That Little Something: Poems

There are one or two murderers in any crowd.

They do not suspect their destinies yet.

Wars are started to make it easy for them

To kill that woman pushing a baby carriage.

Simic understands the strange interplay between ordinary life and extremes, between reality and imagination, and he writes with absolute purity about those contradictory but simultaneous states of being or feeling: "Everything about you / My life, is both / Make-believe and real." A profoundly important poet for our time, and a stunning book.

SECRET HISTORY

Of the light in my room:

Its mood swings,

Dark-morning glooms,

Summer ecstasies.

Spider on the wall,

Lamp burning late,

Shoes left by the bed,

I'm your humble scribe.

Dust balls, simple souls

Conferring in the corner.

The pearl earring she lost,

Still to be found.

Silence of falling snow,

Night vanishing without trace,

Only to return.

I'm your humble scribe.

In his eighteenth collection, Charles Simic, the superb poet of the vaguely ominous sound and the disturbing, potentially significant image, moves closer to the dark heart of history and human behavior.

Simic understands the strange interplay between ordinary life and extremes, between reality and imagination, and he writes with absolute purity about those contradictory but simultaneous states of being or feeling: "Everything about you / My life, is both / Make-believe and real."

A profoundly important poet for our time, and a stunning book.

SECRET HISTORY

Of the light in my room:

Its mood swings,

Dark-morning glooms,

Summer ecstasies.

Spider on the wall,

Lamp burning late,

Shoes left by the bed,

I'm your humble scribe.

Dust balls, simple souls

Conferring in the corner.

The pearl earring she lost,

Still to be found.

Silence of falling snow,

Night vanishing without trace,

Only to return.

I'm your humble scribe.

CONTENTS

I

Walking   3

That Little Something   4

The Elevator Is Out of Order   5

Night Clerk in a Roach Motel   6

Souvenirs of Hell   7

Dramatic Evenings   8

Department of Complaints   9

To Boredom   10

Deaths Book of Jokes   11

Fiordiligi   12

Devil and Eve   13

The Late Game   14

Waiting for the Sun to Set   15

Murky Memories   16

House of Cards   17

Impersonator of Blank Walls   18

Aunt Dinah Sailed to China   19

Doubles   20

To Laziness   21

The Great Disappearing Act   22

Summer Dawn   23

II

Gourmets of Tragedies   27

Listen   28

Encyclopedia of Horror   29

Sunday   30

Dance of the Macabre Mice   31

Flying Horses   32

In the Heat of the Night   33

Night Watchman   34

The Lights Are on Everywhere   35

Memories of the Future   36

Come Winter   37

Those Who Clean After   38

In the Junk Store   39

Madmen Are Running the World   40

III

Late-Night Chat   43

Clouds   44

In the Afternoon   45

One Wing of the Museum   46

Prophesy   47

Dead Reckoning   48

Metaphysics Anonymous   49

High Windows   50

Ghost Ship   51

Wonders of the Invisible World   52

Secret History   53

Wire Hangers   54

To the Reader   55

The Ice Cubes Are on Fire   56

Labor and Capital   57

The Blur   58

The Bather   59

Crickets   60

IV

Eternities   63

Eternitys Orphans   73