New and Selected Poems (25 page)

 

Or so I was telling the old Mrs. Murphy
Who was on her way to church
To pray for the soul of her dead husband,
Who she suspected was in hell
And needed to hear her voice as he burned.

Where you went to hide from everyone
In a city people visit for other reasons,
In a room with a Don't Disturb sign
Left on the door day and night,
While you sat around in your underwear
Staring at the dead TV screen for hours,

 

Waiting for after midnight to sneak
Past the desk clerk in the lobby and visit

Some ill-lit dive in the neighborhood
For a beer or two and a bite to eat
Then a walk along dark, deserted streets
In no hurry and no direction in mind,

 

Slipping back into bed toward daybreak
To lie awake listening to the rain,
While the leaves outside the window
Turn the color of fire, the one you read
Was started by some boy in church
To impress his pale and silent girlfriend.

Against a coffin thickly ornamented
With paintings representing
The burial rites and duties of the soul
They undid each other's buttons
With all of their fingers on fire.

 

He, upright like an unicyclist
Going up a pyramid.
She, like a white dove fluttering
In the hands of a magician
Performing at a mortician's convention,

 

While the dog-headed god
Weighed a dead man's heart
Against a single feather,
And the ibis-headed one
Made ready to record the outcome.

I hate to hear birds sing
Come spring, the wood turn green
And little flowers sprout
Along the country roads.

 

Bleak skies, short days,
And long nights please me best.
I like to cloister myself
Watching my thoughts roam

 

Like a homeless family
Holding on to their children
And their few possessions
Seeking shelter for the night.

 

And I love most of all knowing
I'm here today, gone tomorrow,
The dark sneaking up on me,
To blow out the match in my hand.

One saw signs of it in certain families.
The future was like an unfriendly waiter
Standing ready to take their dinner order
From a menu they could not read.

 

To look without understanding was their lot
While a salesman in the TV store
Kept changing channels too quickly
For them to retain a single image.

 

The little flags freshly posted in a cemetery
Said nothing as they hung listlessly
In the early-summer breeze,
Not that anybody particularly noticed.

 

The sunset over the approaching city
Was like a banquet in a madhouse
The inmates were happily setting on fire
Just as our train ducked into a tunnel.

Friends of the small hours of the night:
Stub of a pencil, small notebook,
Reading lamp on the table,
Making me welcome in your circle of light.

 

I care little the house is dark and cold
With you sharing my absorption
In this book in which now and then a sentence
Is worth repeating in a whisper.

 

Without you, there'd be only my pale face
Reflected in the black windowpane,
And the bare trees and deep snow
Waiting for me out there in the dark.

Time's hurrying me, putting me to the test
To picture to myself what comes next.
My mind is eager. I no longer plead with it
To keep still so we can get some rest.
We've been this way far too long now.

 

Like newborn twins, left side by side
On the same church steps by their mother
For some pious early riser to find us,
And either give a shout or take us home,
We'll stay here comforting each other.

 

Soon now these stone steps will turn pink
And the pigeons and the sparrows
Will fly down to them in search for crumbs
The blind old men who beg here for alms
Let drop as they ate their bread in the dark.

It makes my heart glad to hear one of these
Chirpy little birds just back from Mexico—
Or wherever it is they spend their winters—
Come and sit in a tree outside my window.

 

I want to stay in bed all morning
Listening to the returning ones greet the friends
They left behind, since in their rapture
At being together, I find my own joy,

 

As if a festive table was being set in the garden
By two composed and somber women
Clad in dresses too light for this time of year,
Mindful every glass and fork is in its proper place,

 

Leaving me uncertain whether to close my eyes,
Or to hurry in shorts over the old snow
And make sure the dishes they've laid out
Are truly there to be savored by one like me.

One night, as I was dropping off to sleep,
I saw a strip of light under a door
I had never noticed was there before,
And both feared and wanted
To go over and knock on it softly.

 

In a dark house, where a strip of light
Under a door I didn't know existed
Appeared and disappeared, as if they
Had turned off the light and lay awake
Like me waiting for what comes next.

A bear who eats with a silver spoon,
[>]

A bird calls me,
[>]

A Book Full of Pictures
,
[>]

A century of gathering clouds...,
[>]

A child crying in the night,
[>]

A dog trying to write a poem on why he barks,
[>]

A few couples walk off into the dark,
[>]

Against a coffin thickly ornamented,
[>]

Against the backdrop,
[>]

Against Whatever It Is That's Encroaching
,
[>]

Against Winter
,
[>]

A house with a screened-in porch,
[>]

Ah the great,
[>]

A Landscape with Crutches
,
[>]

A large stock of past lives,
[>]

A Letter
,
[>]

All shivers,
[>]

All they could do is act innocent,
[>]

All they need,
[>]

Ambiguity's Wedding
,
[>]

A message for you,
[>]

An Address with Exclamation Points
,
[>]

Ancient Autumn
,
[>]

Ancient Divinities
,
[>]

And again the screech of the scaffold,
[>]

And how are the rats doing in the maze?,
[>]

And Then I Think
,
[>]

And thinking with each mouthful,
[>]

Animal Acts
,
[>]

An old dog afraid of his own shadow,
[>]

An old spoon,
[>]

Another dreary day in time's invisible,
[>]

Another grim-lipped day coming our way,
[>]

A poem about sitting on . . . ,
[>]

A rat came on stage,
[>]

Are Russian cannibals worse . . . ,
[>]

Are these mellifluous sheep,
[>]

Are you authorized to speak,
[>]

Are you the sole owner of a seedy nightclub?,
[>]

Ariadne's bird,
[>]

A Row of High Windows
,
[>]

As an ant is powerless,
[>]

As if in a presence of an intelligence,
[>]

As if there were nothing to live for . . . ,
[>]

As if you had a message for me . . . ,
[>]

A small, straw basket,
[>]

At least one crucified at every corner,
[>]

At the close of a sweltering night,
[>]

At the Cookout
,
[>]

At the Corner,
[>]

At the Night Court
,
[>]

At times, reading here,
[>]

Aunt Dinah Sailed to China
,
[>]

Austerities
,
[>]

Autumn Sky
,
[>]

A Wall
,
[>]

A Wedding in Hell
,
[>]

 

Baby Pictures of Famous Dictators
,
[>]

Backed myself into a dark corner one day,
[>]

Battling Grays
,
[>]

Bearded ancestors, what became of you?,
[>]

Beauty
,
[>]

Because few here recall the old wars,
[>]

Because I'm nothing you can name,
[>]

Befriending an eccentric young woman,
[>]

Begotten of the Spleen
,
[>]

Bestiary for the Fingers of My Right Hand
,
[>]

Best of all is to be idle,
[>]

Blood Orange
,
[>]

Book Lice
,
[>]

Breasts
,
[>]

Bride of Awe, all that's left for us,
[>]

Brooms
,
[>]

Bumble Bee, Soldier Bug, Mormon Cricket,
[>]

Butcher Shop
,
[>]

 

Cabbage
,
[>]

Café Paradiso
,
[>]

Cameo Appearance
,
[>]

Car Graveyard
,
[>]

Carrying On Like a Crow
,
[>]

Charles Simic
,
[>]

Charles Simic is a sentence,
[>]

Charm School
,
[>]

Charon's Cosmology
,
[>]

Cherry Blossom Time
,
[>]

Child of sorrow,
[>]

City of poorly loved chairs, bedroom slippers, frying pans,
[>]

Classic Ballroom Dances
,
[>]

Clouds Gathering
,
[>]

Club Midnight
,
[>]

Cockroach
,
[>]

Cold Blue Tinge
,
[>]

Concerning My Neighbors, the Hittites
,
[>]

Country Fair
,
[>]

Couple at Coney Island
,
[>]

Crazy About Her Shrimp
,
[>]

Crepuscule with Nellie
,
[>]

Crows
,
[>]

 

Dance of the Macabre Mice
,
[>]

Dark Farmhouses
,
[>]

Dark morning rain,
[>]

Daughters of Memory
,
[>]

Dear Helen
,
[>]

Dear philosophers, I get sad when I think,
[>]

Death, the Philosopher
,
[>]

December
,
[>]

De Occulta Philosophia,
[>]

Description of a Lost Thing
,
[>]

Devotions
,
[>]

Discreet reader of discreet lives,
[>]

Dismantling the Silence
,
[>]

Dream Avenue
,
[>]

Driving Home
,
[>]

 

Early Evening Algebra
,
[>]

Eastern European Cooking
,
[>]

Elegy
,
[>]

El libro de la sexualidad,
[>]

Emily's Theme
,
[>]

Empire of Dreams
,
[>]

Empires
,
[>]

Empty Barbershop
,
[>]

Empty Rocking Chair
,
[>]

Encyclopedia of Horror
,
[>]

Entertaining the Canary
,
[>]

errata
,
[>]

Eternities
,
[>]

Eternity's Orphans
,
[>]

Evening
,
[>]

Evening Chess
,
[>]

Evenings of sovereign clarity—,
[>]

Evenings, they ran their bloody feet,
[>]

Evening sunlight,
[>]

Evening Talk
,
[>]

Evening Visitor
,
[>]

Evening Walk
,
[>]

Ever So Tragic
,
[>]

“Everybody knows the story . . . ,
[>]

Everything about you,
[>]

Everything you didn't understand,
[>]

Every worm is a martyr,
[>]

Explaining a Few Things
,
[>]

Extraordinary efforts are being made,
[>]

Eyes Fastened with Pins
,
[>]

 

Factory
,
[>]

Father-confessor,
[>]

Father studied theology through the mail,
[>]