The Voice At 3:00 A.m.: Selected Late and New Poems

By Charles Simic

Charles Simic has been widely celebrated for his brilliant poetic imagery; his social, political, and moral alertness; his uncanny ability to make the ordinary extraordinary; and not least, the sardonic humor all his own. Gathering much of his material from the seemingly mundane minutiae of contemporary American culture, Simic matches meditations on spiritual concerns and the weight of history with a nimble wit, shifting effortlessly to moments of clear vision and intense poetic revelation.

Chosen as one of the New York Library's 25 Books to Remember for 2003, The Voice at 3:00 A. M. was also nominated for a National Book Award. The recipient of many prizes, Simic most recently received Canada's Griffin Prize. The poems in this collection--spanning two decades of his work--present a rich and varied survey of a remarkable lyrical journey.

In the Street
Beauty, dark goddess,
We met and parted
As though we parted not.
Like two stopped watches
In a dusty store window,
One golden morning of time.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Release date: Apr 3, 2006
• ISBN: 9780547546322

Charles Simic

Charles Simic was a poet, essayist, and translator who was born in Yugoslavia in 1938 and immigrated to the United States in 1954. He published more than twenty books of poetry, in addition to a memoir and numerous books of translations for which he received many honors, including the Pulitzer Prize, the Zbigniew Herbert International Literary Award, the Griffin Poetry Prize, a MacArthur Fellowship, and the Wallace Stevens Award. In 2007, he served as poet laureate of the United States. He was a distinguished visiting writer at New York University and professor emeritus at the University of New Hampshire, where he taught since 1973. He died in January 2023 at the age of eighty-four.

Book preview

The Voice at 3:00 a.m.

Selected Late & New Poems

Charles Simic

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harcourt, inc.

Orlando • Austin • New York • San Diego • Toronto • London

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Copyright © 2003 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.

www.HarcourtBooks.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Simic, Charles, 1938–

The voice at 3:00 a.m.: selected late and new poems/Charles Simic.

p. cm.

ISBN: 0-15-100842-6

I. Title: Voice at 3:00 a.m. II. Title.

PS3569.I4725 V6 2003

811'.54—dc21

2002038715

Text set in Dante

Designed by Scott Piehl

Printed in the United States of America

First edition

a c e g i j k h f d b

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To Helen

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Contents

From Unending Blues, 1986

December 3

Early Evening Algebra 4

Toward Nightfall 5

William and Cynthia 8

At the Night Court 9

First Frost 10

For the Sake of Amelia 11

October Arriving 13

Against Whatever It Is That's Encroaching 14

Promises of Leniency and Forgiveness 15

From The Book of Gods and Devils, 1990

The Little Pins of Memory 19

St. Thomas Aquinas 20

A Letter 22

Factory 23

Shelley 24

The Betrothal 27

The Devils 28

Evening Talk 30

The White Room 31

Frightening Toys 33

The Big War 34

Death, the Philosopher 35

At the Corner 36

A Word 37

The Pieces of the Clock Lie Scattered 38

The Immortal 39

The Gods 41

Two Dogs 42

Cabbage 43

Paradise 44

In the Library 45

The Scarecrow 46

Windy Evening 47

From Hotel Insomnia, 1992

Evening Chess 51

The City 52

Penal Architecture 53

The Prodigal 54

Hotel Insomnia 55

The Tiger 56

Clouds Gathering 58

Folk Songs 59

A Book Full of Pictures 60

Evening Walk 61

Hotel Starry Sky 62

To Think Clearly 63

The Chair 64

Lost Glove 65

Romantic Sonnet 66

Beauty 67

My Quarrel with the Infinite 68

The Old World 69

Country Fair 70

From A Wedding in Hell, 1994

Sinister Company 73

Dream Avenue 74

Paradise Motel 75

The Clocks of the Dead 76

Explaining a Few Things 77

Romantic Landscape 78

Leaves 79

Transport 80

Crazy About Her Shrimp 81

Reading History 82

Empires 84

The Tower 85

Shaving 86

Mystics 87

Via del Tritone 88

The Secret 89

From Walking the Black Cat 1996

Mirrors at 4 a.m. 93

Relaxing in a Madhouse 94

Late Call 95

Emily's Theme 96

Cameo Appearance 97

What the Gypsies Told My Grandmother

While She Was Still a Young Girl 98

Charm School 99

October Light 100

Ghosts 101

At the Cookout 103

Club Midnight 105

Blood Orange 106

Pastoral Harpsichord 107

The Friends of Heraclitus 108

From Jackstraws, 1999

The Voice at 3:00 a.m. 113

Speck-Sized Screaming Head 114

The Soul Has Many Brides 115

El libro de la sexualidad 116

Mummy's Curse 117

Prison Guards Silhouetted Against the Sky 118

School for Visionaries 119

Midsummer Feast 120

Obscurely Occupied 121

On the Meadow 122

Talking to the Ceiling 123

De Occulta Philosophia 131

Mystic Life 133

Ambiguity's Wedding 137

Head of a Doll 138

From Night Picnic, 2001

Past-Lives Therapy 141

Unmade Beds 142

Street of Jewelers 143

The One to Worry About 144

Cherry Blossom Time 145

Sunday Papers 146

And Then I Think 147

The Altar 148

My Father Attributed Immortality to Waiters 149

Views From a Train 150

Night Picnic 151

Car Graveyard 152

Wooden Church 153

The Lives of the Alchemists 154

New Poems

Nearest Nameless 157

Empty Barbershop 158

In the Street 159

Grayheaded Schoolchildren 160

Serving Time 161

Postcard from S. 162

Little Night Music 163

Driving These Roads 164

The Museum Opens at Midnight 165

Party Fiend 167

The Prompter 168

Autumn Sky 169

Something Large Is in the Woods 170

To the One Tunneling 171

Separate Truths 172

The Secret Doctrine 173

The Hearse 174

Café Don Quixote 176

Late September 177

From Unending Blues, 1986

December

It snows

and still the derelicts

go

carrying sandwich boards—

one proclaiming

the end of the world

the other

the rates of a local barbershop.

Early Evening Algebra

The madwoman went marking X's

With a piece of school chalk

On the backs of unsuspecting

Hand-holding, homebound couples.

It was winter. It was dark already.

One could not see her face

Bundled up as she was and furtive.

She went as if wind-swept, as if crow-winged.

The chalk must have been given to her by a child.

One kept looking for him in the crowd,

Expecting him to be very pale, very serious,

With a chip of black slate in his pocket.

Toward Nightfall

for Don and Jane

The weight of tragic events

On everyone's back,

Just as tragedy

In the proper Greek sense

Was thought impossible

To compose in our day.

There were scaffolds,

Makeshift stages,

Puny figures on them,

Like small indistinct animals

Caught in the headlights

Crossing the road way ahead,

In the gray twilight

That went on hesitating

On the verge of a huge

Starless autumn night.

One could've been in

The back of an open truck

Hunkering because of

The