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Charles Simic
Comments about Charles Simic
Against Winter
The truth is dark under your eyelids.
What are you going to do about it?
The birds are silent; there's no one to ask.
All day long you'll squint at the gray sky.
When the wind blows you'll shiver like straw.
A meek little lamb you grew your wool
Till they came after you with huge shears.
Flies hovered over open mouth,
Then they, too, flew off like the leaves,
The bare branches reached after them in vain.
Winter coming. Like the last heroic soldier
Of a defeated army, you'll stay at your post,
Head bared to the first snow flake.
Till a neighbor ...
The Partial Explanation
Seems like a long time
Since the waiter took my order.
Grimy little luncheonette,
The snow falling outside.
Seems like it has grown darker
Since I last heard the kitchen door
Behind my back
Since I last noticed
i'm looking for a Charles Simic poem i remember.
it was in the New Yorker years ago. (10? 15?)
the events i recall it describing:
a bus stop...? [the observer is possibly in the bus...? ]
snow, or cold...
a man removing his clothes because he's SO ready for the love of his life...
...no evidence of anyone meeting that description near the bus stop. just a man who is ecstatically and incongruously ready...
I am poet and I am from Belgrade, and I live through II world war - my dear brother Charles = I was born 1935. Big solut-hello. Mirjana-Arizona
a translation into Italian of the poem 'Meet Eddie' by Charles Simic:
'Meet Eddie'
VI PRESENTO EDDIE
Che ha una vita felice come una lattina di birra
che precipita a valle lungo un torrente,
che gira alla larga da alcune rocce
mentre sbatte a capofitto contro altre,
e che si lancia un un vortice da far girare la testa
come una bambina sullo sgabello di un pianoforte,
con l’acqua che urla al suo rapido passare:
Sei pronto ad affrontare il tuo Creatore?
E il bosco attorno comincia a sfoltirsi
e agli alberi si rizzano i capelli in testa
mentre lui si prepara ad affrontare le cascate
come un cieco legato alla sua fisarmonica.
(Charles Simic - poem tramslated by Damiano Abeni e Moira Egan)
Simic is one of my desert island poets...I've esteemed him with the best of 20th century
poets. I was surprised to learn he became laureate...guess I figured he was too good to be
honored by the US Government. Growing up under Nazi occupation would tend to attune
one to the eerie and fantastic. Always a plate of wilted mushrooms served by a
one legged dancer....a cornucopia of corn...nbd
Aren't we all your metaphor of a meek sheep with dark truth under our eyelids? And what are we going to do about it? / Hamlet's dilemma or waiting for Godo... Isn't all our life about it?
Simic got the poet laureate job the other day. I never heard of him before. Some poet. So I been checking him out on the web. Reading his stuff. He has an interview where he quips. He might be a funny guy. Likes jazz. I might like him but first I need to pick him apart.