Author: Threepenny Editor

If it’s true that the devil has his fingerIn every pie, he must be waitingFor the night to fall, the darkness toThicken in the yard, so we won’t see himLick…

Shirts rose on a neighbor’s laundry line,One or two attempting to fly,As three fire engines sped byTo save a church going up in flames. People walking back from the pyreWith…

Ladies and gents in rows of grim portraitsOn a high wall of your town house,Over a small cross and a music boxThat nowadays plays only silenceTo an audience of draped…

Eyebrows raised in surprise,He got into the habitOf talking to himselfAnd answering his own questionsIn a loud and angry voice. —Charles Simic Charles Simic's many books of poems include Come Closer…

The old couple are weedingSide by side in the garden,Their dog right behind themWagging his tail eager to help. Living in complete ignoranceOf what goes on in the worldIs the…

When the old clockThat woke the deadWith its loud tick fell silent,Eternity moved in.A mirror looked toward the doorWith eyes of a dogWho wanted to be takenOut for a walk.…

You, in a long black overcoat,Striding past meOn this busy streetAnd giving me the air,I have a hunchYou are the one who cracks the whipAround here and givesTwo-bit grippers like…

Of a crying womanWith her tears litBy the headlightsOf a passing car. —Charles Simic Charles Simic's many books of poems include Come Closer and Listen, Hotel Insomnia, My Noiseless Entourage, and The Lunatic.

Mark Singer

My mother, sure, everything I knowis from my mother. She told me stories aboutbeing a schoolteacher in a one-room schoolhousein a prairie town so isolated her father and she droveright…