My Noiseless Entourage [NOOK Book]

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Overview

This new collection of poems from Charles Simic demonstrates once again his wit, moral acuity, and brilliant use of imagery. His settings are a farmhouse porch, a used-clothing store, empty station platforms; his subjects love, futility, and the sense of an individual life lived among a crowd of literal and ...
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More About This Book

Overview

This new collection of poems from Charles Simic demonstrates once again his wit, moral acuity, and brilliant use of imagery. His settings are a farmhouse porch, a used-clothing store, empty station platforms; his subjects love, futility, and the sense of an individual life lived among a crowd of literal and imaginary presences.
Both sharp and sympathetic, the poems of this collection confirm Simic's place as one of the most important and appealing poets of our time.

To Dreams

I'm still living at all the old addresses,
Wearing dark glasses even indoors,
On the hush-hush sharing my bed
With phantoms, visiting in the kitchen

After midnight to check the faucet.
I'm late for school, and when I get there
No one seems to recognize me.
I sit disowned, sequestered and withdrawn.

These small shops open only at night
Where I make my unobtrusive purchases,
These back-door movie houses in seedy neighborhoods
Still showing grainy films of my life,

The hero always full of extravagant hope
Losing it all in the end?-whatever it was-
Then walking out into the cold, disbelieving light
Waiting close-lipped at the exit.

Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780547563817
  • Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  • Publication date: 4/4/2005
  • Sold by: Barnes & Noble
  • Format: eBook
  • Pages: 80
  • Sales rank: 656,314
  • File size: 109 KB

Meet the Author

CHARLES SIMIC was born in Belgrade and emigrated to the United States in 1954. He is the author of many books of poetry and prose. Among other honors, he received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1990 and served as the Poet Laureate of the United States in 2007–2008.

Read an Excerpt

DESCRIPTION OF A LOST THING

It never had a name,
Nor do I remember how I found it.
I carried it in my pocket
Like a lost button
Except it wasn't a button.
Horror movies,
All-night cafeterias,
Dark barrooms
And poolhalls,
On rain-slicked streets.
It led a quiet, unremarkable existence
Like a shadow in a dream,
An angel on a pin,
And then it vanished.
The years passed with their row
Of nameless stations,
Till somebody told me this is it!
And fool that I was,
I got off on an empty platform
With no town in sight.


SHADING EXERCISE
This street could use a bit of shade
And the same goes for that small boy
Playing alone in the sun,
A shadow to dart after him like a black kitten.
His parents sit in a room with shades drawn.
The stairs to the cellar
Are hardly used any more
Except for an occasional prowler.
Like a troop of traveling actors dressed to play Hamlet,
The evening shadows come.
They spend their days hidden in the trees
Outside the old courthouse.
Now comes the hard part:
What to do with the stones in the graveyard?
The sun doesn't care for ambiguities,
But I do. I open my door and let them in.


Copyright © 2005 by Charles Simic

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Requests for permission to make copies of any part of the work should be mailed to the following address: Permissions Department, Harcourt, Inc., 6277 Sea Harbor Drive, Orlando, Florida 32887-6777.

Table of Contents

I
Description of a Lost Thing 3
Shading Exercise 4
Self-Portrait in Bed 5
To Dreams 6
The Gamblers Upstairs 7
Calamity Crier 8
The Alarm 9
My Noiseless Entourage 10
Fabulous Species and Landscapes 11
Used Clothing Store 15
The Centuries 16
Voyage to Cythera 17

II
Used Book Store 21
Hitchhikers 22
Graveyard on a Hill 23
The World Runs on Futility 24
Battling Grays 25
Sunlight 26
The Birdie 27
Minds Roaming 28
Cockroach Salon 29
Midnight Feast 30
One Chair 31
Insomnia's Cricket 32
Talk Radio 33

III
My Turn to Confess 37
The Hermetical and Alchemical Writings of Paracelsus 38
On the Farm 39
I See Lots of Sticks on the Ground 40
Everybody Had Lost Track of Time 41
Brethren 42
Ask Your Astrologer 43
Kazoo Wedding 44
Snowy Morning Blues 45
To Fate 46
Slurred Words 47
Meeting the Captain 48
Sweetest 49
Leaves at Night 50

IV
Starlings in a Tree at Dusk 53
The Headline 54
The Tragic Sense of Life 55
The Role of Insomnia in History 56
In the Planetarium 57
In the Morning Half-Awake 58
The Absentee Landlord 59
He Heard with His Dead Ear 60
December 21 61
My Wife Lifts a Finger to Her Lips 62
Our Old Neighbor 63
Pigeons at Dawn 64

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  • Anonymous

    Posted September 3, 2005

    Simic's Homage to Things that Go Unnoticed

    Charles Simic is a poet, yes, but he is more than that highest compliment in literary circles. Simic is a visionary because he is in tune with the atoms and microns that float through our atmosphere, either discarded or simply ignored, or worse, never noticed by us, the usual beings. He manages is so few terse words to nudge us into awareness. 'Extraordinary efforts are being made To hide things from us, my friend. Some stay up into the wee hours To search their souls. Others undress each other in darkened rooms.' Pause on every page of this physically slim but potent collection of his latest poems and see if you can turn away unchanged. Brilliant poetry from a consistently brilliant poet. Highly recommended. Grady Harp

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