Fried and Adorno

Erich Fried wondered
if it still made sense to write poems
in a world we have trashed*.

Of course nothing
that we do "makes sense"
except in the crudest fashion -
but better to write poetry,
or be comatose, or in a coma,
than to try and change the world,
and run the very high risk
of making things worse
in the long term.
(The merits of inaction,
pacifism, hiding, flight
as opposed to action.)

Adorno's hypocritical quip
that art after Auschwitz
was barbaric, was itself
an ignorant reaction
that fed the inane Left,
China's Cultural Revolution
and Germany's Red Army Faction.

*Die Frage liegt nahe
ob es noch sinnvoll ist
bei dieser Lage der Dinge
Gedichte zu schreiben.