Category: Louis Simpson

by Louis Simpson

A spot was moving slowly

across the kitchen floor.

I placed a card in front of it.

The bug, for such it was,

climbed on, and continued

to move . . . without legs

apparently, like a toy.

I tilted the card,

and the bug went wild,

running in a circle,

and back to the door,

where it vanished.

There’s nothing much doing

here. We might have talked.

from Struggling TimesFind it in the library

Copyright © BOA Editions, Ltd 2009
Used with the permission of The Permissions Company, Inc.
on behalf of BOA Editions LTD.

by Louis Simpson

Dickinson had a cockatoo

she called Semiramis

and loved dearly.

Whitman was a trencherman,

his favorite dish

a mulligan stew.

Frost went for long walks.

Eliot played croquet.

Pound took fencing lessons.

There is a snapshot of Yeats

with a woman in a garden,

naked to the waist and smiling.

Auden, when he was old,

counted the sheets of toilet paper

that a visitor used.

from Struggling TimesFind it in the library

Copyright © BOA Editions, Ltd 2009
Used with the permission of The Permissions Company, Inc.
on behalf of BOA Editions LTD.

by Louis Simpson

The Egyptians changed their minds

about letting the Jews go.

The Egyptians came riding

with their chariots and spears,

and horses. Let’s not forget

the poor bloody horses.

A big wave came rolling,

the Egyptians drowned,

and Moses led the people

to freedom. That’s how it goes.

The wheels! Look at the wheels,

chariots rusting in the sun.

Who imagined the wheels?

There must have been someone

right from the beginning,

the world without end.

from Struggling TimesFind it in the library

Copyright © BOA Editions, Ltd 2009
Used with the permission of The Permissions Company, Inc.
on behalf of BOA Editions LTD.