Charles Simic
For Emily Dickinson every philosophical idea was a potential lover. Metaphysics is the realm of eternal seduction of the spirit by ideas. ― Charles Simic
Category: Serbian-American Literature
Charles Simic
The stone is a mirror which works poorly.Nothing in it but dimness. Your dimness or its dim-ness, who’s to say? In the hush your heart soundslike a black cricket. — Charles Simic, “The stone is … ,” The World Doesn’t End: Prose Poems (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1989
Charles Simic
All my dark thoughts laid out in a straight line. An abstract street on which an equally abstract intelligence forever advances, doubting the sound of its own footsteps. — Charles Simic, “Euclid Avenue,” Unending Blues: Poems (Mariner Books, 1986)
Charles Simi
I made a tiny hole in the wall with a long nail so that I could watch them screw. Image is what I saw; metaphor is when my tongue caught fire. If it’s the image I wish to employ it is because I want you to stand in my my shoes and make you see… Continue reading Charles Simi
Charles Simic
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. — Charles Simic, from “Romantic Landscape,” A Wedding in Hell: Poems (Harcourt Brace & Co., 1994)
Charles Simic
She’s pressing me gently with a hot steam iron, or she slips her hand inside me as if I were a sock that needed mending. The thread she uses is like the trickle of my blood, but the needle’s sharpness is all her own. — Charles Simic, from “She’s pressing me …,” The World Doesn’t… Continue reading Charles Simic
Charles Simic
I like it best when we do not say a word. When we lie side by side Like two lovers after their passion is spent. Once again, day is breaking. A small bird in the trees is pouring her heart out At the miracle of the coming light. It hurts. The beauty of a night… Continue reading Charles Simic
Charles Simic
soul with a falcon’s hood Bent over a school slate Which screeches and bleeds darkly As it lets itself be written. — Charles Simic, from “An Evening with the Master,” Austerities: Poems (Charles Braziller, 1982)
Charles Simic
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… Continue reading Charles Simic
Charles Simic
My dearest memories are Steep stairwells In dusty buildings On dead-end streets, Where I talk to the walls And closed doors As if they understood me. Charles Simic, from “The Wooden Toy,” Poetry (October 1997). Reprinted as “The Toy” in Sixty Poems. (Mariner Books; 1 edition January 7, 2008)
The Vale of Soul-Making 