What do you have to write poems for? Whe...

What do you have to write poems for? When life’s so decent: if you drift down a fast flowing river, naked, on your back under an orange-colored sky, and you see nothing but the sky as it turns purple and later black like a hole . . . if you trample an enemy into the dust . . . or turn sorrow into music . . . or cry for unrequited love and eat an apple . . . or bend a woman’s body over a bed . . .Did you feel it? Did it pierce your skin? A circus! You have to lure the animal into the open! Out into the sun with the beast! The check, please! Out into the daylight with love! Naked in the sun beneath the sky!

For full extended monologue, please refer to clips or the script edition cited here: Bertolt Brecht, Baal, Grove Press, 1964, p. 35.

• Full Text
• Wikipedia
• Criterion Collection film adaptation