For Halloween eve, here is one of my favorite Charles Simic poems. (It could be for any other day, really, but it has baby Draculas, so why not?)
My Beloved
after D. Khrams
In the fine print of her face
Her eyes are two loopholes.
No, let me start again.
Her eyes are flies in milk,
Her eyes are baby Draculas.
To hell with her eyes.
Let me tell you about her mouth.
Her mouth's the red cottage
Where the wolf ate grandma.
Ah, forget about the mouth,
Let me talk about her breasts.
I get a peek at them now and then
And even that's more than enough
To make me lose my head,
So I better tell you about her legs.
When she crosses them on the sofa
It's like the jailer unwrapping a parcel
And in that parcel is a Christmas cake
And in that cake a sweet little file
That gasps her name as it files my chains.
- Charles Simic
My Beloved
after D. Khrams
In the fine print of her face
Her eyes are two loopholes.
No, let me start again.
Her eyes are flies in milk,
Her eyes are baby Draculas.
To hell with her eyes.
Let me tell you about her mouth.
Her mouth's the red cottage
Where the wolf ate grandma.
Ah, forget about the mouth,
Let me talk about her breasts.
I get a peek at them now and then
And even that's more than enough
To make me lose my head,
So I better tell you about her legs.
When she crosses them on the sofa
It's like the jailer unwrapping a parcel
And in that parcel is a Christmas cake
And in that cake a sweet little file
That gasps her name as it files my chains.
- Charles Simic
I'm a longtme Simic lover... this reminded me of a Billy Collins home I heard him read yesterday:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.plagiarist.com/poetry/?wid=4431 -- it's not Halloweenish, but I think you'll enjoy...
Oh, that's a nice one! There is just no way that you are the pine-scented air.
ReplyDeleteThe funny thing is when I cut and pasted your link earlier I cut off the 1 on the end and ended up at an Archibald MacLeish poem that I quite like as well (there are circuses and explosions), but the Billy Collins one makes way more sense in the context. Thanks for pointing it out to me.