New and Selected Poems

by Charles Simic

  Say it in your prayers:

  In that thou has sought me,

  Thou has already found me.

  That’s what the leaves in the trees

  Are all excited about tonight.

  •

  Solitary fishermen

  Lining up like zeros

  To infinity.

  Therein the mystery

  And the pity.

  •

  The hook left dangling

  In the abyss.

  Nevertheless, aloft,

  White shirttails and all—

  I’ll be damned!

  IX

  from NIGHT PICNIC

  Past-Lives Therapy

  They showed me a dashing officer on horseback

  Riding past a burning farmhouse

  And a barefoot woman in a torn nightgown

  Throwing rocks at him and calling him Lucifer,

  Explained to me the cause of bloody bandages

  I kept seeing in a recurring dream,

  Cured the backache I acquired bowing to my old master,

  Made me stop putting thumbtacks round my bed.

  When I was a straw-headed boy in patched overalls,

  Chickens would freely roost in my hair.

  Some laid eggs as I played my ukulele

  And my mother and father crossed themselves.

  Next, I saw myself in an abandoned gas station

  Trying to convert a coffin into a spaceship,

  Hoarding dead watches in a house in San Francisco,

  Spraying obscenities on a highway overpass.

  Some days, however, they opened door after door,

  Always to a different room, and could not find me.

  There’d be a small squeak now and then in the dark,

  As if a miner’s canary just got caught in a mousetrap.

  Couple at Coney Island

  It was early one Sunday morning,

  So we put on our best rags

  And went for a stroll along the boardwalk

  Till we came to a kind of palace

  With turrets and pennants flying.

  It made me think of a wedding cake

  In the window of a fancy bakery shop.

  I was warm, so I took my jacket off

  And put my arm round your waist

  And drew you closer to me

  While you leaned your head on my shoulder.

  Anyone could see we’d made love

  The night before and were still giddy on our feet.

  We looked naked in our clothes

  Staring at the red and white pennants

  Whipped by the sea wind.

  The rides and shooting galleries

  With their ducks marching in line

  Still boarded up and padlocked.

  No one around yet to take our first dime.

  Unmade Beds

  They like shady rooms,

  Peeling wallpaper,

  Cracks on the ceiling,

  Flies on the pillow.

  If you are tempted to lie down,

  Don’t be surprised,

  You won’t mind the dirty sheets,

  The rasp of rusty springs

  As you make yourself comfy.

  The room is a darkened movie theater

  Where a grainy

  Black-and-white film is being shown.

  A blur of disrobed bodies

  In the moment of sweet indolence

  That follows lovemaking,

  When the meanest of hearts

  Comes to believe

  Happiness can last forever.

  Sunday Papers

  The butchery of the innocent

  Never stops. That’s about all

  We can ever be sure of, love,

  Even more sure than of the roast

  You are bringing out of the oven.

  It’s Sunday. The congregation

  Files slowly out of the church

  Across the street. A good many

  Carry Bibles in their hands.

  It’s the vague desire for truth

  And the mighty fear of it

  That make them turn up

  Despite the glorious spring weather.

  In the hallway, the old mutt

  Just now had the honesty

  To growl at his own image in the mirror,

  Before lumbering off to the kitchen

  Where the lamb roast sat

  In your outstretched hands

  Smelling of garlic and rosemary.

  Cherry Blossom Time

  Gray sewage bubbling up out of street sewers

  After the spring rain with the clear view

  Of hawkers of quack remedies and their customers

  Swarming on the Capitol steps.

  At the National Gallery the saints’ tormented faces

  Suddenly made sense.

  Several turned their eyes on me

  As I stepped over the shiny parquetry.

  And who and what was I, if you please?

  A minor provincial grumbler on a holiday,

  With hands clasped behind his back

  Nodding to every stranger he meets

  As if this were a 1950 s Fall of the Roman Empire movie set,

  And we the bewildered,

  Absurdly costumed, milling extras

  Among the pink cherry blossoms.

  People Eating Lunch

  And thinking with each mouthful,

  Or so it appears, seated as they are

  At the coffee shop counter, biting

  Into thick sandwiches, chewing

  And deliberating carefully before taking

  Another small sip of their sodas.

  The gray-haired counterman

  Taking an order has stopped to think

  With a pencil paused over his pad,

  The fellow in a blue baseball cap

  And the woman wearing dark glasses

  Are both thoroughly baffled

  As they stir and stir their coffees.

  If they should look up, they may see

  Socrates himself bending over the grill

  In a stained white apron and a hat

  Made out of yesterday’s newspaper,

  Tossing an omelet philosophically,

  In a small frying pan blackened with fire.

  The One to Worry About

  I failed miserably at imagining nothing.

  Something always came to keep me company:

  A small nameless bug crossing the table,

  The memory of my mother, the ringing in my ear.

  I was distracted and perplexed.

  A hole is invariably a hole in something.

  About seven this morning, a lone beggar

  Waited for me with his small, sickly dog

  Whose eyes grew bigger on seeing me.

  There goes, the eyes said, that nice man

  To whom (appearances to the contrary)

  Nothing in this whole wide world is sacred.

  I was still a trifle upset entering the bakery

  When an unknown woman stepped out

  Of the back to wait on me dressed for a night

  On the town in a low-cut, tight-fitting black dress.

  Her face was solemn, her eyes averted,

  While she placed a muffin in my hand,

  As if all along she knew what I was thinking.

  The Improbable

  There may be words left

  On the blackboard

  In that gray schoolhouse

  Shut for the winter break.

  Someone was called upon

  To wipe them off

  And then the bell rang,

  The eraser stayed where it was

  Next to the chalk.

  None of them knew

  You’d be passing by this morning

  With your eyes raised

  As if recollecting

  With a thrill of apprehension

  Something improbable

  That alone makes us p
ossible

  As it makes you possible

  In this fleeting moment

  Before the lights change.

  My Father Attributed Immortality to Waiters

  for Derek Walcott

  For surely, there’s no difficulty in understanding

  The unreality of an occasional customer

  Such as ourselves seated at one of the many tables

  As pale as the cloth that covers them.

  Time in its augmentations and diminutions,

  Does not concern these two in the least.

  They stand side by side facing the street,

  Wearing identical white jackets and fixed smiles,

  Ready to incline their heads in welcome

  Should one of us come through the door

  After reading the high-priced menu on this street

  Of many hunched figures and raised collars.

  The Altar

  The plastic statue of the Virgin

  On top of a bedroom dresser

  With a blackened mirror

  From a bad-dream grooming salon.

  Two pebbles from the grave of a rock star,

  A small, grinning wind-up monkey,

  A bronze Egyptian coin

  And a red movie-ticket stub.

  A splotch of sunlight on the framed

  Communion photograph of a boy

  With the eyes of someone

  Who will drown in a lake real soon.

  An altar dignifying the god of chance.

  What is beautiful, it cautions,

  Is found accidentally and not sought after.

  What is beautiful is easily lost.

  And Then I Think

  I’m just a storefront dentist

  Extracting a blackened tooth at midnight.

  I chewed on many bitter truths, Doc,

  My patient says after he spits the blood out

  Still slumped over, gray-haired

  And smelling of carrion like me.

  Of course, I may be the only one here,

  And this is a mirror trick I’m performing.

  Even the few small crumpled bills

  He leaves on the way out, I don’t believe in.

  I may pluck them with a pair of wet pincers

  And count them, and then I may not.

  Views from a Train

  Then there’s aesthetic paradox

  Which notes that someone else’s tragedy

  Often strikes the casual viewer

  With the feeling of happiness.

  There was the sight of squatters’ shacks,

  Naked children and lean dogs running

  On what looked like a town dump,

  The smallest one hopping after them on crutches.

  All of a sudden we were in a tunnel.

  The wheels ground our thoughts

  Back and forth as if they were gravel.

  Before long we found ourselves on a beach,

  The water blue, the sky cloudless.

  Seaside villas, palm trees, white sand;

  A woman in a red bikini waved to us

  As if she knew each one of us

  Individually and was sorry to see us

  Heading so quickly into another tunnel.

  Icarus’s Dog

  He let the whole world know

  What he thought of his master’s stunt.

  People threw rocks at him,

  But he went on barking.

  A hot day’s listlessness

  Spread over the sea and the sky.

  Not even a single gull

  To commemorate the event.

  Finally, he called it quits and went

  To sniff around some bushes,

  Vanishing for a moment,

  Then reappearing somewhere else,

  Wagging his tail happily as he went

  Down the long, sandy beach,

  Now and then stopping to pee

  And take one more look at the sky.

  Book Lice

  Munching on pages edged in gold

  In dust-covered Gideon Bibles

  With their tales of God’s wrath

  And punishment for the wicked

  In musty drawers of slummy motels,

  While the thin-legged suicide

  Draws a steaming bath with a razor in hand,

  And the gray-haired car thief

  Presses his face on the windowpane

  Pockmarked with evening rain.

  Three Doors

  This one kept its dignity

  Despite being kicked

  And smudged with hands.

  Now the whole neighborhood

  Can see what went on last night.

  Someone wanted to get in

  Real bad and kept pounding

  With clenched fists,

  Asking God to be his witness.

  •

  This door’s hinges

  Give off a nasty squeak

  To alert the neighbors.

  Some fellow with an

  It-pays-to-be-cagey look on his face

  Just snuck out.

  Yelps of a kicked dog

  And wild laughter

  Followed after him.

  I heard a screen door

  Creak open at daybreak

  And what sounded like stage whisper

  While someone let the cat in

  Where it rubbed itself

  Against two bare legs

  And then went and took its first lick

  From a saucer of milk.

  For the Very Soul of Me

  At the close of a sweltering night,

  I found him at the entrance

  Of a bank building made of blue glass,

  Crumpled on his side, naked,

  Shielding his crotch with both hands,

  The missing one, missed by no one,

  As all the truly destitute are,

  His rags rolled up into a pillow,

  His mouth open as if he were dead,

  Or recalling some debauchery.

  Insomnia and the heat drove me out early,

  Made me turn down one street

  Instead of another and saw him

  Stretched there, crusted with dirt,

  His feet bruised and swollen.

  The lone yellow cab idled at the light

  With windows down, the sleepy driver

  Threw him a glance, shook his head

  And drove down the deserted avenue

  The rising sun had made beautiful.

  Car Graveyard

  This is where all our joyrides ended:

  Our fathers at the wheel, our mothers

  With picnic baskets on their knees

  As we sat in the back with our mouths open.

  We were driving straight into the sunrise.

  The country was flat. A city rose before us,

  Its windows burning with the setting sun.

  All that vanished as we quit the highway

  And rolled down a dusky meadow

  Strewn with beer cans and candy wrappers,

  Till we came to a stop right here.

  First the radio preacher lost his voice,

  Then our four tires went flat.

  The springs popped out of the upholstery

  Like a nest of rattlesnakes

  As we tried to remain calm.

  Later that night we heard giggles

  Out of a junked hearse—then, not a peep

  Till the day of the Resurrection.

  Wooden Church

  It’s just a boarded-up shack with a steeple

  Under the blazing summer sky

  On a back road seldom traveled

  Where the shadows of tall trees

  Graze peacefully like a row of gallows,

  And crows with no carrion in sight

  Caw to each other of better days.

  The congregation may still be at prayer.

  Farm folk from flyspecked photos

  Standing in rows with their heads bow
ed

  As if listening to your approaching steps.

  So slow they are, they must be asking themselves

  How come we are here one minute

  And in the very next gone forever?

  Try the locked door, then knock once.

  The crows will stay out of sight.

  High above you, there is the leaning spire

  Still feeling the blow of the last storm.

  And then the silence of the afternoon . . .

  Even the unbeliever must feel its force.