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 comes to yell at you,
You're crazier than the weather, Charlie.
The plain truth is we are going to die. Here I am, a teeny spec surrounded by boundless space and time, arguing with the whole of creation, shaking my fist, sputtering, growing even eloquent at times, and then-poof! I am gone. Swept off once and for all. I think that is very, very funny.
Charles SimicHere in the United States, we speak with reverence of authentic experience. We write poems about our daddies taking us fishing and breaking our hearts by making us throw the little fish back into the river. We even tell the reader the kind of car we were driving, the year and the model, to give the impression that it’s all true. It’s because we think of ourselves as journalists of a kind. Like them, we’ll go anywhere for a story. Don’t believe a word of it. As any poet can tell you, one often sees better with eyes closed than with eyes wide open.
Charles Simic«ظلُّنا واحدٌ.
لكن ظلُّ مَنْ منّا؟
أودّ أن أقول:
«لقد كان في البداية
وسيكون عند النهاية»،
لكن لا يقين في ذلك.
ليلا
بينما أجلس
خالطا أوراق صمتنا،
أقول له:
«مع أنّك تلفظ كلّ واحدة من كلماتي،
فأنت غريبٌ
آن لك أنْ تتكلم».
I left parts of myself everywhere,
The way absent-minded people leave
Gloves and umbrellas
Whose colors are sad from dispensing so much bad luck
The stars know everything,
So we try to read their minds.
As distant as they are,
We choose to whisper in their presence.
The time of minor poets is coming. Good-by Whitman, Dickinson, Frost. Welcome you whose fame will never reach beyond your closest family, and perhaps one or two good friends gathered after dinner over a jug of fierce red wine… While the children are falling asleep and complaining about the noise you’re making as you rummage through the closets for your old poems, afraid your wife might’ve thrown them out with last spring’s cleaning.
It’s snowing, says someone who has peeked into the dark night, and then he, too, turns toward you as you prepare yourself to read, in a manner somewhat theatrical and with a face turning red, the long rambling love poem whose final stanza (unknown to you) is hopelessly missing.
Tag: charles-simic the-world-doesn-t-end
When you play chess alone it's always your move.
Charles SimicI was already dozing off in the shade, dreaming that the rustling trees were my many selves explaining themselves all at the same time so that I could not make out a single word. My life was a beautiful mystery on the verge of understanding, always on the verge! Think of it!
Charles Simicهندوانه
بودای سبز
بر پیشخوان میوه فروش
لبخندش را گاز میزنیم
و دندانهایش را تف میکنیم
::
Watermelons
Green Buddhas
On the fruit stand.
We eat the smile
And spit out the teeth.
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