Oh, did
you realize
that behind yon turbid
welkin, glide sprites who stabilize
grim skies?
Masan Bound
Sweat and old rain seep
out of cherry blossomed
flesh, mingling with legions
of shivering, noisome bodies
on a wind-tossed April evening,
gelatinous kneecaps disintegrating
under harsh light. Memories of another
train–equally overflowing–and of
another spring, distant and bitter,
briefly spark in these otherwise
vacant eyes. As high-pitched
screams fill my guilty ears,
salt stained mouths whisper
softly, eager to go home.
해변 근처/By the Beach
Children play near the Ferry Terminal in Jinhae, South Korea.
행복하게 잘 살았다/Happily Ever After
A traditional folk dance being performed in Jinhae (진해)/South Korea
야곡/Nocturne
난 시골에서 구부러진 길을 걸으면서
낡고 황폐한 교회를 만났다
수 년 전에 멍든 하늘 아래에
비참한 그 건물은 빛에 속았다.
…나처럼
While walking along a crooked road in the countryside,
I came across an old and dilapidated church.
Many years ago, under a bruised sky, that wretched
building was deceived by the light.
…just like me
Golden Slumbers
Light shining through a stem glass of beer.
Just One Number
Many memories,
difficult to pick,
will still be written.
Three best friends
A souvenir photo
To take such a picture
in blue, not only in an
elegant style.
Two weeks later,
we cried, laughing
at the same time.
Picture is symbol.
You will still laugh.
I never forget
that one day
living.
———-
Sometimes, a poem unintentionally emerges through preparing for the writing portion of the TOPIK Exam.
The Chase
The other night I took a stroll
and came across a little hole
that looked as if it might be deep
enough to hold the hearty heap
of sharp unease which weighed me down
and caused my freckled face to frown.
I tried to shove it down that chink
and for a flash my woe did shrink,
but in the end, that mouth could not
receive the cumbrous, dreadful rot
which sent my lean and stooping shape
to seek sweet twilight’s soothing drape
and so my heart resigned to keep
these pricking fears which shake my sleep.
침묵을 지키다/Keeping Mum
A dancer stands upstage at a traditional Korean percussion concert/Daegu, South Korea
The Memory of Silver
The memory of silver is long. It
remembers fat, leathery hands
casting ingots at dawn. And the
screaming crucible that served life
plucked from death.
Sterling arcs of recollection whisper
in morning’s meekness, dangling from
emerald shadows, hanging on for a
cue, regarding us warily with one eye
open and one eye closed.
The memory of silver is long. It
remembers both she who bestowed
and she who received on that distant
Christmas afternoon, before bread
was broken under jaundiced
light.
Violet glass despondently rolls off a
negligent palm, falling upon moist
linoleum, making no sound in daybreak’s
din…shaking off all visions of times
gone by on the way down.
sundry folly 