Kjell Espmark: 'Hela vårt fattigkvarter i Berlin'

 

The whole of our poor district in Berlin

wanted to get to speak to me –

hunger matured into hate.

There I first studied social science:

years of thrashing till my father dead-drunk

blundered in front of a horse and cart.

At a workbench in sundust

I had to provide for a washed-out mother

and two consumptive sisters. Nothing sufficed.

But carbines and sandbags

gave us Spartacists a few hours’ civil rights.

I had wanted to be a teacher.