Charles Simic Poems

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.
...

How much death works,
No one knows what a long
Day he puts in. The little
Wife always alone
...

I liked my little hole,
Its window facing a brick wall.
Next door there was a piano.
A few evenings a month
...

It seemed the kind of life we wanted.
Wild strawberries and cream in the morning.
Sunlight in every room.
The two of us walking by the sea naked.
...

for Hayden Carruth

If you didn't see the six-legged dog,
It doesn't matter.
...

Where it says snow
read teeth-marks of a virgin
Where it says knife read
you passed through my bones
...

Father studied theology through the mail
And this was exam time.
Mother knitted. I sat quietly with a book
Full of pictures. Night fell.
...

O crows circling over my head and cawing!
I admit to being, at times,
Suddenly, and without the slightest warning,
Exceedingly happy.
...

Executioner happy to explain
How his wristwatch works
As he shadows me on the street.
I call him that because he is grim and officious
...

St. John of the Cross wore dark glasses
As he passed me on the street.
St. Theresa of Avila, beautiful and grave,
Turned her back on me.
...