Powerless, with a Guitar by Günter Grass

We read napalm and imagine napalm.
Since we cannot imagine napalm
we read about napalm until
by napalm we can imagine more.
Now we protest against napalm.
After breakfast, silent,
we see in photographs what napalm can do.
We show each other coarse screen prints
and say: there you are, napalm.
They do that with napalm.
Soon there’ll be cheap picture books
with better photographs
which will show more clearly
what napalm can do.
We bite our nails and write protests.
But, we read, there are
worse things than napalm.
Quickly we protest against worse things.
Our well-founded protests, which at any time
we may compose fold stamp, mount up.
Impotence, tried out on rubber facades.
Impotence puts records on: impotent songs.
Powerless, with a guitar. –
But outside, finely meshed
and composed, power has its way.

http://kirjasto.sci.fi/ggrass.htm