All Poems
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You Mustn't Show Weakness
© Yehuda Amichai
You mustn't show weakness
and you've got to have a tan.
But sometimes I feel like the thin veils
of Jewish women who faint
at weddings and on Yom Kippur.
Coal
© Charles Simic
Dismembered angel
In whose heart the earth is still on fire,
The moon still has not been split-off;
Here is the message
Your long night announces:
Translation Of A South American Ode
© Oliver Goldsmith
IN all my Enna's beauties blest,
Amidst profusion still I pine;
For though she gives me up her breast,
Its panting tenant is not mine.
The Bather
© Charles Simic
Where the path to the lake twists out of sight,
A puff of dust, the kind bare feet make running,
Is what I saw in the dying light,
Night swooping down everywhere else.
LI SPIRITI III (Ghosts 3)
© Giuseppe Gioacchino Belli
Tu conoschi la moje de Fichetto:
Bè, lei giura e spergiura ch'er zu' nonno,
Stanno una notte tra la vej'e 'r zonno,
Se sentì ffà un zospiro accapalletto.
Private Eye
© Charles Simic
To find clues where there are none,
That's my job now, I said to the
Dictionary on my desk. The world beyond
My window has grown illegible,
And so has the clock on the wall.
I may strike a match to orient myself
Wherein Obscurely
© Charles Simic
On the road with billowing poplars,
In a country flat and desolate
To the far-off gray horizon, wherein obscurely,
A man and a woman went on foot,
Ballade Of The Dream
© Andrew Lang
Sleep, that giv'st what Life denies,
Shadowy bounties and supreme,
Bring the dearest face that flies
Following darkness like a dream!
The Partial Explanation
© Charles Simic
Seems like a long time
Since the waiter took my order.
Grimy little luncheonette,
The snow falling outside.
Just Whistle A Bit
© Paul Laurence Dunbar
Just whistle a bit, if the day be dark,
And the sky be overcast:
If mute be the voice of the piping lark,
Why, pipe your own small blast.
The Adieu
© Louisa Stuart Costello
We part, and thou art mine no more!
I go through seas never sought before,
Poem Without A Title
© Charles Simic
I say to the lead
Why did you let yourself
Be cast into a bullet?
Have you forgotten the alchemists?
Have you given up hope
In turning into gold?
Religion.
© Robert Crawford
Priests indeed may prate
This side o' death, but 'yond the bourne
Their service fails.
Country Fair
© Charles Simic
If you didn't see the six-legged dog,
It doesn't matter.
We did, and he mostly lay in the corner.
As for the extra legs,
When the Irish Flag Went By
© Henry Lawson
TWAS Eight-Hour Day, and proudly
Old Labour led the way;
The Initiate
© Charles Simic
St. John of the Cross wore dark glasses
As he passed me on the street.
St. Theresa of Avila, beautiful and grave,
Turned her back on me.
The White Room
© Charles Simic
The obvious is difficult
To prove. Many prefer
The hidden. I did, too.
I listened to the trees.
Whitsuntide An Club Walken
© William Barnes
Ees, last Whit-Monday, I an' Meäry
Got up betimes to mind the deäiry;
