{"id":360,"date":"2010-11-20T00:04:36","date_gmt":"2010-11-20T05:04:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kuny.ca\/blogs\/?p=360"},"modified":"2010-11-20T00:04:36","modified_gmt":"2010-11-20T05:04:36","slug":"charles-simic-2-poems","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/kuny.ca\/blogs\/2010\/360\/poems\/charles-simic-2-poems\/","title":{"rendered":"Charles Simic – 2 poems"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Lives of the Alchemists<\/strong><\/p>\n

The great labor was always to efface oneself,
\nReappear as something completely different:
\nThe pillow of a young woman in love,
\nA ball of lint pretending to be a spider.<\/p>\n

Black boredoms of rainy country nights
\nThumbing the writings of illustrious adepts
\nOffering advice on how to proceed with the transmutation
\nOf a figment of time into eternity.
\nThe true master, one of them counseled,
\nNeeds a hundred years to perfect his art.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, the small arcana of the frying pan,
\nThe smell of olive oil and garlic wafting
\nFrom room to empty room, the black cat
\nRubbing herself against your bare leg
\nWhile you shuffle toward the distant light
\nAnd the tinkle of glasses in the kitchen.<\/p>\n

Fiordiligi<\/strong><\/p>\n

My mother sang opera all day long.
\nShe made beds, shucked peas
\nAnd swore that not even death
\nCould change her heart’s devotion.<\/p>\n

Her voice was like a police siren.
\nHer voice was like soft evening rain.
\nIn the shed, the rabbits trembled,
\nThe rooster looked admiringly at her.<\/p>\n

Days of ecstasy, anguish, silence.
\nA year of long black dresses,
\nA year of white handkerchiefs,
\nCrumpled and strewn on the floor.<\/p>\n

Once we took a walk in the cemetary.
\nThe leafless old trees terrified me,
\nAnd so did her hands clenched into fists
\nAs her chin rose higher and higher.<\/p>\n

Grocers and mailmen ran from her
\nAs from a sleepwalker
\nWho came after them in broad daylight,
\nAsking for the news of her lost love.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Lives of the Alchemists The great labor was always to efface oneself, Reappear as something completely different: The pillow of a young woman in love, A ball of lint pretending to be a spider. Black boredoms of rainy country nights Thumbing the writings of illustrious adepts Offering advice on how to proceed with the […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-360","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poems","category-4-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/kuny.ca\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/kuny.ca\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/kuny.ca\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kuny.ca\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kuny.ca\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=360"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/kuny.ca\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":361,"href":"http:\/\/kuny.ca\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360\/revisions\/361"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/kuny.ca\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kuny.ca\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kuny.ca\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}