Hotel Insomnia in  General   

I liked my little hole,
Its window facing a brick wall.
Next door there was a piano.
A few evenings a month
a crippled old man came to play
"My Blue Heaven."

Mostly, though, it was quiet.
Each room with its spider in heavy overcoat
Catching his fly with a web
Of cigarette smoke and revery.
So dark,
I could not see my face in the shaving mirror.

At 5 A.M. the sound of bare feet upstairs.
The "Gypsy" fortuneteller,
Whose storefront is on the corner,
Going to pee after a night of love.
Once, too, the sound of a child sobbing.
So near it was, I thought
For a moment, I was sobbing myself.

By Charles Simic

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Other poems by Charles Simic:

• A Book Full of Pictures
• Against Winter
• Clouds Gathering
• Coal
• Errata
• Eyes Fastened With Pins
• Heights Of Folly
• Hotel Insomnia
• Inner Man
• Paradise Motel
• Pocket Theatre
• Poem Without A Title
• Private Eye
• Read Your Fate
• Summer In The Country
• Talking To Little Birdies
• The Bather
• The Initiate
• The Oldest Child
• The Partial Explanation
• The School Of Metaphysics
• The Supreme Moment
• The White Room
• This Morning
• To The One Upstairs
• Watermelons
• Wherein Obscurely