Come Closer and Listen

New Poems

Charles Simic

• Publisher: Ecco
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9780062908476
• eBook ISBN: 9780062908483
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Drama
• Index: Literature

An insightful and haunting new collection from Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Charles Simic

Irreverent and sly, observant and keenly imagined, Come Closer and Listen is the latest work from one of our most beloved poets. With his trademark sense of humor, open-hearted empathy, and perceptive vision, Charles Simic roots his poetry in the ordinary world while still taking in the wide sweep of the human experience.

From poems pithy, wry, and cutting—“Time—that murderer/that no has caught yet”—to his layered reflections on everything from love to grief to the wonders of nature, from the story of St. Sebastian to that of a couple weeding side by side, Simic’s work continues to reveal to us an unmistakable voice in modern poetry. An innovator in form and a chronicler of both our interior lives and the people we are in the world, Simic remains one of our most important and lasting voices on the page.

II

Something Evil Is Out There

That’s what the leaves are telling us tonight.

Hear them panic and then fall silent,

And though we strain our ears we hear nothing--

Which is even more terrifying than something.

Minutes seem to pass or whole lifetimes,

While we wait for it to show itself

This very moment, or surely the next?

As the trees rush to make us believe

Their branches knocking on the house

To be let in and then hesitating.

All those leaves falling quiet in unison

As if not wishing to add to our fear,

With something evil lurking out there

And drawing closer and closer to us.

The house dark and quiet as a mouse

If one had the nerve to stick around.

Terror

Saw a toad

jump out of boiling water

Saw a chicken

dance on a hot plate

in a penny arcade

Saw Etruscans in a museum

flogging slaves

to the accompaniment

of pipes and flutes

Saw a palm tree

trying to outrun a hurricane

Saw sea waves

rush ashore

some angry

some afraid

of what they’ll find

Saw men and women

lose their heads

and search for them everywhere

Saw a feast laid out

on a long table

to which only crows came

Saw a dog go forth

barking like a prophet of old

Saw rats and mice

running terrified

through mazes

heralding

the evils to come

After the Bombing

A great city lay reduced to ruins

As you stirred in a hammock

Closing your eyes and letting

The paper you were reading

Fall out of your hand to the ground,

Where the afternoon breeze

Took an interest in it and swept it

Back and forth across the lawn

Toward the neighboring woods,

So the owls can study the headlines

As soon as night comes

And shriek from time to time,

Making mice shake in their beds.

Arson

Shirts rose on a neighbor’s laundry line,

One or two attempting to fly,

As three fire engines sped by

To save a church going up in flames.

People walking back from the pyre

With their Sunday clothes in tatters

Looked like a troupe of scarecrows

The bank had ousted from their farm.

As for the firebug, we were of two minds:

Some kid trying out a new drug,

Or a drunk ex-soldier angry at God

And country for making him a cripple.

Greek Story

For Hugh and Alisa

Where can I cook for these people

Whose boat had sunk at sea

The old woman went around asking

Where can I cook for these people

Huddled together and weeping

Or sitting alone with their grief

Where can I cook for these people

Who sailed to us this stormy day

Heaven doesn’t hear the cries

O...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Publisher’s Note
• Dedication
• Epigraph
• Contents
• I
• II
• III
• IV
• Acknowledgments
• About the Author
• Poetry by Charles Simic
• Copyright
• About the Publisher