’
I want tequila, and I want it often.
But, and please pay attention:
With salt and with lemon.

I find that life is like a game of poker,
And all the other players have the chips.
Just once, I’d like to find I’m not the joker,
And get a royal flush instead of shit.
I’m sad to say I’m not a wheeler-dealer.
Perhaps the trouble lies with the tequila.
Not even to mention
The salt and those lemons.

Georg Danzer, ca. 1979

Liberty

by the late Georg Danzer I'd forgotten how timely this is.

Not long ago I visited the zoo.
I felt so good; the sun was shining, too.
Before a cage a crowd of people stood.
And so I thought I'd go and have myself a look.
I thought I'd wander over for a closer look.


I saw a sign that read 'Please Do Not Feed,
And As Quite Wild, Please Do Not Tease!'
The children and the grown-ups looked struck dumb.
A near-by guard looked on, said nothing, was so glum.
A guard, looked on, said nothing, was so glum.


'Which animal is THAT?', I asked him, 'please?'
He looked surprised, but answered 'Liberty.
Throughout the world, it's dying off so fast,
That it's shown here for a dollar and a half.
Oh yes, we show it for a dollar-and-a-half.'


I took a look, was shocked, could only stare.
'What IS this, sir?' I asked. 'There's nothing there!'
'But that's the point!' he told me, was sincere.
'As soon as caught, it simply disappears.
As soon as caught, it up and simply disappears!'


'For Liberty is strange, and wondrous, sir.
Though many people are afraid of her.
Imprisoned, she immediately dies.
But in Freedom, Liberty can just survive. Only in Freedom can sweet Liberty survive.'

Ten Little Addicts

by the late Georg Danzer

Ten little addicts

Sailing in a boat

On the Sea of Despair

Near the Death's Head Coast.

One of them jumped overboard.

Sank in salty brine.

'Oh, shit!' were his last two words

To the other nine.

Nine little addicts,

One girl still a child

Barely thirteen years of age,

Addicted for some while.

Soon she had to walk the streets,

Winter nights, so late.

Then she caught pneumonia....

That left only eight.

Eight little addicts,

One paroled from jail.

The probation agent

Kindly kicked him in the tail.

Psychiatrist said, 'I've no time.'

His family he'd disowned.

Life was one short dead-end street.

Seven sailed the foam.

Seven little addicts

Tiredly pitched their tents

In the Desert Loneliness;

Slums, Developments.

Rumour has it that one choked

On wine and chocolate cake,

And gross lack of sympathy.

That left six to wait.

Six little addicts...

One paid Death his price

In a public toilet.

An overdose surficed.

He was found by a bum,

Himself still half-alive,

Who stole the addict's shoes and socks--

That left only five.

Five little addicts,

Together, yet alone.

Situation hopeless,

They'd no money and no home.

One of them went to a bank

To talk to a cashier

Who secretly pressed the alarm....

Four more left in fear.

Four little addicts

Sailing in a boat

On the Sea of Despair

Near the Death's Head Coast.

One turned in a dealer

To Officer McNee,

Then the dealer was paroled:

That left only three.

Three little addicts

Had just one more score.

Life had no more meaning.

Couldn't take much more.

Soon the heroin ran out.

The boat sank in a storm.

They drowned without a word of love

In a sea of scorn.

Ten little addicts

Gone without a trace.

Products of society.

Defective Human Race.

How long will you sit and watch

Your fellow man destroyed?

On Judgement Day they'll get revenge

On those they so annoyed.

Oh dear....

One of Austria's great music artists lost his battle against cancer today.

He was a true artist, could be very humorous, but his social conscience was vast. I was lucky to see him live once, and the atmosphere was unique. He will be sorely missed.

Cultured People

(Feine Leute)

Cultured people never sweat;
never go to work late.
Cultured people never love;
have dislikes, but can't hate.
Cultured people never pee
in your flower vases.
And they always know their lines,
don't fall upon their faces.
And they're born beneath an oh-so-charming star.
Oh, I love cultured people as they are.

Cultured people take their tea
with lady-finger sponge cakes;
sit on divans, so up-right.
They'd never swear, for god's sake!
Cultured people are so pure,

honest, open---nice!
They search so hard for higher truth,
yet still are drawn to vice.
And they love their fellow man--
but far away.
Oh, I love cultured people, you might say.


Cultured people are true-blue...
but only to their horses.
And they are so liberal!
They even make nice corpses!
Cultured people say, 'Thank God
that he made me so!
I'm so glad I'm perfect.
I was born that way, you know...'
Oh, I love them, for they glitter just like stars!
Yes, I love cultured people as they are...



Georg Danzer, ca 1979

Rest in peace, Schurl...

Change

You know... we all get SO FUCKING bent out of shape about terrorism, since 2001. Turn on any sort of media since then, and boy howdy, aren't they painting the canvas to make everyone so frightened you end up having to put your undies on the cold wash SOAK program to get the skid marks out before doing the regular cycle, right? And before anyone wants to take a hit on me for not knowing what I'm talking about, being long gone from NH---on that day? The husband of a very close cousin of mine was near the WTC, and another in the Pentagon. So yeah, I came home from work, it being afternoon here, and for no reason at all turned on the teevee, which I usually do not do, and thought: WTF stupid horror film is THIS? It took minutes to realise it was real. And it took hours to get through trans-atlantic per telephone and ascertain that MY family was ok, and they were---how fucking selfish.

No, this is not yet another my-god-how-horrible-it-was piece. Done to death. It's in our collective consciousness.

But life is sorta perverse, as we all know. I happened to be working at the Olympic Village in Munich in 1972. In the cafeteria where the athletes ate. 1400 university students from all over the world. That hit was the granddaddy of terrorism, if not so 'grandiös' and massivly deadly. In that whole clusterfuck I ended up standing on a balcony watching nice, engaging people being herded, tied up like cattle, into helicopters by masked men, and later heard them being blown up via the radio at work. It was a long time ago, we didn't have instant teevee and helicopters filming, AND NO. I would NOT have wanted to have seen it, looking back. What I saw was ENOUGH, thenk you... It wasn't like it was a choice or something. Which is the point of this. You don't get asked.

I'd seen them all summer. They engaged people in the most wonderful dialogues , and were exceptional.

I've probably never gotten over it, not really, but in my repressive stage, I wrote this about what went before, engaging and establishing dialogue with so many people from all over the world. Unlike so many people, who tend to be insular, when I first came here, I always wanted to be a good ambassador....

Sometimes I think I failed....

My first reaction, and it took me years to deal with, was 'Change'. It dealt with the Other part of that wonderful summer and the hope. Which got crushed.



You could be anywhere, and get blown up. There were terrorists being looked for where I worked when I first came here to Austria for good. I missed a bomb at a train station in Italy once. By one day. AND a devastating earthquake in the south of that country. But you go on, hey. And you know what? You just have to fucking DEAL with it. You don't need the gubmint to make the rules. And it never occurred to me to be SCARED all the time. Y'all have something that USED to be called a Constitution. Gonna sit on your ass and be 'skeered'? Well be my guest. Am not gonna join you on the bench in the waiting room, hey.


So this is about the good stuff, and the anger I felt that the world wasn't what I wanted it to be when I was 23 years old and naive: And the saddest part? It was more than thirty-five years ago, and not much changed. Depressing. The stick pins referred to were lapel buttons, and were something everyone was eager to collect...

"What reverence is rightly paid to a Divinity so odd
He lets the Adam whom he made perform the acts of God?"
W. H. Auden (Friday's Child)

AND EVERYONE CRYING 'CHANGE!'



In the narrow corridor

Between Forum and Chapel

The atheletes are milling about.

It's an open Bazaar

Where the West meets the East.

(or is it perhaps

a miniature Big Apple??)

The reporters write for the evening news,

That here is a love feast

Where humanity is spoken

But to me it is Babel:

And behind their smiles

I see thirty-two tooth salutes of contempt..

They trade national tokens

When their training is over

And the August sun is on the wane.

And everyone's crying 'Change!



Some of their stick-pins are, of course

More in demand---

Depending on reknown and supply-

(For who wants a Poland

When one can acquire

A token of Russia---

or Japan, by and by?)

The Olympic ideal does not exclude

the desire for personal prestige and fame.

And so here the capitalist ethic reigns,

And everyone's crying 'Change!'



Most stay in their groups;

They're like gaggles of geese

And they casually size up their opponents.

The Belgians won't speak with the Germans,

And the French look down with noblesse oblige

On the rest of this city's components.

And the Indians are wary of the Pakistanis.

The Nigerians hate the Rhodesians....

Still, they are anxious to trade

So they swallow

Their pride and political allegiance.

The friendliest are from the smallest countries;

From barely visible dots on the atlas.

They compete with the best and have no face to lose.

And their names tie the tongue, are exceedingly strange...

And EVERYONE'S crying 'Change!'



And we watch them, amused....

We foreign 'guest workers'

Try not to compete, but try

To understand what we're all about,

To conquer the predjudices

Our leaders have taught us

And try to discover their lies.



(We find sinister reasons for political deeds.

Can most of them be really due

To something so mundane as greed?)

We grow national guilts for the actions of others,

Attempt to solve problems,

And the grounds our talks cover

Range from politics to jokes,

to religion and pollution.....

And we can only agree that our world is insane.

And everyone's crying 'Change'



CHANGE cry disillusioned Americans

as George Meany offers millions to dump George McGovern.



Change! cry the Irish

who are weary of blood-shed, still demand to be self-governed.



Change! cry Rhodesia's majority blacks,

while their whites promenade and acknowledge no guilt.



Change! cry the Greeks

who have lost their Democracy,

and blame the American military bloc.



Change! cry the people of the Middle East

While the world sits in judgement

To the ticking of a nuclear clock.



Change! cry the people trapped in the suburbs,

in anonymous houses, sleazily built.



Change! cry defenders of the Earth's environment,

while in factory accidents, their neighbors are killed.



Change! cry the starving and the world's minorities,

who live on hate, while others grow fat.



Change! cry the young, as they champ at the bit,

while the Establishment sees they're held back.



Change! cry the conservatives who want power and control,

and tremble at thought of a reverse in the order of things.



Change! cry the liberals who shout out for justice

So all have a chance to grasp the brass ring.

Yes!, they shout, Change!



On the day of departure

the action is frenzied,

and the shouting reaches fever pitch,

trading sneakers and track suits,

And their laughter and smiles

no longer seem stretched,

are real, and their owners fit.

Competition is over,

and now they are grinning,

no longer concerned

with who will be winning.

Koreans wear Russian warm-up pants;

Belgians wear French warm-up jackets.



We smile and fight down the urge to gloat,

For we long know what they're finding out,

Have the experience and memories to back it.



The September wind blows yesterday's news

Through the passage-way. Then it rains.

And the athletes take refuge in the Chapel's pews

To a dying last echo of 'Change'



Change! For the world is shrinking fast,

On yourself you can no longer rely.



Change! And drop tribal habits at last....

Or like the dinasaurs.... We WILL die...







Manchester, 1974


Goodness---once upon a time, I was so damned naive.... I didn't really have to change anything content-wise in this one, btw. Isn't that sad....

So What Did You Expect, Professor Higgins?

"The greater the love, the more false to it's object.

Not to be born is best for man.

Afther the kiss comes the impulse to throttle.

Break the embraces, dance while you can."

W. H. Auden (Death's Echo)

So you met him in his taxi

And his meter was running.

You went swimming on your days off

And you told him he was stunning.

You decided you would lend a hand

To tame this welfare child.

In the end, you surely got results:

They were anything but mild!

But what did you expect, Professor Higgins

From this member of the proletariat?

Did you think Eliza lurked within his being?

And did you thing---with all that sitting---

He would never grow fat?

Well, the first year was the best one

As in all the fairy tales.

And he learned his lessons perfectly...

And stayed out of the jails....

And he even learned the difference

Twixt Degas' and Renoirs

But he couldn't break a habit

Of slurping Vichyssoise.

But what did you believe, Professor Higgins?

That Rome was built in just a single day?

We all possess our special limitations.

And you, his idol, he soon found

Posess two feet of clay.

The second year went smoothly

And he'd finally learned the score.

Though he tried hard not to show it,

He'd become a wee bit bored.

He could hob-nob in society

With the crème de la crème,

But came that Fall, he longed for Paul---

And various other men.

You must have had a clue, Sherlock Higgins.

You surely don't suscribe to 'love-is-blind!'

I'm certain that you've played around

To save your peace of mind.

Yet once again you've come around to autumn.

Your daily Melodrama's 'de riguer'.

In sex you long have tended to abuse.

For his lies, you say you haven't any use.

Once monthly, you must speak of separation.

Yet who can e'er leave well-enough alone?

You're both too proud to sever your relations.

It's preferable to cut right to the bone.....

But what did you expect, Professor Higgins?

A bed of roses wasn't in your cards.

You did your best to fashion an Eliza,

But maybe---look at the result---

You tried a bit too hard?

Nights in the Saline Puppy

The Saline Puppy was a counter-culture haven
in the age of Narcissus, home to the craven.
First bar with genuine barn-board panels
And Tiffany lamps and teevee with ten channels.
There we drank the nights away
and we found so MUCH to say...

And plaid-shirted students dressed in farmer-johnny jeans
Solved the world's weighty problems while philosophers dreamed.
Rowdies with a buzz on tossed down their drinks
maintaining nothing mattered;
they were too burned out to think
And their eyes undressed each girl
in the crowd's unending swirl.

The nectar of the gods, came in pitchers---(dark and light)
Served by liberated ladies, bitter girls who'd bite
with a word or action. They'd no self trust,
Repressed sexuality, believed life was a bust.
Phoebe Snow sang 'No Regrets'.
and we took what we could get.

What wouldn't I give for another round
in that smoky room, watching the sights;
lost in discussion and your laugh would sound
when the talk became raucous
round about midnight.

And Robbie, Carl and Terry would join us now and then.
And the terms coined (love muscle?) Terry'd goose the men.
And the muscle bound bouncers, self-labelled Jocks
chatted with the husband-hunters--Liberation talk.
And we like to be alone,
but can't seem to stay at home..

Sitting at the bar with question-mark shaped posture,
menopausal salesmen debated on the cost or
better said 'investment' of one long-drink
for the young thing beside him, who ignored lewd wink.
And they both went home alone,
disappointed, hearts of stone.

Like the mailmen of old, we showed up in rain and sleet
And we quickly found a place where the heater warmed our feet.
And we analysed and we criticised.
And although the hours flew, we never grew too wise....
It was an uncertain time.
Done and gone with, but that's fine...

What wouldn't I give for another round,
to see how we and the world may have changed.
Or maybe to laugh and discuss and expound;
and to question our fates, so opaque and so strange.