Things

Listening to Tom Waits's Swordfishtrombones and listening closely to this one again:

SOLDIER'S THINGS

Davenports and kettle drums and swallow-tail coats
Table cloths and patent leather shoes
Bathing suits and bowling balls and clarinets and rings
All this radio really needs is a fuse

A tinker, a tailor, a soldier's things
His rifle, his boots full of rocks
Oh, and this one is for bravery
Oh, and this one is for me
And everything's a dollar in this box

Cufflinks and hubcaps and trophies and paperbacks
It's good transportation, but the brakes aren't so hot
Neckties and boxing gloves, this jackknife is rusted
You can pound that dent out on the hood

A tinker, a tailor, a soldier's things
His rifle, his boots full of rocks
Oh, and this one is for bravery
Oh, and this one is for me
And everything's a dollar in this box


*

And thinking of this one, by Günter Eich:

INVENTORY

This is my cap,
this is my coat,
here is my shaving set
in a linen bag.

A tin can:
my plate, my cup,
in the metal
I have scratched my name.

Scratched it with this
precious nail,
which I hide
from greedy eyes.

In my haversack are
a pair of woolen socks
and some things I don't
tell anyone about,

it serves as a pillow
at night for my head.
The cardboard lies here
between me and the earth.

The pencil lead
I love the most:
by day it writes verses for me
that I have thought up by night.

This is my notebook,
this is my canvas,
this is my towel,
this is my thread.

(trans. Charlotte Melin)