Wow, both of these poems make me interested in Simic, especially Medieval Miniature, the comparison of imagined and actual Hells.

Oh my, Philip. that one gives me chills. Looking again at Simic's bio, I see that he was in Yugoslavia from 38-53, and I remember reading that he had a rather horrible childhood.

Thanks to whoever nominated this, and nice choice, Ruth, for the last week of October!

For those new to him, here's another by Simic with some possibly overlapping themes and an even more staccoto style:

EMPIRE OF DREAMS

On the first page of my dreambook
It's always evening
In an occupied country.
Hour before the curfew.
A small provincial city.
The houses all dark.
The storefronts gutted.

I am on a street corner
Where I shouldn't be.
Alone and coatless
I have gone out to look
For a black dog who answers to my whistle.
I have a kind of Halloween mask
Which I am afraid to put on.

There is a scene depicted where Christ is speaking in the Temple and He says (paraphrasing)

'... you people keep looking up into the sky and down into the Earth, but you do not realize that it is happening ... all around you ... right now'

I believe this to mean that we DO create our own 'Heaven' or 'Hell' right here, and right now. I have certainly seen the sins of fathers visited on their children... tenfold.
I agree with what Simic is illustrating.

Simic did not prove to be the most visible Poet Laureate the US has had, so if you're not a regular poetry reader I'm not surprised if he's new to you.

Altho I'm intrigued by the often slightly (or more than slightly) macabre quality in Simic's work, this poem was not my suggestion, but came from the list of suggested poems I solicit from fellow CRs about every year or so.

Here he seems to be saying that all those Medieval miniatures, all those stone carvings over the entrances to Medieval cathedrals and their graphic depictions of hell are nothing compared to the hell we inflict on ourselves. I can buy that.

My first time as well.
Thank You, Ruth. This was very gracious of you.

Yup, this is the first time I've read one of his works too.

My! Ruth, some amount of figurative language, Simic sure is an assault on the senses (in a good way) does'nt impose any limits on his form.
Don't know a jot about him but will do a bit of digging now. Like it. Thanks Ruth.

Charles Simic was born on May 9, 1938, in Yugoslavia. In 1953 he left Yugoslavia with his mother and brother to join his father in the United States. He as published more than sixty books in the U.S. and abroad.

Elected a Chancellor of The Academy of American Poets in 2000, his many awards include fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Since 1973 he has lived in New Hampshire, where he is Emeritus Professor of English at the University of New Hampshire.

Simic was appointed the fifteenth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry in 2007. His response was “"I am especially touched and honored to be selected because I am an immigrant boy who didn't speak English until I was 15."

About his work, a reviewer for the Harvard Review said, "There are few poets writing in America today who share his lavish appetite for the bizarre, his inexhaustible repertoire of indelible characters and gestures ... Simic is perhaps our most disquieting muse."

Medieval miniature often depicted quite graphic representations of what would happen if we didn't live the proper live as defined by the church.

I'm attracted by his often rather dark poetry.


MEDIEVAL MINIATURE

Charles Simic

Souls burning in hell,
How exceedingly modest your eternal torments
Appear to me in comparison
To that of a firebombed city.

A couple of awkward-looking devils
Are sticking long pitchforks in you.
Another is down on his knees
Reviving the fire by blowing on it.

It’s enough to make the sinners go ha-ha,
When in two whoops and a holler
A whole neighbourhood can be incinerated
Leaving nothing much to see.

A lone dog roaming in the rubble
Can break the meanest heart.
By the looks of it he’s young
And curious. We leave him thus,

Earnestly digging with his paws.
The woman licked by flames
In the meantime has divine breasts.
The unknown artist made sure of that.

-- From Jackstraws by Charles Simic