Saturday, February 25, 2006

Paradise Motel

by Charles Simic


Millions were dead; everybody was innocent.
I stayed in my room. The President
Spoke of war as of a magic love potion.
My eyes were opened in astonishment.
In a mirror my face appeared to me
Like a twice-canceled postage stamp.

I lived well, but life was awful.
there were so many soldiers that day,
So many refugees crowding the roads.
Naturally, they all vanished
With a touch of the hand.
History licked the corners of its bloody mouth.

On the pay channel, a man and a woman
Were trading hungry kisses and tearing off
Each other's clothes while I looked on
With the sound off and the room dark
Except for the screen where the color
Had too much red in it, too much pink.


----------------------------------------------------------------
A Wedding in Hell, New York: Harcourt Brace & Co., 1994

3 comments:

Scott Glassman said...

i love simic, he was the poet who made me fall in love with poetry-- not one of my favorite poems, but i'm just blissful to see his poem on a blog. Wedding in Hell is still a great book.

Nick said...

"Country Fair" & "Eyes Fastened With Pins" were two of the first poems that I read by Simic. Ever since then I was hooked.

Scott Glassman said...

ha, similar lineage