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eda6bde
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Insomnia is an all-night travel agency with posters advertising faraway places.
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Charles Simic |
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846a52d
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I left parts of myself everywhere, The way absent-minded people leave
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Charles Simic |
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7d50422
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One writes because one has been touched by the yearning for and the despair of ever touching the Other.
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writing
the-other
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Charles Simic |
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84a604e
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If the sky falls they shall have clouds for supper.
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Charles Simic |
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4f75925
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Silence is the only language god speaks.
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Charles Simic |
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be8863a
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Poetry: three mismatched shoes at the entrance of a dark alley.
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Charles Simic |
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de9ed80
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I 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!
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Charles Simic |
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02dc5d8
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The stars know everything, So we try to read their minds.
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Charles Simic |
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b187a24
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ZlWun wHdun. lkn ZlWu man mnW? 'wdW 'n 'qwl: <>, lkn l yqyn fy dhlk. lyl bynm 'jls khlT 'wrq Smtn, 'qwl lh: <>.
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Charles Simic |
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ab8e816
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In their effort to divorce language and experience, deconstructionist critics remind me of middle-class parents who do not allow their children to play in the street.
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poetry
deconstruction
language
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Charles Simic |
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613f1e1
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Making art in America is about saving one's soul.
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Charles Simic |
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d2eceb5
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While you sit Like a rain puddle in hell
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Charles Simic |
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055455d
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When you play chess alone it's always your move.
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Charles Simic |
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c4f5716
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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..
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Charles Simic |
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e258743
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There's a book called "A Dictionary of Angels." No one has opened it in fifty years, I know, because when I did, The covers creaked, the pages Crumbled. There I discovered The angels were once as plentiful As species of flies. The sky at dusk Used to be thick with them. You had to wave both arms Just to keep them away. Now the sun is shining Through the tall windows. The library is a quiet place. Angels and gods huddled In dark unopened boo..
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Charles Simic |
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dbab768
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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..
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the-world-doesn-t-end
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Charles Simic |
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7a6779a
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To submit to chance is to reveal the self and its obsessions.
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Charles Simic |
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9480b18
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A true confession: I believe in a soluble fish.
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fish
philosophy
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Charles Simic |
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5b1ff41
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ykhTw lmyt nzl mn `l~ lmqSl@. yHml tHt dhr`h r'sh ldhbyH. shjr ltfH muzhr. wlmyt yshq Tryqh l~ Hn@ lqry@ wljmy` yshhdwn. hnlk ysHb krsyan wyjls jnb mnDd@ wyTlb zjjty byr@, wHd@an lh wwHd@an lr'sh. tmsH 'my ydyh fy lmryl@ wtqwm `l~ khdmth. m 'shd lhdw fy l`lm. ymkn llmr 'n ysm` lnhr, ldhy 'Hyn m yns~ fy Gmr@ rtbkh, wyjry l~ lwr
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Charles Simic |
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014bf34
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It is the desire for irreverence as much as anything else that brought me first to poetry. The need to make fun of authority, break taboos, celebrate the body and its functions, claim that one has seen angels in the same breath as one says that there is no god.
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myth
wisdom
nosology
taboo
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Charles Simic |
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2fdfc56
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The ambition of much of today's literary theory seems to be to find ways to read literature without imagination.
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literature
literary-theory
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Charles Simic |
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77a9799
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If the photographers are soul-thieves, whose soul is being stolen in a photograph of the night sky? The soul of the last one to go to bed and the soul of the first one to rise in the morning, perhaps? Photography is a black art like alchemy. It turns matter into spirit and spirit into matter. Still, there are moments when looking at a photograph of a night sky we have a hunch what the word soul means, what the word infinity encompasses.
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Charles Simic |
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158a6b2
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Like many others, I grew up in an age that preached liberty and built slave camps.
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wish
liberty
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Charles Simic |
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0c6cb38
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Never since the beginning of the world has there been so little light. Our winter afternoons have been known at times to last a hundred years.
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Charles Simic |
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5c18587
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rq@ ky'n admy tjh akhr fy 'zmn@ lkrhy@ ljm`y@ wl`nf ljm`y tstHq Htrman 'kthr mn kl w`Z lkny's mndh bd lzmn.
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tenderness
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Charles Simic |
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e4b4238
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Nationalism is a self-constructed cage in which family members can huddle in safety when they're not growling and barking at someone outside the cage.
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Charles Simic |
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eac591d
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Thoreau loved ants. He'd meet one in the morning and spend the whole day talking to him.
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thoreau
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Charles Simic |
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3660449
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hndwnh bwdy sbz br pyshkhwn mywh frwsh lbkhndsh r gz myznym w dndnhysh r tf mykhnym :: Watermelons Green Buddhas On the fruit stand.
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Charles Simic |
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6dc07c2
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The poem I want to write is impossible. A stone that floats.
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Charles Simic |
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3ec3be6
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'n 'bthl llfrS@ lty tmd lyWa ydan tshyr l~ mkhrj mn hdh lsjn ldhy 'smyh nfsy
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Charles Simic |
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4575a82
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At some point my need for a solution was replaced by the poetry of my continuous failure.
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Charles Simic |
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145cc96
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MY SECRET IDENTITY IS The room is empty, And the window is open
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Charles Simic |
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debc353
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Are Russian cannibals worse than the English? Of course. The English eat only the feet, the Russians the soul. "The soul is a mirage," I told Anna Alexandrovna, but she went on eating mine anyway."
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souls
russians
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Charles Simic |
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faa3b0e
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In the Library" for Octavio There's a book called "A Dictionary of Angels." No one has opened it in fifty years, I know, because when I did, The covers creaked, the pages Crumbled. There I discovered The angels were once as plentiful As species of flies. The sky at dusk Used to be thick with them. You had to wave both arms Just to keep them away. Now the sun is shining Through the tall windows. The library is a quiet place. Angels and gods ..
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Charles Simic |
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cf3cc69
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Because the light is always with us and the hush of an early morning time propitious to plain speech space between the premonition and the event
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Charles Simic |
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a47123f
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I remember," someone said, "how in ancient times one could turn a wolf into a human and then lecture it to one's heart's content."
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Charles Simic |
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fb8fa4c
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It was only the sea sounding weary After so many lifetimes Of pretending to be rushing off somewhere And never getting anywhere.
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Charles Simic |
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1aedc60
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Eyes Fastened With Pins" How much death works, No one knows what a long Day he puts in. The little Wife always alone Ironing death's laundry. The beautiful daughters Setting death's supper table. The neighbors playing Pinochle in the backyard Or just sitting on the steps Drinking beer. Death, Meanwhile, in a strange Part of town looking for Someone with a bad cough, But the address somehow wrong, Even death can't figure it out Among all the..
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Charles Simic |
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0846130
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Memory, all-night's bedside tattoo artist.
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Charles Simic |
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3fa801b
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The stone is a mirror which works poorly. Nothing in it but dimness. Your dimness or its dimness, who's to say? In the hush your heart sounds like a black cricket.
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Charles Simic |
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1141c14
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History is a cookbook. The tyrants are chefs. The philosophers write menus. The priests are waiters. The military men are bouncers. The singing you hear is the poets washing dishes in the kitchen.
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Charles Simic |
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f3675bc
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lt`ql lbTwly fy mwjh@ l`bth hw tqryban kl m nmtlk.
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Charles Simic |
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6bdfe82
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Dear Friedrich, the world's still false, cruel and beautiful...
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Charles Simic |
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6f30ddd
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On this Very Street in Belgrade" Your mother carried you Out of the smoking ruins of a building And set you down on this sidewalk Like a doll bundled in burnt rags, Where you now stood years later Talking to a homeless dog, Half-hidden behind a parked car,
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Charles Simic |