New and Selected Poems

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New and Selected Poems Page 12

by Charles Simic


  Your sheltering hands, Mother, which made the old man disappear.

  The Lord who saw over them

  Saw into our hearts while we unlaced his boots.

  I’m turning off the lights so His eyes won’t find you, you said.

  O dreams like evening shadows on a windy meadow,

  And your hands, Mother, like white mice.

  The Dead in Photographs

  All they could do is act innocent

  Standing still for the camera,

  Only a few of them thinking to move

  And leave a blur for posterity.

  Others held their smiles forever.

  The groom with a suit too big for him,

  And his bride with a small straw hat

  And a topping of strawberries.

  In Los Angeles, one Sunday morning,

  The photographer took a picture

  Of a closed barbershop

  And a black cat crossing an empty avenue,

  A blind man outside a bus station

  Playing the guitar and singing,

  A little boy walking up to the camera

  Smiling and sticking his tongue out.

  Madame Thebes

  That awful deceit of appearances.

  Some days

  Everything looks unfamiliar

  On my street.

  It’s somebody else’s life I’m living.

  An immaculate silent order

  Of white buildings and dark clouds,

  And then the open door

  In a house with lowered voices.

  Someone left in a hurry,

  And they’re waiting for me to come in

  With a lit match.

  There’s a rustle of a long skirt,

  But when I enter

  It’s only the evening papers

  Sliding off the table

  Birdlike

  In a large and drafty

  And now altogether empty room.

  Evening Visitor

  You remind me of those dwarfs in Velázquez.

  Former dogcatcher

  Promoted to professor at a correspondence school

  With a matchbook address.

  That couple screwing and watching

  Themselves in the mirror,

  Do you approve of them

  As they gasp and roll their eyes in ecstasy?

  And how about the solitary wine drinker?

  He’s drinking because he can’t decide

  Whether to kill only one of them or both—

  And here it’s already morning!

  Some damn bird chirping in the trees.

  Is that it? I beseech you. Answer me!

  The Massacre of the Innocents

  The poets of the Late Tang Dynasty

  Could do nothing about it except to write:

  “On the western hills the sun sets . . .

  Horses blown by the whirlwind tread the clouds.”

  I could not help myself either. I felt joy

  Even at the sight of a crow circling over me

  As I stretched out on the grass

  Alone now with the silence of the sky.

  Only the wind making a slight rustle

  As it turned the pages of the book by my side,

  Back and forth, searching for something

  For that bloody crow to read.

  Pascal’s Idea

  My insignificance is a sign of my greatness.

  Marvel, draw back

  As I scurry in my roachlike way

  Through these greasy kitchens

  With their raised knives

  And their fat-assed cooks

  Bent over steaming pots.

  My life is a triumph over the world’s connivances

  And blind chance.

  I found the poison you left for me

  Extremely nourishing.

  Once I sipped milk out of a saucer left for the cat.

  Once I ran across a birthday cake

  With its candles already lit.

  It was terrifying

  And I suppose a bit like

  What your heaven and hell combined must be.

  The Clocks of the Dead

  One night I went to keep the clock company.

  It had a loud tick after midnight

  As if it were uncommonly afraid.

  It’s like whistling past a graveyard,

  I explained.

  In any case, I told him I understood.

  Once there were clocks like that

  In every kitchen in America.

  Now the factory’s windows are all broken.

  The old men on night shift are in Charon’s boat.

  The day you stop, I said to the clock,

  The little wheels they keep in reserve

  Will have rolled away

  Into many hard-to-find places.

  Just thinking about it, I forgot to wind the clock.

  We woke up in the dark.

  How quiet the city is, I said.

  Like the clocks of the dead, my wife replied.

  Grandmother on the wall,

  I heard the snows of your childhood

  Begin to fall.

  Wanted Poster

  From the closed, block-long post office

  I heard him whisper

  Out of his flyspecked mouth

  As I hurried by on the street.

  Hunted beast, he said,

  His eyes dark and mean under the rusty thumbtacks.

  Who furloughed you today

  To go around grinning at every woman you meet?

  Explaining a Few Things

  Every worm is a martyr,

  Every sparrow subject to injustice,

  I said to my cat,

  Since there was no one else around.

  It’s raining. In spite of their huge armies

  What can the ants do?

  And the roach on the wall

  Like a waiter in an empty restaurant?

  I’m going in the cellar

  To stroke the rat caught in a trap.

  You watch the sky.

  If it clears, scratch on the door.

  The Supreme Moment

  As an ant is powerless

  Against a raised boot,

  And only has an instant

  To have a bright idea or two.

  The black boot so polished,

  He can see himself

  Reflected in it, distorted,

  Perhaps made larger

  Into a huge monster ant

  Shaking his arms and legs

  Threateningly?

  The boot may be hesitating,

  Demurring, having misgivings,

  Gathering cobwebs,

  Dew?

  Yes, and apparently no.

  Crazy About Her Shrimp

  We don’t even take time

  To come up for air.

  We keep our mouths full and busy

  Eating bread and cheese

  And smooching in between.

  No sooner have we made love

  Than we are back in the kitchen.

  While I chop the hot peppers,

  She wiggles her ass

  And stirs the shrimp on the stove.

  How good the wine tastes

  That has run red

  Out of a laughing mouth!

  Down her chin

  And onto her naked tits.

  “I’m getting fat,” she says,

  Turning this way and that way

  Before the mirror.

  “I’m crazy about her shrimp!”

  I shout to the gods above.

  Transport

  In the frying pan

  On the stove

  I found my love

  And me naked.

  Chopped onions

  Fell on our heads

  And made us cry.

  It’s like a parade,

  I told her, confetti

  When some guy

  Reaches the moon.

 
“Means of transport,”

  She replied obscurely

  While we fried.

  “Means of transport!”

  Love Flea

  He took a flea

  From her armpit

  To keep

  And cherish

  In a matchbox,

  Even pricking his finger

  From time to time

  To feed it

  Drops of blood.

  What I Overheard

  In summer’s idle time,

  When trees grow heavy with leaves

  And spread shade everywhere

  That is a delight to lie in

  Alone

  Or in the company of a dear friend,

  Dreaming or having a quiet talk

  Without looking at each other,

  Until she feels drowsy

  As if after too much wine,

  And you draw close for a kiss

  On her cheek, and instead

  Stay with lips pursed, listening

  To a bee make its rounds lazily,

  And a far-off rooster crow

  On the edge of sleep with the leaves hushed

  Or rustling, ever so softly,

  About something or other on their mind.

  Leaves

  Lovers who take pleasure

  In the company of trees,

  Who seek diversion after many kisses

  In each other’s arms,

  Watching the leaves,

  The way they quiver

  At the slightest breath of wind,

  The way they thrill,

  And shudder almost individually,

  One of them beginning to shake

  While the others are still quiet,

  Unaccountably, unreasonably—

  What am I saying?

  One leaf in a million more fearful,

  More happy,

  Than all the others?

  On this oak tree casting

  Such deep shade,

  And my lids closing sleepily

  With that one leaf twittering

  Now darkly, now luminously.

  Paper Dolls Cut Out of a Newspaper

  Four of them holding hands like a family.

  There’s news of war this morning

  And an ad for a coffee they call heavenly

  Next to the picture of the president.

  Hold them up for us to see, little Rosie.

  Hold them up a bit longer.

  Watch them dance, watch them trip

  And make your grandparents laugh

  With their knives and forks in the air,

  While printer’s ink comes off your fingers

  And blackens your face

  As you hurry to cover your eyes.

  Reading History

  for Hans Magnus

  At times, reading here

  In the library,

  I’m 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 I’m entirely absent,

  Where I can still watch

  Someone’s 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.

  Psalm

  You’ve been making up your mind a long time,

  O Lord, about these madmen

  Running the world. Their reach is long,

  And their sharp claws may have frightened you.

  One of them just cast a shadow over me.

  The day turned chill. I dangled

  Between terror and speechless fury

  In the corner of my son’s bedroom.

  I sought with my eyes you, in whom I do not believe.

  You’ve been busy making the flowers pretty,

  The lambs run after their mother,

  Or perhaps you haven’t been doing even that?

  It was spring. The killers were full of determination

  And high spirits, and your clergymen

  Were right at their side, making sure

  Our last words didn’t include a curse on you.

  Empires

  My grandmother prophesied the end

  Of your empires, O fools!

  She was ironing. The radio was on.

  The earth trembled beneath our feet.

  One of your heroes was giving a speech.

  “Monster,” she called him.

  There were cheers and gun salutes for the monster.

  “I could kill him with my bare hands,”

  She announced to me.

  There was no need to. They were all

  Going to the devil any day now.

  “Don’t go blabbering about this to anyone,”

  She warned me.

  And pulled my ear to make sure I understood.

  Romantic Landscape

  To grieve, always to suffer

  At the thought of time passing.

  The outside world shadowy

  As your deepest self.

  Melancholy meadows, trees so still,

  They seem afraid of themselves.

  The sunset sky for one brief moment

  Radiant with some supreme insight,

  And then it’s over. Tragic theater:

  Blood and mourning at which

  Even the birds fall silent.

  Spirit, you who are everywhere and nowhere,

  Watch over the lost lamb

  Now that the mouth of the Infinite

  Opens over us

  And its dumb tongue begins to move darkly.

  Mystics

  Help me to find what I’ve lost,

  If it was ever, however briefly, mine,

  You who may have found it.

  Old man praying in the privy,

  Lonely child drawing a secret room

  And in it a stopped clock.

  Seek to convey its truth to me

  By hints and omens.

  The room in shadow, perhaps the wrong room?

  The cockroach on the wall,

  The naked lovers kissing

  On the TV with the sound off.

  I could hear the red faucet drip.

  Or else restore to plain view

  What is eternally invisible

  And speaks by being silent.

  Blue distances to the north,

  The fires of the evening to the west,

  Christ himself in pain, panhandling

  On the altar of the storefront church

  With a long bloody nail in each palm.

  In this moment of amazement . . .

  Since I do ask for it humbly,

  Without greed, out of true need.

  My teeth chattered so loudly,

  My old dog got up to see what’s the matter.

  Oh divine lassitude, long drawn-out sigh

  As the vision came and went.

  Imported Novelties

  They didn’t answer to repeated knocks,

  Or perhaps they were in no hurry.

  On the eighteenth floor

  Even the sunlight moved lazily

  Past the floating dust.

  A year could pass here, I thought,

 
As in a desert solitude.

  “Unknown parties, rarely seen,”

  The elevator operator warned me.

  He wore a New Year’s party hat in August;

  I was looking for work.

  Inside, I imagined rows of file cabinets,

  Old desks, dead telephones.

  I could have been sitting at one of them myself,

  Like someone doused with gasoline

  In the moment before the match is lit,

  But then the elevator took me down.

  Via del Tritone

  In Rome, on the street of that name,

  I was walking alone in the sun

  In the noonday heat, when I saw a house

  With shutters closed, the sight of which

  Pained me so much, I could have

  Been born there and left inconsolably.

  The ochre walls, the battered old door

  I was tempted to push open and didn’t,

 

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