Charles Simic (b Belgrage 1938) is a Pulitizer Prize and Poet Laureate "Poem" Spotted on MTA Hooray!

Saturday the subway trains went no way fast. The C train from Columbus Circle sat on the tracks for 10 minutes with a repeated message of apology & thanks (harumph) for our patience.   The reason for taking the metro trains is to get from point A to point B as quickly as possible for as little as possible.  And that is not always possible.  The train made a 10 minute stop at every local stop with the same message.  The cars filled up, tempers flared up & no one got anywhere in a NY minute.  Today I took the train (I wasn't in a hurry) and I spotted the first poem for 2018 entitled POEM by Charles Simic (b Belgrade Yugoslavia 1938).  MTA's poetry in motion is becoming my mentor & motivator for browsing poetry.  Simic was born in Belgrade during WWII; then part of Yugoslavia. Now Belgrade is the capitol city of Serbia.  Simic & his parents were displaced war refugees.  Munch of his poetry, including POEM reflect his experiences of being displaced as a child during wartime.  Simon's style is described as literary minimalist. It's terse & strident.  Simic has received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1990  & nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in '86 &'87.  He received the Chancellor of the Acad. of American Poetry in '00 and the Frost Medal in '11.  The poem was on a beautiful poster by American artist Derek Lerner 'AVEX3'.

POEM
Every morning I forget how it is.
I watch the smoke mount
In great strides about the city.
I belong to no one.

Then I remember my shoes,
How I have to put them on
How bending over to tie them up
I will look into the earth.

Simic expresses a feeling of dissociation while being tied to humanity and a universal mortality.
"Poetry is an orphan of silence.  The words never quite equal the experience behind them".  (C Simic)