from 'The World Doesn't End' by Charles Simic

[empty-room.livejournal.com]

He had mixed up the characters in the long novel he was writing. He forgot who they were and what they did. A dead woman reappeared when it was time for dinner. A door-to-door salesman emerged out of a backwoods trailer wearing Chinese robes. The day the murderer was supposed to be electrocuted, he was buying flowers for a certain Rita, who turned out to be a ten-year-old girl with thick glasses and braids... And so it went.

He never did anything for me, though. I kept growing older and grumpier, as I was supposed to, in a ratty little town which he always described as "dead" and "near nothing."

Comments

[blue-thundering.livejournal.com]

Does this poem have a title of its own? Is it the full piece, or have you excerpted?

[empty-room.livejournal.com]

Er, no, not really. Most of the book is a couple of little paragraphs at the top of the page. Only some things have titles.

[blue-thundering.livejournal.com]

Okay, just checking! Some folks like to excerpt from poems, when really we appreciate having the whole piece here; and not seeing a title is usually a good "tell" in that regard.

However, Simic is no stranger to very short poetry, so it's also not surprising to see his prose works adopting such sparse forms. Thanks for sharing!