Read New and Selected Poems Online

Authors: Charles Simic

New and Selected Poems (27 page)

BOOK: New and Selected Poems
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Poet of the dead leaves driven like ghosts,
[>]

Popular Mechanics
,
[>]

Postcard from S.
,
[>]

Preachers Warn
,
[>]

Prison Guards Silhouetted Against the Sky
,
[>]

Prodigy
,
[>]

Progress Report
,
[>]

Prophesy
,
[>]

Psalm
,
[>]

Punch Minus Judy
,
[>]

Puppet Maker
,
[>]

 

Reading History
,
[>]

Relaxing in a Madhouse
,
[>]

Rocky was a regular guy, a loyal friend,
[>]

Romantic Landscape
,
[>]

Romantic Sonnet
,
[>]

 

Sausage makers of History,
[>]

Savageries to come,
[>]

School for Visionaries
,
[>]

Secret History
,
[>]

Seems like a long time,
[>]

Self-Portrait in Bed
,
[>]

Separate Truths
,
[>]

Serving Time
,
[>]

Shaving
,
[>]

Shelley
,
[>]

She's pressing me gently . . . ,
[>]

She was about to chop the head,
[>]

Shirt
,
[>]

Shoes, secret face of my inner life:,
[>]

Sightseeing in the Capital
,
[>]

Sky's gravedigger,
[>]

Slaughterhouse Flies
,
[>]

Snowy Morning Blues
,
[>]

So far I've met here two Homers and one Virgil,
[>]

Softly
,
[>]

So, hurry up!,
[>]

Solitude
,
[>]

Solitude in Hotels
,
[>]

So many crutches. Now even the daylight,
[>]

Someone shuffles by my door . . . ,
[>]

Sometimes walking late at night,
[>]

so that's what it's like to be a wheel,
[>]

Spoon
,
[>]

St. John of the Cross wore dark glasses,
[>]

Stone
,
[>]

Strange Feast
,
[>]

Strictly Bucolic
,
[>]

St. Thomas Aquinas
,
[>]

Stub of a Red Pencil
,
[>]

Such skies came to worry men,
[>]

Summer Light
,
[>]

Summer Morning
,
[>]

Summer Storm
,
[>]

Sunday Papers
,
[>]

Sunlight
,
[>]

Sunset's Coloring Book
,
[>]

Surely, he could make it easier,
[>]

Surely, he walks among us unrecognized:,
[>]

Swaying handcuffed,
[>]

Sweetest
,
[>]

 

Take down its ears first,
[>]

Taken as a whole, it's a mystery,
[>]

Talking to the Ceiling
,
[>]

Talking to yourself on the front porch,
[>]

Talk Radio
,
[>]

Tapestry
,
[>]

Tattooed City
,
[>]

Tending a cliff-hanging Grand Hotel,
[>]

That awful deceit of appearances,
[>]

That Little Something
,
[>]

That same light by which I saw her last,
[>]

That's the one the butcher,
[>]

That's the only image,
[>]

That was the year the Nazis marched into Vienna,
[>]

The Absentee Landlord
,
[>]

The Altar
,
[>]

The Ballad of the Wheel
,
[>]

The Bather
,
[>]

The Betrothal
,
[>]

The Big War
,
[>]

The Bird
,
[>]

The Black Queen raised high,
[>]

The blue trees are arguing with the red wind,
[>]

The brightly painted horse,
[>]

The butchery of the innocent,
[>]

The Chair
,
[>]

The Chicken Without a Head
,
[>]

The church is an iceberg,
[>]

The City
,
[>]

The city had fallen. We came . . . ,
[>]

The Clocks of the Dead
,
[>]

The Cold
,
[>]

The Common Insects of America
,
[>]

The cows are to be slaughtered,
[>]

The Dead in Photographs
,
[>]

The devil likes the chicken coop,
[>]

The Devils
,
[>]

The ear threading,
[>]

The Emperor
,
[>]

The Emperor must not be told night is coming,
[>]

The Empress
,
[>]

The enormous engineering problems,
[>]

The epoch of a streetcar drawn by horses,
[>]

The Eskimos were ravaging Peru,
[>]

The fat sisters,
[>]

The Fly
,
[>]

The Foundlings
,
[>]

The Friends of Heraclitus
,
[>]

The Future
,
[>]

The great labor was always to efface oneself,
[>]

The hundred-year-old china . . . ,
[>]

The hundred-year-old servants,
[>]

The Immortal
,
[>]

The Improbable
,
[>]

The Inanimate Object
,
[>]

The Initiate
,
[>]

The Inner Man
,
[>]

The Invisible
,
[>]

The last customer will stagger out of the door,
[>]

The Lesson
,
[>]

The Lights Are On Everywhere
,
[>]

The likelihood of ever finding it is small,
[>]

The Little Pins of Memory
,
[>]

The Little Tear Gland That Says
,
[>]

The Lives of the Alchemists
,
[>]

The Lovers
,
[>]

The machines were gone, and so were those who worked them,
[>]

The madwoman went marking
X
's,
[>]

The mail truck goes down the coast,
[>]

The Massacre of the Innocents
,
[>]

The Melon
,
[>]

The moths rustle the pages of evening papers,
[>]

Then there's aesthetic paradox,
[>]

Then there was Johann,
[>]

The obvious is difficult,
[>]

The old farmer in overalls . . . ,
[>]

The Old World
,
[>]

The One to Worry About
,
[>]

The one who lights the wood stove,
[>]

The pages of all the books are blank,
[>]

The Partial Explanation
,
[>]

The Pieces of the Clock Lie Scattered
,
[>]

The pink-cheeked Jesus,
[>]

The Place
,
[>]

The plastic statue of the Virgin,
[>]

The poets of the Late Tang Dynasty,
[>]

The president smiles to himself; he loves war,
[>]

The Prisoner
,
[>]

The Prodigal
,
[>]

There are one or two murderers in any crowd,
[>]

There may be words left,
[>]

There now, where the first crumb,
[>]

There's a book called,
[>]

There's a thing in the world,
[>]

There was a child's Sunday suit,
[>]

There was a melon fresh from the garden,
[>]

There were three of them, always three,
[>]

The room is empty,
[>]

The Scarecrow
,
[>]

The season of lurid wildflowers,
[>]

The Secret
,
[>]

These grand old buildings,
[>]

These rows of tall palm trees,
[>]

The snail gives off stillness,
[>]

The softness of this motel bed,
[>]

The Soul Has Many Brides
,
[>]

The Starry Sky
,
[>]

The stone is a mirror . . . ,
[>]

The Stream
,
[>]

The Supreme Moment
,
[>]

The teacher sits with eyes closed,
[>]

The Terms
,
[>]

The Tiger
,
[>]

The time of minor poets is coming . . . ,
[>]

The time of the year for the mystics,
[>]

The Toad
,
[>]

The Tower
,
[>]

The Toy
,
[>]

The Tragic Sense of Life
,
[>]

The translator is a close reader,
[>]

The trembling finger of a woman,
[>]

The truth is dark under your eyelids,
[>]

The Virgin Mother walked barefoot,
[>]

The Voice at 3
A.M.
,
[>]

The Wail
,
[>]

The weight of tragic events,
[>]

The White Room
,
[>]

The wives of my friends,
[>]

The world was already here,
[>]

The Writings of the Mystics
,
[>]

They ask for a knife,
[>]

They didn't answer to repeated knocks,
[>]

They dish out the usual excuses to one another:,
[>]

They had already attached the evening's tears to the windowpanes,
[>]

They like shady rooms,
[>]

They showed me a dashing officer on horseback,
[>]

They were pale like the stones on the meadow,
[>]

They were talking about the war,
[>]

Things Need Me
,
[>]

This chair was once a student of Euclid,
[>]

This is where all our joyrides ended:,
[>]

This old world needs propping up,
[>]

This one kept its dignity,
[>]

This peaceful world of ours is ready for destruction—,
[>]

This strange thing must have crept,
[>]

Thousands of old men . . . ,
[>]

Three Doors
,
[>]

Three old women sat knitting,
[>]

Three Photographs
,
[>]

Thumb, loose tooth of a horse . . . ,
[>]

Time's hurrying me, putting me to the test,
[>]

To Dreams
,
[>]

To Fate
,
[>]

To find a bit of thread,
[>]

To get into it,
[>]

To grieve, always to suffer,
[>]

To Laziness
,
[>]

To Think Clearly
,
[>]

Toward Nightfall
,
[>]

Toy Factory
,
[>]

Trailer Park
,
[>]

Transport
,
[>]

Trees in the Open Country
,
[>]

“Tropical luxuriance around the idea . . . ,
[>]

Trouble Coming
,
[>]

Two Dogs
,
[>]

Two Riddles
,
[>]

 

Unmade Beds
,
[>]

Used Book Store
,
[>]

Used Clothing Store
,
[>]

 

Ventriloquist Convention
,
[>]

Via del Tritone
,
[>]

Views from a Train
,
[>]

Voyage to Cythera
,
[>]

 

Waiting for the Sun to Set
,
[>]

Walking
,
[>]

Wanted Poster
,
[>]

War
,
[>]

War, illness and famine will make you their favorite grandchild,
[>]

Watch it spin like a wheel,
[>]

Watermelons
,
[>]

Wears a smirk on his face,
[>]

We don't even take time,
[>]

We played war during the war,
[>]

We were never formally introduced,
[>]

We were so poor . . . ,
[>]

What I need is a pig and an angel,
[>]

What I Overheard
,
[>]

What the Gypsies Told My Grandmother While She Was Still a Young Girl
,
[>]

What the White Had to Say
,
[>]

When I see a cockroach,
[>]

When she still knew how to make shadows speak,
[>]

BOOK: New and Selected Poems
11.61Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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