Encyclopedia of Horrors

Charles Simic (2008)

Nobody reads it but the insomniacs.
How strange to find a child,
Slapped by its mother only this morning,
And the mad homeless woman
Who squatted to urinate in the street.

Perhaps they've missed something?
That smoke-shrouded city after a bombing raid,
The corpses like cigarette butts
In a dinner plate overflowing with ashes.
But no, everyone is here.

O were you to come, invisible tribunal,
There'd be too many pages to thumb through,
Too many stories to listen to,
Like the ones about guards playing cards
After they were done beating their prisoner.