Charles Simic
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Charles Simic
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"Poem" (from "Dismantling the Silence")
My father writes all day, all night:
Writes while he sleeps, writes in his coffin.
It's nice and quiet in our house.
You can see the specks of dust in the sunlight.
I look at times over his shoulders
At all that whiteness. The snow is falling,
As you'd expect. A drop of ink
Getsburied easily, like a footprint.
I, too, would get lost but there's his shadow
On the wall, like a perched owl.
There's the sound of his pen
And the bottle on the table sunk in thought.
When the bottle empties
His great dark hand
Bigger than the earth
Feels for the moon's spigot
"The Lesson" (from "Charon's Cosmology")
It occurs to me now
that all these years
I have been
the idiot pupil
of a practical joker.
Diligently
and with foolish reverence
I wrote down
what I took to be
his wise pronouncements
concerning
my life on earth.
Like a parrot
I rattled off the dates
of wars and revolutions.
I rejoiced
at the death of my tormentors
I even became convinced
that their number
was diminishing.
It seemed to me
that gradually
my teacher was revealing to me
a pattern,
that what I was being told
was an intricate plot
of a picaresque novel
in installments,
the last pages of which
would be given over
entirely
to lyrical evocations
of nature.
Unfortunately,
with time,
I began to detect in myself
an inability
to forget even
the most trivial detail.
I lingered more and more
over the beginnings:
The haircut of a soldier
who was urinating
against our fence;
shadows of trees on the ceiling,
the day
my mother and I
had nothing to eat . . .
Somehow,
I couldn't get past
that prison train
that kept waking me up
every night.
I couldn't get that whistle
that rumble
out of my head . . .
In this classroom
austerely furnished
by my insomnia,
at the desk consisting
of my two knees,
for the first time
in this long and terrifying
apprenticeship,
I burst out laughing.
Forgive me, all of you!
At the memory of my uncle
charging a barricade
with a homemade bomb,
I burst out laughing.
"Charles Simic" (from "Return to a Place Lit by a Glass of Milk", 1974)
Charles Simic is a sentence.
A sentence has a beginning and an end.
Is he a simple or compound sentence?
It depends on the weather,
It depends on the stars above.
What is the subject of the sentence?
The subject is your beloved Charles Simic.
How many verbs are there in the sentence?
Eating, sleeping, and fucking are some of its verbs.
What is the object of the sentence?
The object, my little ones,
Is not yet in sight.
And who is writing this awkward sentence?
A blackmailer, a girl in love,
And an applicant for a job.
Will they end with a period or a question mark?
Theyll end with an exclamation point and an ink spot.
"Fear" (from "Dismantling the Silence")
Fear passes from man to man
Unknowing,
As one leaf passes its shudder
To another.
All at once the whole tree is trembling,
And there is no sign of the wind.
"Inner Man" (from "Dismantling the Silence")
It isn't the body
That's a stranger.
It's someone else.
We poke the same
Ugly mug
At the world.
When I scratch
He scratches too.
There are women
Who claim to have held him.
A dog
Follows me about.
It might be his.
If I'm quiet, he's quieter.
So I forget him.
Yet, as I bend down
To tie my shoelaces,
He's standing up.
We caste a single shadow.
Whose shadow?
I'd like to say:
"He was un the beginning
And he'll be in the end,"
But one can't be sure.
At night
As I sit
Shuffling the cards of our silence,
I say to him:
"Though you utter
Every one of my words,
You are a stranger.
It's time you spoke."
"Eyes Fastened With Pins" (from "Charon's Cosmology", 1977)
How much death works,
No one knows what a long
Day he puts in. The little
Wife always alone
Ironing death's laundry.
The beautiful daughters
Setting death's supper table.
The neighbors playing
Pinochle in the backyard
Or just sitting on the steps
Drinking beer. Death,
Meanwhile, in a strange
Part of town looking for
Someone with a bad cough,
But the address somehow wrong,
Even death can't figure it out
Among all the locked doors...
And the rain beginning to fall.
Long windy night ahead.
Death with not even a newspaper
To cover his head, not even
A dime to call the one pining away,
Undressing slowly, sleepily,
And stretching naked
On death's side of the bed.
"Trees at Night" (from "Charon's Cosmology", 1977)
Putting out the light
To hear them better
To tell the leaves
Of an ash tree
Apart from those
Of a white birch.
They would both
Come closer,
They would both whisk me away
Images of birds
Fleeing from a fire,
Images of a lifeboat
Caught in the storm.
The sound of those
Who sleep without dreams.
Being taken hold of
By them.
Being actively taken hold of,
Being carried off
In throes.
At times also like the tap
Of a moth
On a windowscreen.
A flurry of thoughts.
Sediments
On the bottom of nights ink,
Seething, subsiding.
Branches bending
To the boundaries
Of the inaudible.
A prolonged hush
That reminds me
To lock the doors.
Clarity.
The mast of my spine, for instance,
To which death attaches
A fluttering handkerchief.
And the wind makes
A big deal out of it.
"The Prisoner" (from "Charon's Cosmology", 1977)
He is thinking of us.
These leaves, their lazy rustle
That made us sleepy after lunch
So we had to lie down.
He considers my hand on her breast,
Her closed eyelids, her moist lips
Against my forehead, and the shadows of trees
Hovering on the ceiling.
Its been so long. He has trouble
Deciding what else is there.
And all along the suspicion
That we do not exist.
"The Tomb of Stephane Mallarme " (from "Classic Ballroom Dances")
Beginning to know how the die
navigates
how it makes
its fateful decisions
in eternal circumstances
what it feels like
to be held tight
between the thumb
and the forefinger
to be hexed
and prayed over
to wake up lucid
at the heart of the shipwreck
a dark pilot's cabin
of the die on the move
to have the earth and heaven
repeatedly reversed
to have the mirror and the razor
momentarily aligned
only to fall
head over heels
to be set adrift
in the middle of
nowhere
the die worn clean
by endless conjectures my die
perfectly illegible
white
as a milk tooth
the perfect die rolling
picking up speed
how delightful
this new contingency
occupancy
both inside and outside
the unthinkable
the blindman's die
free of
the divinatory urge
the Number
even if it existed
the death-defying
somersault
beating the supreme odds
two by two
along for the ride
only
the roller-coaster
endlessly changing directions
and mind
in a state of blessed
uncertainty
cast
on the great improbable
table
among the ghostly salt-cellars
bones
breadcrumbs that say
there goes:
Cerberus's new toy
Death's great amateur
night
the childhood of Parmenides
oh yeah
"The Cold" (from "Weather Forecast for Utopia and Vicinity"
As if in a presence of an intelligence
Concentrating. I thought myself
Scrutinized and measured closely
By the sky and the earth,
And then algebraized and entered
In a notebook page blank and white,
Except for the faint blue lines
Which might have been bars,
For I kept walking and walking,
And it got darker and then there was
A flicker of a light or two
Far above and beyond my cage.
"A Fall Day" (from "Weather Forecast for Utopia and Vicinity"
As gray as that slumped
Figure hands deep in his
Pockets receding on the
Gravelly road lean dogs
From the trailer park on
His ass the whole soulful
Lot of them fading away
Without adieus fading
Because of all the fine sands
Piling up on lunar deserts
Which have a way of sifting
Down this way the late
Autumn light already grainy
Gritty like poor eyesight
Gray bedsheets gray back
of a woman combing her
Graying hair under the dead
Clock on the wall
Because truth's gray
Naked truth looking out
Vacant-eyed on the rain-
Blurred weedchoked outskirts
Of a dying milltown
Where her ancient mother
Keeps giving that last dime
To someone wearing a hood
Of y esterday's newspapers
Outside the urine-streaked
Theater-lobby where on Saturday
Nights they've Live Wrestling
Teeth filed to razor's sharpness
Lion-roars mad-dog-bites
Backbreakers you'd hear in China
But now all of it mute cindery
Grim and earnest
Unlettered and benighted
I believe hieroglyphically
"Toward Nightfall" (from "Unending Blues")
The weight of tragic events
On everyone's back,
Just as tragedy
In the proper Greek sense
Was thought impossible
To compose in our day.
There were scaffolds,
Makeshift stages,
Puny figures on them,
Like small indistinct animals
Caught in the headlights
Crossing the road ahead,
In the gray twilight
That went on hesitating
On the verge of a huge
Starless autumn night
One could've been in
The back of an open truck
Hunkering because of
The speed and chill.
One could've been walking
With a sidelong glance
At the many troubling shapes
The bare trees made--
Like those about to shriek,
But finding themselves unable
To utter a word now.
One could've been in
One of those dying mill towns
Inside a small dim grocery
When the news broke.
One would've drawn near the radio
With the one many months pregnant
Who serves there at that hour.
Was there a smell of
Spilled blood in the air
Or was it that other,
Much finer scent--of fear,
The fear of approaching death
One met on the empty street.
Monsters on movie posters, too,
Prominently displayed,
Then, six factory girls,
Arm in arm, laughing
As if they've been drinking.
at the very least, one
Could've been on of them.
The one with a mouth
Painted bright red,
Who feels out of sorts,
For no reason, very pale,
And so, excusing herself,
Vanishes where it says:
Rooms for Rent,
and immediately goes to bed,
Fully dressed, only
To lie with eyes open,
Trembling, despite the covers
It's just a bad chill,
She keeps telling herself
Not having seen the papers
Which the landlord has the dog
Bring from the front porch.
The old man never learned
To read well, and so
Reads on in that half-whisper,
And in that half-light
Verging on the dark,
About that day's tragedies
Which supposedly are not
Tragedies in the absence of
Figures endowed with
Classic nobility of soul.
"The Betrothal " (from "The Book of Gods and Devils")
I found a key
In the street, someone's
House key
Lying there, glinting,
Long ago. The one
Who lost it
Is not going to remember it
Tonight, as I do.
It was a huge city
Of many dark windows, Many dark doorways. I stood there thinking.
The street ahead of me Shadowy, full of peril Now that I held
The key. One or two
Late strollers in view, Unhurried and grave.
The sky above them
Of an unearthly clarity.
Eternity jealous
Of the present moment,
It occurred to me!
And then the moment was over.
"The City" (from "Hotel Insomnia")
At least one crucified at every corner.
The eyes of a mystic, madman, murderer.
They know its truly for nothing.
The eyes do. All the martyrs sufferings
On parade. Exalted mother of us all
Tending her bundles on the sidewalk,
Speaking to each as if it were a holy child.
There were many who saw none of this.
A couple lingered on kissing lustily
Right where someone lay under a newspaper.
His bloody feet, swollen twice their size,
Jutted out into the cold of the day,
Grim proofs of a new doctrine.
I tell you, I was afraid. A man screamed
And continued walking as if nothing had happened.
Everyone whose eyes I sought avoided mine.
Was I beginning to resemble him a little?
I had no answer to any of these questions.
Neither did the crucified on the next corner.
"Evening Walk" (from "Hotel Insomnia")
You give the appearance of listening
To my thoughts, O trees,
Bent over the road I am walking
On a late summer evening
When every one of you is a steep staircase
The night is slowly descending.
The high leaves like my mother's lips
Forever trembling, unable to decide,
For there's a bit of wind,
And it's like hearing voices,
Or a mouth full of muffled laughter,
A huge dark mouth we can all fit in
Suddenly covered by a hand.
Everything quiet. Light
Of some other evening strolling ahead,
Long-ago evening of silk dresses,
Bare feet, hair unpinned and falling.
Happy heart, what heavy steps you take
As you follow after them in the shadows.
The sky at the road's end cloudless and blue.
The night birds like children
Who won't come to dinner.
Lost children in the darkening woods.
Reading History (from "A Wedding in Hell")
At times, reading here
In the library,
Im given a glimpse
Of those condemned to death
Centuries ago,
And of their executioners.
I see each pale face before me
The way a judge
Pronouncing a sentence would,
Marveling at the thought
That I do not exist yet.
With eyes closed I can hear
The evening birds.
Soon they will be quiet
And the final night on earth
Will commence
In the fullness of its sorrow.
How vast, dark, and impenetrable
Are the early-morning skies
Of those led to their death
In a world from which Im entirely absent,
Where I can still watch
Someones slumped back,
Someone who is walking away from me
With his hands tied,
His graying head still on his shoulders,
Someone who
In what little remains of his life
Knows in some vague way about me,
And thinks of me as God,
As Devil.
"Mirrors at 4am" (From "Walking the Black Cat")
You must come to them sideways
In rooms webbed in shadow,
Sneak a view of their emptiness
Without them catching
A glimpse of you in return.
The secret is,
Even the empty bed is a burden to them,
A pretense.
They are more themselves keeping
The company of a blank wall,
The company of time and eternity
Which, begging your pardon,
Cast no image
As they admire themselves in the mirror,
While you stand to the side
Pulling a hanky out
To wipe your brow surreptitiously.
"El Libro de la Sexualidad" (from "Jackstraws")
The pages of all the books are blank.
The late-night readers at the town library
Make no complaints about that.
They lift their heads solely
To consult the sign commanding silence,
Before they lick their finger,
Look sly, appear to be dozing off,
As they pinch the corner of the paper
Ever-so-carefully,
While turning the heavy page.
In the yellow puddle of light,
Under the lamp with green shade,
The star charts are all white
In the big astronomy atlas
Lying open between my bare arms.
At the checkout desk, the young Betelgeuse
Is painting her lips red
Using my sweating forehead as a mirror.
Her roving tongue
Is a long-tailed comet in the night sky.
"Talking to the Ceiling I" (from "Jackstraws")
The moths rustle the pages of the evening papers.
A beautiful sleepwalker terrorizes Kansas.
Cannibal waiter ate two of his diners tonight.
I was snooping on myself, pointing the long finger.
Whose orange hairpiece is that? the cop said.
All of creation, you are in my bad books.
In the meantime, I'm always thinking of you, Margie.
If only I had a paper crown on my head.
I'd play tapes of your inspired snoring.
The big question, can we continue
To keep the grim reaper laughing?
The long menu of mouthwatering misfortunes
Lies scrawled in the palms of our hands.
Unknown namesake in a roach motel, go to sleep.
"Talking to the Ceiling V" (from "Jackstraws")
Father of the universe, what wine do
With tiny love bites she ate my heart.
you sip?
Didn't want the salt and pepper I offered.
Long hours of the night; St. John of the Cross
And Blaise Pascal the cops in a patrol car.
Do you have a favorite black hole in heaven?
The fleeting moments know no care.
Every day I discover serious new obstacles
To my guaranteed pursuit of happiness.
cup tonight.
There was a funeral in my coffee
I'm not just any black flea on your
ass!
I shouted to every god and devil I could think of.
Infinity's ink has spilled over me
And left me and my bed badly smudged.
"De Occulta Philosophia" (from "Jackstraws")
Evening sunlight,
Your humble servant
Seeks initiation
Into your occult ways.
Out of the late-summer sky,
Its deepening quiet,
You brought me a summons,
A small share in some large
And obscure knowledge.
Tell me something of your study
Of lengthening shadows,
The blazing windowpanes
Where the soul is turned into light
Or dont just now.
You have the air of someone
Who prefers to dwell in solitude,
The one who enters, with gravity
Of mien and imposing severity,
A room suddenly rich in enigmas.
Oh supreme unknowable,
The seemingly inviolable reserve
Of your stratagems
Makes me quake at the thought.
Of you finding me thus
Seated in a shadowy back room
At the edge of a village
Bloodied by the setting sun,
To tell me so much,
To tell me absolutely nothing.
