Wolf Biermann: After-dinner Speech of the Poet in the Second Lean Tear

You that have not yet gone under, comrades,
In the lard pot of the privileged caste
Oh, how long it's been since I last made demands on your ears!

When through the nightly television sky
The obligatory castrati board your channels
When on your screens gone blind
The germ-free virgins flicker
When the little sandmen of the service hand you
The sleeping tablets prescribed for you through the tube
Comrades, O.K., let it pass, but:

When they force-feed you with their damnable
Ideological water soups, those fat cooks
Then, I admit, I'm tormented by ravenous hunger
For your hunger, comrades, for less insipid fare:
Chunk of meat between one's teeth. Just try to remember:
Fried almost without fat, salt added only at the end

So that the heavenly juices don't run away
Together with it my salad with the proper amount of
Cayenne pepper, which long after the meal
Still stings the palate, lemon and garlic
Slaughtered float in the olive oil's vapor
The red tomatoes arms linked with the cucumbers
For their wedding in crackly boats of green lettuce
And salt and salt! The wisdom of seas that have died:
That delicious, unhealthy condiment, salt!
Later, how coolly we fill ourselves up with milk,
The gentle, wholesome drink from round-bellied beakers!
That should teach you something, you shitbags!

O comrades, please try to remember:
The people have always enjoyed
Fat oxen in their frying-pansl
But not in offices!

Between ourselves: does our next bigger guzzling session,
Comrades, really not begin
Till the funeral feast?!
At the grave of the revolution?!