Hollywood
Bertolt Brecht
Translated from the German by E. J. Campfield
Hollywood was planned in keeping with a notion
People here abouts have of heaven.
They’ve concluded that God
requiring both heaven and hell
didn't need two separate locations.
Just the one -- heaven.
It serves the strapped and unsuccessful
as hell as well.
It is hell, it is heaven.
How much money you earn
determines whether
you play a harp or burn.--Bertolt Brecht, 1946
from Hollywood Elegies
Translation copyright ©1980, 2008 by E. J. Campfield. All rights reserved.