Read New and Selected Poems Online
Authors: Charles Simic
Fear
,
[>]
Fear passes from man to man,
[>]
February
,
[>]
Figure or figures unknown,
[>]
Filthy Landscape
,
[>]
First Frost
,
[>]
First Thing in the Morning
,
[>]
Five, six chairs piled up in the yard,
[>]
Folk Songs
,
[>]
For imaginary visitors, I had a chair,
[>]
Fork
,
[>]
For surely, there's no difficulty in understanding,
[>]
For the Sake of Amelia
,
[>]
For the Very Soul of Me
,
[>]
For those troubled in mind,
[>]
Four of them holding hands like a family,
[>]
Friends of the small hours of the night:,
[>]
Frightening Toys
,
[>]
From the closed, block-long post office,
[>]
From the heel,
[>]
Furniture Mover,
[>]
Â
Gallows Etiquette
,
[>]
Ghosts
,
[>]
Ghost stories written as algebraic . . . ,
[>]
Give me a long dark night and no sleep,
[>]
God's refuted but the devil's not,
[>]
Go inside a stone,
[>]
Grandma laughing on her deathbed,
[>]
Grandmothers who wring the necks,
[>]
Grandpa's Spells
,
[>]
Grayheaded Schoolchildren
,
[>]
Gray sewage bubbling up out of street sewers,
[>]
Great are the Hittites,
[>]
Green Buddhas,
[>]
Grocery
,
[>]
Â
Hangs by a threadâ,
[>]
Haunted Mind
,
[>]
Have You Met Miss Jones?
,
[>]
Head of a Doll
,
[>]
Heartâas in Latin pop songs,
[>]
Heavy mirror carried,
[>]
He gives excellent advice by example,
[>]
He held the beast of the Apocalypse . . . ,
[>]
He is thinking of us,
[>]
He let the whole world know,
[>]
Help me to find what I've lost,
[>]
Help Wanted
,
[>]
Here's a woman's black glove,
[>]
He took a flea,
[>]
He was kneeling down to tie his shoes, which she mistook for a proposal of marriage,
[>]
He was writing the History of Optimism,
[>]
History
,
[>]
History practicing its scissor-clips,
[>]
Hotel Insomnia
,
[>]
Hotel Starry Sky
,
[>]
House of Cards
,
[>]
How much death works,
[>]
Hurricane Season
,
[>]
Â
I accused History of gluttony;,
[>]
I am the last Napoleonic . . . ,
[>]
I believe in the soul; so far,
[>]
Icarus's Dog
,
[>]
I could've been that kid,
[>]
I didn't notice,
[>]
I failed miserably at imagining nothing,
[>]
I found a key,
[>]
If you didn't see the six-legged dog,
[>]
I grew up bent over,
[>]
I had a small, nonspeaking part,
[>]
I hate to hear birds sing,
[>]
I have. At the funeral,
[>]
I have my excuse, Mr. Death,
[>]
I left parts of myself everywhere,
[>]
I liked my little hole,
[>]
I like it when,
[>]
I'll go to the island of Cythera,
[>]
I love breasts, hard,
[>]
I love to stay in bed,
[>]
I'm Charles
,
[>]
I'm going over to see what those weeds,
[>]
I miss you winter evenings,
[>]
I'm just a storefront dentist,
[>]
Imported Novelties
,
[>]
I'm still living at all the old addresses,
[>]
I'm telling you, this was the real thing, the same one they kicked out of Aesthetics, told her she didn't exist!,
[>]
I'm the furtive inspector of dimly lit corridors,
[>]
In a Dark House
,
[>]
In a neighborhood once called Hell's Kitchen,
[>]
I never gave them a thought. Years had gone by,
[>]
I never run into anyone from the old days,
[>]
In his fear of solitude, he made us,
[>]
In India I was greatly taken up,
[>]
In Midsummer Quiet
,
[>]
In my great-grandmother's time,
[>]
In my long late-night talks with the jailers,
[>]
In Praise of Worms
,
[>]
In pursuit of happiness, you may yet,
[>]
In Rome, on the street of that name,
[>]
In San Francisco, that winter,
[>]
In summer's idle time,
[>]
In That Big House
,
[>]
In the Afternoon
,
[>]
In the Egyptian Wing of the Museum
,
[>]
In the fine print of her face,
[>]
In the frying pan,
[>]
In the Junk Store
,
[>]
In the Library
,
[>]
In the Planetarium
,
[>]
In the Street
,
[>]
In the woods one fair Sunday,
[>]
Invention of Nothing
,
[>]
I only have a measly ant,
[>]
I only have faith in you, Mr. Worm,
[>]
I preferred the fleeting,
[>]
I saw a high window struck blind,
[>]
I say to the lead,
[>]
Is that foolish youth still sawing,
[>]
It hangs from heaven to earth,
[>]
It isn't the body,
[>]
It likes empty churches,
[>]
It'll be a while before my friends,
[>]
It looks so dark the end of the world may be near,
[>]
It makes my heart glad to hear one of these,
[>]
It must have a reason for concealing,
[>]
It never had a name,
[>]
It occurs to me now,
[>]
It seemed the kind of life we wanted,
[>]
It's just a boarded-up shack with a steeple,
[>]
It's like fishing in the dark,
[>]
It's Mr. Brown looking much better,
[>]
It snows,
[>]
It was always here,
[>]
It was early one Sunday morning,
[>]
It was the epoch of the masters . . . ,
[>]
“I was lucky to have a Bible with me,
[>]
I was stolen by the gypsies . . . ,
[>]
I, who am only an incomprehensible,
[>]
Â
Jackstraws
,
[>]
Juggler of hats and live hand grenades,
[>]
Just as the world was ending,
[>]
Just so that each stark,
[>]
Â
Knife
,
[>]
Â
Labor and Capital
,
[>]
Late Arrival
,
[>]
Late Call
,
[>]
Late September
,
[>]
Late Train
,
[>]
Lay the knife and fork by your plate,
[>]
Leaves
,
[>]
Lewis and Clark,
[>]
Like those who were eyewitnesses,
[>]
Lingering Ghosts
,
[>]
Listen
,
[>]
Little candy in death's candy shop,
[>]
Little Unwritten Book
,
[>]
Lost Glove
,
[>]
Lots of people around here . . . ,
[>]
Love Flea
,
[>]
Lover of endless disappointments . . . ,
[>]
Lovers hold hands in never-opened novels,
[>]
Lovers who take pleasure,
[>]
Â
Madame Gabrielle, were you really French?,
[>]
Madame Thebes
,
[>]
Madmen Are Running the World
,
[>]
Madonnas Touched Up with Goatees
,
[>]
Margaret was copying a recipe . . . ,
[>]
Marina's Epic
,
[>]
Master of Disguises
,
[>]
Memories of the Future
,
[>]
Midpoint
,
[>]
Millions of empty rooms with TV sets turned on,
[>]
Millions were dead; everybody was innocent,
[>]
Minds Roaming
,
[>]
Minister of our coming doom, preaching,
[>]
Miracle Glass Co.
,
[>]
Mirrors at 4
A.M.
,
[>]
Missing Child
,
[>]
Monk at the Five Spot,
[>]
Monumental, millennial decrepitude,
[>]
Most ancient Metaphysics (poor Metaphysics!),
[>]
Mother Tongue
,
[>]
Mummy's Curse
,
[>]
Munching on pages edged in gold,
[>]
My Beloved
,
[>]
My beloved, you who spend your nights,
[>]
My chicken soup thickened with pounded young almonds,
[>]
My dear trees, I no longer recognize you,
[>]
My Father Attributed Immortality to Waiters
,
[>]
My father loved the strange books . . . ,
[>]
My grandmother prophesied the end,
[>]
My guardian angel is afraid . . . ,
[>]
My insignificance is a sign of my greatness,
[>]
My mother was a braid of black smoke,
[>]
My mother works here,
[>]
My neighbor was telling me,
[>]
My Noiseless Entourage
,
[>]
My Quarrel with the Infinite
,
[>]
My Secret Identity Is
,
[>]
My shadow and your shadow on the wall,
[>]
My Shoes
,
[>]
Mystic Life
,
[>]
Mystics
,
[>]
My Turn to Confess
,
[>]
My Weariness of Epic Proportions
,
[>]
My Wife Lifts a Finger to Her Lips
,
[>]
Â
Nancy Jane
,
[>]
Never-yet-equaled, wide-screen blockbuster,
[>]
Night Clerk in a Roach Hotel
,
[>]
Night fell without asking,
[>]
Night is coming,
[>]
Nineteen Thirty-eight
,
[>]
Nobody reads it but the insomniacs,
[>]
No sooner had I left A,
[>]
Note,
[>]
Note
,
[>]
Note Slipped Under a Door
,
[>]
Nothing Else
,
[>]
Â
Obscurely Occupied
,
[>]
October Arriving
,
[>]
October Light
,
[>]
O exegetes, somber hermeneuts,
[>]
Of the light in my room:,
[>]
Old Man
,
[>]
Old men have bad dreams,
[>]
On a gray evening,
[>]
Once I knew, then I forgot . . . ,
[>]
One-Man Circus
,
[>]
One night, as I was dropping off to sleep,
[>]
One night I went to keep the clock company,
[>]
One night you and I were walking,
[>]
One saw signs of it in certain families,
[>]
Only brooms,
[>]
Only you understood,
[>]
On the counter among many,
[>]
On the Farm
,
[>]
On the first page of my dreambook,
[>]
On the Meadow
,
[>]
Our sainted great-great-,
[>]
Out of poverty,
[>]
Outside a Dirtroad Trailer
,
[>]
Outside Biaggi's Funeral Home
,
[>]
O witches! O poverty! . . . ,
[>]
Â
Paper Dolls Cut Out of a Newspaper
,
[>]
Paradise
,
[>]
Paradise Motel
,
[>]
Pascal's Idea
,
[>]
Past-Lives Therapy
,
[>]
Pastoral Harpsichord
,
[>]
Peaceful Trees
,
[>]
People Eating Lunch
,
[>]
Pigeons at Dawn
,
[>]
Poem Without a Title
,
[>]