Thursday
Former American poet laureate Charles Simic died on Monday at 84. As someone who once joked that his travel agents were Hitler and Stalin—he was a World War II Serbian refugee—Simic’s poems are often dark and always surreal, jolting the mind with unexpected associations. “Poem without a Title” is one of his more straightforward poems but powerful nonetheless.
I say to the lead
Why did you let yourself
Be cast into a bullet?
Have you forgotten the alchemists?
Have you given up hope
In turning into gold?Nobody answers.
Lead. Bullet. With names
Such as these
The sleep is deep and long.
Why does no one answer? Perhaps because the bullet has done its work. Or perhaps because, in allowing oneself to “be cast into a bullet,” one loses touch with one’s humanity.
From such a sleep, what awakening?