[New-Poetry] Birthday boy/Simic

[Anny Ballardini]

What a happy day!
I wanted badly to type in this poem before, while I sent the one by Paul Zimmer, so here it is:

Begotten of the Spleen

The Virgin Mother walked barefoot
Among the land mines.
She carried an old man in her arms
Like a howling babe.

The earth was an old peopl'e home.
Judas was the night nurse,
Emptying bedpans into the river Jordan,
Tying people on a dog chain.

The old man had two stumps for legs.
St. Peter came pushing a cart
Loaded with flying carpets.
They were not flying carpets.

They were piles of bloody diapers.
The Magi stood around
Cleaning their nails with bayonets,
The old man gave little Mary Magdalene

A broke piece of a mirror.
She hid in che church outhouse.
When she got thirsty she licked
the steam off the glass.

That leaves Joseph. Poor Joseph,
Standing naked in the snow.
He only had a rat
To load his suitcases on.

The rat wouldn't run into its hole.
Even when the lights came on--
The floodlights in the guard towers.


Charles Simic
[1980; 1999]

this poem receives my best note*
  From: David Graham 
  Sent: Tuesday, May 09, 2006 5:08 PM


  Charles Simic is 68 years old today.


  I never would have predicted this years ago when he was part of a large pack of up-and-comers I paid attention to, but somehow his work has been for me one of the most reliable pleasures in contemporary poetry.  With poets born in the 1930s, I return to his poems much more often than I do to those of James Tate, Mark Strand, Frank Bidart, Diane Wakoski, Michael Harper, Marvin Bell, Margaret Atwood, and others--despite or perhaps because  it is so reliable.  He found a very recognizable style fairly early, and stuck with it.  Rather like Russell Edson and Lucille Clifton, other poets from that generation whose work has aged well.




  Have You Met Miss Jones?

  I have.  At the funeral 
  Pulling down her skirt to cover her knees
  While inadvertently
  Showing us her cleavage 
  Down to the tip of her nipples,

  A complete stranger, wobbly on her heels,
  Negotiating the exit
  With the assembled mourners
  Eyeing her rear end
  with visible interest.

  Presidential hopefuls
  Will continue to lie to the people
  As we sit here bowed.
  New hatreds will sweep the globe 
  Faster than the weather. 
  Sewer rats will sniff around 
  Lit cash machines 
  While we sigh over the departed.

  And her beauty will live on, no matter 
  What any one of these black-clad, 
  Grim veterans of every wake, 
  Every prison gate and crucifixion, 
  Sputters about her discourtesy.

  Miss Jones, you'll be safe 
  With the insomniacs, 
  You'll triumph 
  Where they pour wine from a bottle 
  Wrapped in a white napkin,
  Eat sausage with pan-fried potatoes, 
  And grow misty-eyed remembering

  The way you walked past the open coffin, 
  Past the stiff with his nose in the air 
  Taking his long siesta.
  A cute little number an old man said, 
  But who was she?
  Miss Jones, the guest book proclaimed.

  --Charles Simic.  Walking the Black Cat.  Harcourt, 1996.





  ==========================================

  David Graham

  grahamd at ripon.edu

  Home Page:

  http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html

  Poetry Library:

  http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html

  ==========================================



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