I’m still working hard at my contract job this evening. But my friend Rex, who has collected poems for years, just sent me one of his favorites.
Rex, I can see why you like it. On its face, it’s haunting and disturbing. It brings back images we’ve seen from war-ravaged towns and villages; it’s people walking around with big eyes; fear as their shadow. I’ve read that people lose sense of who they are living in the war zone. Charles Simic’s poem Empire of Dreams is a poignant reminder of this fact.
Empire of Dreams
-- Charles Simic
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 store-fronts 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.
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