Come Closer and Listen Read online

  A scene from their neighbor’s life,

  Already remote and unintelligible,

  As if he had been a wisp of smoke

  That lingered briefly over a rooftop

  As our eyes were turned elsewhere

  In this land grown numb from its wars,

  Forgoing lament and public display of grief,

  Save for this dim figure stepping forth

  With arms extended as she asks God

  For some stage magic to make her boy rise

  From where he lies and stroll home with them.

  You’ll Be Pleased with Our Product

  A cage big enough to kennel a man

  You wish to remind he’s no better

  Than a stray dog waiting his turn

  To be put to death by the ASPCA.

  So that you may rest easy, our cages

  Are built with your safety in mind

  And are strong enough to withstand

  Outbreaks of rage and suicidal despair.

  Light Sleeper

  You were a witness

  To so many crimes

  In your lifetime, my friend,

  No wonder most nights

  You can be found

  Testifying at a trial

  In some country

  Whose language

  You don’t even speak.

  The proceedings

  Brutally slow

  With more and more corpses

  Being brought in

  Their ghastly wounds

  As you saw them

  With your own eyes

  And in photographs.

  You’ll be asked

  To return tomorrow,

  So once more

  You’ll stagger out of bed

  And grope your way

  Toward the silent

  Crowded courtroom

  Already in session

  Just down the hall.

  Monsters

  After Ovid

  For once, the father of the gods,

  Thoroughly pissed

  By the cheating and lying Cercopes

  And their murderous ways,

  Wanted to change them

  Into screeching monkeys,

  But hesitated, grew uncertain,

  Considered jackals instead,

  Venomous snakes, thinking perhaps

  A greasy rat in the sewer

  Would fit the type better, in fact:

  Going from A to Z in the Bestiary

  He couldn’t find a single species

  To match the vast capacity for evil

  Of these awful creatures,

  Not even among deadly spiders

  And graveyard worms

  Who are blameless for their conduct.

  In My Church

  You are the Lord of the broken,

  The ones crucified and bled

  During their long night of torture

  In a cellar of some prison.

  You inspect the instruments

  Of cruelty and touch them

  In awe at the pride these men

  Take in their line of work,

  While their wives and mothers

  Rise to attend the early Mass,

  Where you too must now hurry

  Before they find your broken limbs

  And face missing from the cross,

  One or two candles still burning

  In your terrifying absence

  Under the dark and majestic dome.

  Among My Late Visitors

  There is also a cow

  Whose eyes the soldiers

  Took out with a knife

  And lit straw under its tail

  So it would run blind

  Over a minefield

  And thereafter into my head

  From time to time

  O Great Starry Sky

  Where our thoughts go

  Like door-to-door Bible salesmen,

  Only to have the doors

  Slammed into their faces.

  At Giubbe Rosse in Florence

  For Charles and Holly Wright

  He’s a wise man who forgoes the future

  And savors the here and now

  Bent over a bowl of gnocchi

  In this joint where at lunchtime

  We all order the same steaming dish

  Of which every creamy spoonful

  Deserves to be licked thoroughly.

  Newspapers fallen on the floor

  With their screaming headlines

  Trampled over by muddy shoes.

  The last long sip of wine making

  Someone thoughtful, someone else

  Smile to themselves as they rise

  Searching their pockets for a tip.

  Tugboat

  Bringing the summer night in

  Over the calm and purple sea

  As if it were a barge filled with coal.

  The rows of widow’s walks

  Along the rocky coast

  Stand white and deserted.

  The long-suffering wives

  Of whaling ship captains

  Lie buried in family graveyards

  Dotting the darkening hills.

  The bloodshot eye of the setting sun

  Keeping watch for them.

  The Last Lesson

  It will be about nothing.

  Not about love or God,

  But about nothing.

  You’ll be like a new kid in school

  Afraid to look at the teacher

  While struggling to understand

  What they are saying

  About this here nothing

  III

  Meditation in the Gutter

  Of things beautiful.

  Things fleeting.

  Like the scent of summer night

  At the corner of Christopher and Bleecker

  Silent and deserted

  As I stood leaning

  Against a mailbox

  Where years ago

  I dropped a love letter

  And never heard back.

  When a cat walked up to me,

  One of its paws raised

  As if to call my attention

  To the cunning threads

  By which our lives are rigged.

  Strange Sweetness

  Happy are those who pass their waking hours

  Basking in that strange sweetness

  That takes away every care in the world,

  Except the one that concerns their love

  For some man or woman who does not suspect

  They are being loved by a stranger,

  While they themselves go on brooding

  Regarding another clueless person,

  The length of an endless summer

  Of sweltering days and muggy nights,

  When beyond dark open windows,

  Many are sleeping naked, alone or in pairs.

  My Little Heaven

  Why the wrought-iron fence

  With nasty-looking spikes

  And four padlocks and a chain

  Securing the heavy gate?

  I stop by from time to time,

  To check if it’s unlocked

  And peek through the bars

  At rows of pretty flowers

  And its tree-lined promenade

  Streaked with sunlight.

  One little birdie hopping on it,

  Tickled pink about something.

  Imponderabilia

  I tie myself into knots

  Over you, baby.

  Sailor’s tricky knots

  Throughout the night,

  Hangman’s big one

  In dawn’s early light.

  Plonk, said the leaky gutter

  To the fat bucket

  Pining down below.

  Bed Music

  Our love was new

  But our bedsprings were old.

  On the floor below

  They stopped eating

  With forks in the air,

>   While we went on

  Playing our favorites:

  “Shake It Baby,”

  “Slow Boogie,”

  “Shout, Sister, Shout.”

  That was the limit!

  They called the cops.

  Did you bring beer?

  We asked the men in blue

  As they broke down the door.

  The Henhouse Is on Fire

  Castles in the air were his thing.

  Seen in Morocco wearing a fez--

  Or was it on the North Pole?

  Giving a girl a ride in a dogsled.

  All hell broke loose back home

  After his wife found out,

  “The henhouse is on fire”

  He told his drinking buddies,

  Popping up here and there,

  Consulting a fortune-teller in Naples,

  Waving from a train in Brazil

  And vanishing like the devil himself

  An early explorer claimed to have seen

  Playing the flute and dancing

  On some rock out in the Pacific

  No ship afterwards could find again.

  The Many Lauras

  Alas, I burn and am not believed.

  —PETRARCH

  I loved three different Lauras,

  At one time or another,

  They laughed at everything I said,

  While I shed tears in secret.

  Even in church praying they’d smile

  At the memory of me,

  Even in the arms of another man

  They’d hide their grins,

  Or so I imagined, because I never

  Laid my eyes on them again.

  It was a huge city where one got lost

  Easily as they must’ve done too.

  Petrarch, you only loved one Laura

  And wrote hundreds of poems to her.

  I loved three, but only wrote one

  And it’s not even a good one.

  The American Dream

  When Arlene powders her nose

  In a mirror on her dresser

  And spying her naked breasts

  Slips the powder puff lower

  To touch one of her nipples,

  While some preacher on TV

  Asks his congregation to pray

  And to send him money today,

  This is called The American Dream.

  Among the Ruins

  You press your nose, old man,

  Against a vacant storefront

  Like a fish to a porthole of a ship

  Rusting on the sea bottom,

  Expecting a ghost or two to follow

  After you in the deserted street,

  As you slip into a movie theater,

  Take a seat among its ruins,

  Like a much-decorated soldier

  In a mausoleum for the war dead,

  Before heading for the train station,

  Its tower rising like a biblical curse

  Amid walls covered with graffiti,

  To meet your dapper young father

  Coming home on the evening train.

  The Judgment

  An early ray of light too bright

  For any human eye to bear,

  As if the night was cut by a knife

  About to strike from a rooftop

  At the sprawling city below,

  Split up couples in doorways,

  And force others in their beds

  To cover their nakedness,

  Before accosting some fellow

  Darting out of a small hotel,

  Making him stop dead in his tracks

  As if he just heard a judge

  Pronounce his sentence,

  Startling the mannequins in store windows

  Along the avenue, wide awake.

  Birds of a Feather

  I like the black keys better

  I like the lights turned down low

  I like women who drink alone

  While I hunch over the piano

  Looking for all the pretty notes

  Truck Stop

  Death, the pale thief

  Who works alone,

  Sipping coffee in the rear booth

  Of an all-night diner,

  While hatching plans

  How to rob one of these truckers

  Of his life tonight

  As he closes his eyes

  Over the steering wheel,

  Remembering a pretty hitchhiker

  Wave goodbye to him

  And grow smaller and smaller

  In his rearview mirror

  Along with fleeing lights.

  That Young Fellow

  Who befriended a small pebble

  He found in his sneaker

  One hot summer night,

  And held on to it tightly

  As he walked the crowded streets

  Dragging his sore foot

  Past lightly clad men and women

  Partying on the sidewalk,

  Save for him, slow and in pain

  And keen to remain invisible

  Till Jesus comes to judge us all,

  Unless some giddy miss

  Elects to give him a kiss now.

  Hey, Loudmouth

  Like a suicide

  Dangling by one hand

  From a parapet,

  This spider talks to himself,

  Cusses too,

  As he sways to and fro

  By a thread,

  His voice growing louder

  In my head

  Lying wide awake

  In this big old bed.

  It’s a Day like Any Other

  The old couple are weeding

  Side by side in the garden,

  Their dog right behind them

  Wagging his tail eager to help.

  Living in complete ignorance

  Of what goes on in the world

  Is the well-guarded secret

  Of their lifelong happiness.

  Sleepwalkers in love, watch them

  Reach for each other’s hand

  When their work is done,

  Pure as angels and proud as devils.

  IV

  The Hand That Rocks the Cradle

  Time--that murderer

  No one has caught yet

  Sunday Service

  The rooster wears a bishop’s miter

  While four hens trail after him

  Clucking and nodding their heads

  In approval of his morning’s sermon.

  The black and white mutt in the yard

  Has found religion too

  Barking at a strange cat up in a tree

  As if it were the devil himself.

  Descartes, I hear, did his best philosophizing

  By lazing in bed past noon.

  Not me! I’m on my way to the dump,

  Waving to neighbors going to church.

  Charmed Circle

  This banquet

  Of golden cake crumbs

  Strewn over our breakfast table

  Could feed

  A flock of wild birds

  We ought to

  Shake the tablecloth

  Out in the yard

  And go back to bed

  Leaving them

  To chirp about their good luck

  Not even minding

  To take flight

  Every time your mother

  Sticks a mop

  Out of the kitchen door

  And gives

  Its tousled head a shake

  Haystack

  Can you find in there

  The straw that broke

  Your mother’s back?

  Birds at Dusk

  For Adam Zagajewski

  The sunset over the lake

  Made one of them squawk

  And cause others to join

  In comparable distress.

  “Even birds detest poetry,”

  I remember someone saying

  Just as they fell qu
iet

  While shadows lengthened on the water

  Smothering the fires.

  But though we waited

  With bated breath

  They voiced no further complaints

  From their nests.

  Sit Tight

  When the old clock

  That woke the dead

  With its loud tick finally fell silent,

  Eternity moved in.

  A mirror looked toward the door

  With eyes of a dog

  Pleading to be taken

  Out for a long walk.

  Late Night Quiz

  Is Charles Simic afraid of death?

  Yes, Charles Simic fears death.

  Does he pray to the Lord above?

  No, he fools around with his wife.

  His conscience, does it bother him much?

  It drops in for a chat now and then.

  Is he ready to meet his Maker?

  As much as a squirrel crossing the road.

  Like an empty beer can being kicked

  By some youth high as a kite

  Out of one dark street into another

  He stumbles and falls in the meantime.

  Dice

  Watch them grapple with their fate

  as they hop and roll along

  casting all caution to the wind

  to beat the odds

  or be retrieved by a hand

  held firmly between

  its thumb and forefinger

  charmed and prayed over

  to find themselves airborne

  like two giddy lovers

  laughing their heads off

  as they leap naked into bed

  and wake in clover afterwards

  or in a roadside ditch

  battered and gray like two little toes

  sticking out of an old sneaker

  itching to try their luck again

  and end up--if they must--

  as cat’s new toy

  gravedigger’s gift to his little boy

  Is That You?

  On Grim Reaper’s knee

  Bouncing like a baby