New and Selected Poems by Charles Simic Page B

one leaf twittering
Now darkly, now luminously.
Paper Dolls Cut Out of a Newspaper
Four of them holding hands like a family.
There’s news of war this morning
And an ad for a coffee they call heavenly
Next to the picture of the president.
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Hold them up for us to see, little Rosie.
Hold them up a bit longer.
Watch them dance, watch them trip
And make your grandparents laugh
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With their knives and forks in the air,
While printer’s ink comes off your fingers
And blackens your face
As you hurry to cover your eyes.
Reading History
    for Hans Magnus
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At times, reading here
In the library,
I’m given a glimpse
Of those condemned to death
Centuries ago,
And of their executioners.
I see each pale face before me
The way a judge
Pronouncing a sentence would,
Marveling at the thought
That I do not exist yet.
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With eyes closed I can hear
The evening birds.
Soon they will be quiet
And the final night on earth
Will commence
In the fullness of its sorrow.
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How vast, dark, and impenetrable
Are the early-morning skies
Of those led to their death
In a world from which I’m entirely absent,
Where I can still watch
Someone’s slumped back,
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Someone who is walking away from me
With his hands tied,
His graying head still on his shoulders,
Someone who
In what little remains of his life
Knows in some vague way about me,
And thinks of me as God,
As devil.
Psalm
You’ve been making up your mind a long time,
O Lord, about these madmen
Running the world. Their reach is long,
And their sharp claws may have frightened you.
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One of them just cast a shadow over me.
The day turned chill. I dangled
Between terror and speechless fury
In the corner of my son’s bedroom.
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I sought with my eyes you, in whom I do not believe.
You’ve been busy making the flowers pretty,
The lambs run after their mother,
Or perhaps you haven’t been doing even that?
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It was spring. The killers were full of determination
And high spirits, and your clergymen
Were right at their side, making sure
Our last words didn’t include a curse on you.
Empires
My grandmother prophesied the end
Of your empires, O fools!
She was ironing. The radio was on.
The earth trembled beneath our feet.
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One of your heroes was giving a speech.
“Monster,” she called him.
There were cheers and gun salutes for the monster.
“I could kill him with my bare hands,”
She announced to me.
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There was no need to. They were all
Going to the devil any day now.
“Don’t go blabbering about this to anyone,”
She warned me.
And pulled my ear to make sure I understood.
Romantic Landscape
To grieve, always to suffer
At the thought of time passing.
The outside world shadowy
As your deepest self.
Melancholy meadows, trees so still,
They seem afraid of themselves.
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The sunset sky for one brief moment
Radiant with some supreme insight,
And then it’s over. Tragic theater:
Blood and mourning at which
Even the birds fall silent.
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Spirit, you who are everywhere and nowhere,
Watch over the lost lamb
Now that the mouth of the Infinite
Opens over us
And its dumb tongue begins to move darkly.
Mystics
Help me to find what I’ve lost,
If it was ever, however briefly, mine,
You who may have found it.
Old man praying in the privy,
Lonely child drawing a secret room
And in it a stopped clock.
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Seek to convey its truth to me
By hints and omens.
The room in shadow, perhaps the wrong room?
The cockroach on the wall,
The naked lovers kissing
On the TV with the sound off.
I could hear the red faucet drip.
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Or else restore to plain view
What is eternally invisible
And speaks by being silent.
Blue distances to the north,
The fires of the evening to the west,
Christ himself in pain, panhandling
On the altar of the storefront church
With a long bloody nail in each palm.
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In this moment of amazement . . .
Since I do ask for it humbly,
Without greed, out of true need.
My teeth chattered so