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New and Selected Poems

Page 23

by Charles Simic

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  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, [>]

  When two times two was three . . . , [>]

  Where it says snow, [>]

  Where the elevated subway slows down, [>]

  Where the path to the lake twists, [>]

  Where you went to hide from everyone, [>]

  While Marquis de Sade had himself buggered—, [>]

  White, [>]

  Who put canned laughter, [>]

  Whose demon are you, [>]

  Window Washer, [>]

  Windy evening, [>]

  Windy Evening, [>]

  Winter Night, [>]

  Winter Sunset, [>]

  Wire Hangers, [>]

  With only his dim lantern, [>]

  Without a Sough of Wind, [>]

  With the wind gusting so wildly, [>]

  Wooden Church, [>]

  Yellow feathers, [>]

  You are the Lord of the maimed, [>]

  You give the appearance of listening, [>]

  You must come to them sideways, [>]

  You of the dusty, sun-yellowed picture, [>]

  You remind me of those dwarfs in Velázquez, [>]

  You’re shivering, O my memory, [>]

  Your friend has died, with whom, [>]

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

  You’ve combed yourself carefully, [>]

  You were always more real to me than God, [>]

  You were a “victim of semiromantic anarchism, [>]

  You were sharpened to a fine point, [>]

  About the Author

  CHARLES SIMIC was born in Belgrade and emigrated to the United States in 1954. He is the author of many books of poetry and prose. Among other honors, he received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1990 and served as the Poet Laureate of the United States in 2007–2008.

 

 

 


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