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Two Poems by Kim Bok Hui

People Who Go to Hell Must Plant Flowers In hell, you must plant flowers. Should you plant them in sand or swamp?No.What about flowers that move? No. Flowers—It doesn’t matter if the flowers are beautiful or have thorns, if they grow in vines, if they are wilting or have dried up. You must plant without knowing your surroundings, without differentiating between day and night.You must plant without feeling tired even though you haven’t lain down, without feeling hungry even though you haven’t eaten. Bring one flower and make sure it stands upright; bringtwo flowers and make sure they both stand upright. Surrounded by all sorts of fragrances without recognizing them as fragrances, within an abundance of colors that one lifetime cannot contain. Even if you ask for flowers, even if you are told that you may leave hell, understandingevery word, hearing every-thing, the flowers remain in your hands. Whether you receive a flower from a devil or an angel, take one flower, and then an-other, making two flowers. A landscape so silent it dries the bones, endlessly vast even when touched. Heaven In heaven, the scene of people planting flowers is clearly visible.Occasionally, the tops of flowers sway, ripples on a lake. But there is no one in heaven. Did they go to see the flowers?To see both the flowers and the people?Perhaps they saw someone pass by like a flower. Maybe it was the back of a head they knew well. In heaven, anything worth stealing your heart is brightly visible.Especially, Hell is clearly visible, and so are the people busily moving among the flowers that fill it. The flowers that wilt as soon as they are planted, and those that are planted again over them,vividly seen. Beautiful as if reaching heaven,if there is a soul, it would surely be stirred, “Excuse me. It’s me, can you hear me, please look at me.” Heaven is sometimes noisy because of people speaking to the landscape. No one plants flowers in heaven.Over there, together, they end up going to plant flowers. by Kim Bok Hui Translated by Jack Saebyok Jung

by Kim Bok Hui
Two Poems by Park YeonJoon

Small Person If you speak in a small voice you become a small person A small person is a small boxa personal spacea clay jar, a chamber pot, a blanket tented over knees, to advance darkly insidenot on the asphalt but under itpushing and pushing the revolving door, to returnto turn and turn, to become the silence in the whirlinga home for dusta broom The small person takes the small universe outside Winter walk, shells and peels underfootthings used and discarded by the seasonSmall greens lean greens starved greens drunk greenslifting up their faces A small person disappears when calledA small person’s river, a small person’s bridgeno one crosses If you talk about trivial things you become trivial Open your notebook and therea square for small peopleflattened, not dead nor alivethese namesa trivial list walking aroundwearing little nametags, stepping teeny tiny When spring comes you have to clear out what’s not spring If you eat the heat haze you diesays someoneand the small person, slowly, eats it Sewing Machine and Oven Growing old is putting on time’s crumpled clothes On the corner, the smell of bread waftsas the time to buy bread disappears It’d be nice if smiles could be baked Go up somewhere highand memory disappearsCome down with your shoes offand your back curls roundyour face thrust into dead time Was it April when Grandma diedthat fourthand mortal month There’s no one to askEveryone who knows you and me are deador more distant than the dead You need strength to love–The person who said that isn’t here, on April Fool’sshe diedIt’d be nice if her back, her face, her smilecould be baked Love and aging and sadness–What’s the strongest of the threeI bring over a scale to find out but strength is not weightstrength can’t be lifted I want to sit in front of the sewing machinesewing nothing If someone knocks to go get bread with meI’ll hand over the crumpled clothesand shut the door You are an outfit crumpling in front of me Love was just a joke– If you make excuses I’ll draw something like a broken forehead I’ll smileI’ll bake a smile by Park YeonJoon Translated by Hedgie Choi

by Park YeonJoon
Ten Poems by Kim So Yeon

Catalyzing Night Your boiling bodyI wipe with wet towelsjust as you’ve taught meand stay up all night Sometimes I outrun timeThe slow on occasion know to abhor the quick Like the wooden floorlying flatstaring into memories scampering like roacheshow to kill them Sometimes I unleash into nowmemories from the futureAbhorrence is especially known in hunger How did you know a sheen of applied moisturewicks heat from the body Recalling againhow you cooled my feverI stay up all night Your gaunt bonescan melt to nothingYou will melt soonevaporate and vanish soonas you so yearnedas you so yearned When a window opensfrantic wind whips the curtainsflips the pages of an open bookrain barges inAn empty bucket dancesin the backyard The next day slides incalm as a liesunlight dewed on every edgewe are new again When the wear is muchbetween yesterday and todaywhen a shadow banned from my dreamlingers by me to pitifully gaze at the morning time shall protect meHow wonderfulthat some things only need time Ourweakness and ignorance and overflowour wasted time of repeated mistakesthis vast sunlightwordlessly endlesslyrestores Repeat and Review Gazing at an ancient tree to remember someone loving her more that way All her life people asked her why she went through the trouble to do what she does Every time she served up the same answer like a meal carefully prepared Isn’t a mother-of-pearl inlay wardrobe prettiest when put out on the curb, she’d say Wouldn’t it be more ideal, she’d say if a day of the week was designated for sleeping in the snow If there be a tree so ancient that an IV drip hangs from it instead of fruit she would read from it regret and shame and impending death and indignity, and distressingly be reminded of someone she knows Seeing the vines and weeds and torn plastic bags cling and fuse to its body be the first in 2,754,981 passersby to hug it she whom like the one garlic clove pinging off the cutting board unscathed remains firm and sharp and dedicated to her cause for herself and as herself Imagining a person angry that a vase of unwilted flowers couldn’t be emptied glaring at the flowers, I’m watching against my love overgrowing Inadequate no matter how it’s said, like some disease where circulation stops at the clavicles If a community ringed in golden light on the edge of a precipice can be imagined and a member of it stands with their back to this twilight with a noose in hand for suicide and the nooses given up are as numerous as ornaments on a Christmas tree I am gazing at the ancient tree and listening to her laughter Snare I read a poemwhere someone sat silent from sudden morning newswho sat until night and then got upput on their slippers and opened the front door and left What was the newsWondering what the poem didn’t tell usI decided to wait for themknowing nothing about themall night until the morning comes should be the first stanza of this poemSomeone reading this poem I’m writingshould turn this page easily I hopegoing to the next world with no other questions Then I can continue that poemI must write first where that person wentEven if only they dozed on a busSlippered as they are I must say it was summer for their feet I want to say they went very farbut I can’t write they’re walking by a streetwhere headlit cars speed by They’d gone to find someone The door was closed firm and no one lived there and they’d gone to find someone The door was closed firm and they hesitated in the corridor and decided to wait a bit and they’d gone to find someone To open the door and the two people looked at each other the threshold between them and they’d gone to find someone They put on their coat and handed over another an extra and they’d gone to find someone They gave up on knocking and remarked that they’d made it there and that it was a place they could make it to and they went to a convenience store nearby and drank up a bottle of water Their uvula drenched like a marathoner’sthey finished in this poemwhich you’ll forget you ever readWhile I wrote it the person I waited for came to my doorand had to turn backunnoticed because I was writing this poem Blue Ice The night conceals me Hides me ever deeper I could hold my hands in a megaphone and shout there’s someone here to listen Resolutions sticky like fruit pulp drop from the sides of my mouth on this night where the world melts where one nods at someone pointing out obviously that the past is the future until realizing the future they wish to point out is the past proving the future is no longer undiscovered A walkable night A night for going farther than ever past the point of no return past the imaginable Switch on an app to see where you are Wipe your sweat with a handkerchief Stand for long in the middle of a four-lane street and by the dead cat A night the bugs walk right in the middle An arresting night Let’s shake the dead bugs out of the fluorescent lights casing Summer is disgusting isn’t it? Loud? Worse at night right? To say nothing of outside? This is the kind of thing you call beautiful right? Good right? Good job right? Proud of yourself right? A night where saying someone is good makes them good A night when you don’t want to fit a trustworthy impression A night where you really don’t want to be anything A night where you reject being a better person To say “we” but mean “I” is one of the choiciest of all slights* An overthought night where you write down a line you read earlier and smile A night where you grin because you used a silly word like overthought Overthought is a good word A good word for saying things that exist do not exist like they’re snow falling over footsteps printed in snow A night where pressing a master switch makes the world disappear into black A night to be pushed to the edge A night for acceleration A night as uncanny and funny as placing precious things on a precipice A night richly disguised in a softness like velvet A night without a moment of calm in the midst of endless chatter A night that’s falling silent A night that overflows Keep eyes wide open to ward off dreams Withstand it like blue ice Withstand it with all my passion Believe in the protection of the dark Never succumb to the warning-flooded night *Theodore Adorno, “Monogram 122” from Minima Moralia, translated by Dennis Redmond Cave Keep goingto where I am pointing It’s there,really there,you’ll see it, a heat without sweat a shop without a cashier a puppy without a leashsobbing without sadnesssobbing without an ounce of need for sadness Listen closely,until you hear it,dance in that sobbing You’re already there?It’s too quiet?You can’t dance?You’ll try to bring it?It’s dirty?Too dirty to touch? I’ll go and carry it and get dirtyJust you wait There you floatedpockets filled with sobs wearing them like a hat or a long scarfcarrying them on your back against your chest Too much sobbingToo too much sobbingEverything is sobbing everything is silence The criesthe cries without an ounce of need for sadnessI pick up from all over andlook up at you Dirtiedreally dirtied you weregrinning down at me Let’s stay hereYes let’s just stay hereLet’s do that Our Activism I stared at your scar for a long timeA round mark adequately healed but needing more time Someone had drawn a tattoo on that scarso I talked of themopening our hour of conversation With jeon and pyeonyuk, nengchae and jeolpyun between usI plunge my spoon into my mutguk How is it,Everything is awfulThat’s better than saying everything is fine When asked why my pre-meal prayer was so longI answered I prayed the skies keep you safeNo hostility was meant but afraid it would be takenas such my words trailed off as they do Every time I open my mouth I make an effortto express two three ten times good intent and goodwillin the hopes at least a modicum makes it over I lived to share in the sadness of othersbut didn’t realize our sharing was a blessing all alongeven as we sobbed in between our continuing conversationsThe people sitting behind you disappear in turnThe carapace of past memories crumble in your handling Thinking back such things were only what they wereNow should you have to fight an angelyou could take him Looking down at the dishes on the table thatrepulse farther and farther away from each other I am liking youholding a strong and round snare in my handsyour dark and deep hostage Second Floor Guest Lounge Today I found a flowerpot had chippedthe chip nowhere to be seen The sprouts spreading their rolled-up leavesThe whitely spreading breath What if . . . I mean what if . . . I thought this about 50,000 timesI’m becoming a what if Thinking too muchturns me into thought I open the doorput my thoughts floating like dust on my palmand blow it away like freeing a spider Putting my hand into the darkI offer a handshake A scientist’s “I don’t know”is because they lack an explanatory theory The piled-up packets of pills on the table of a long-term patientTo begin untangling the mess of chords behind the machines You don’t have to answer any questionsYou can say something else that’s true instead About how it seemshow it isn’tand how it can only be so Everyone shouts back they’re listeningThe shouter keeps shouting the listeners start shoutingNo one just listens anymore Even the Bones of an Angel’s Wing Is a Formidable Skeleton Up Close Sleep until late in the morning. Yesterday is finally far enough away. First slip feet into soft socks. Then the slippers in the foyer. Go up to the roof. Mug in hand. I look down at the neat rows of semi-detached houses. Blowing on my hot milk before sipping. Watching the people gathered at the bus stop. The man on the bike moving farther and farther. Faint steam still curling up from the mug. And the scent of milk. Good thingI put on socks.So many good things. A friend asksto go to the moviesso I acceptgoing to the movies. You absolute bastard! Crying faces as the credits roll. As the list of backers scroll endlessly. As I hug the bucket with the few hard kernels that failed to become popcorn. Get up and walk to the exit. I would’ve gone with a different ending. Don’t eavesdrop on this other un-bastard ending. Isn’t it weird that human tragedy is impossible to portray without family? Don’t ask that. Don’t try to parse the director’s intent. What happened to the many stuntmen who moved so naturally in the unfocused background. Research that.Sighing about how this life isn’t enough. When on a day I did nothingI gaina pimplea full trashcanand countless periwinkles blooming When on a day I wrote nothingI gaindaylightsunlightan afternoona friendand almost everything I think of the poet who saved his company. Slipping his letter of resignation in a white envelope and smiling. Like for wedding or funeral money except resignation envelopes aren’t sold in convenience stores. Make plansChange them.Cancel them. Say things tailored to a purpose.Just about avoid lying.Sincerely hide all sincerityand for their sake ignore the earnestnessof earnest talkers. On windy days chimneys smoke in right angleslike they were drawn that way. Lots of factories in this place.I see. Finish milk. Lay slippers neatly in foyer. Wash the mug so it doesn’t stink and dry it upside down. Like nothing was eaten. For tomorrow. Leave These Flowers Behind Arrive at your final destinationOpen luggage and place the last instant rice in boiling waterPlace on the table the last of the lunch gimDry shoes and socks on the radiator Wasn’t thinking of sleep but dozed off sitting by the windowsill looking out at the neighbors The neighbor couple fighting all night found peace this morning too Wanted to see how they made up but the snow fell all night encasing the houses The rental car outside is covered in snowOpening and closing the doormakes some of it crumbleThe wiper makes a fan-shaped portalthat’s all you need to start You have to make it You have to make itI’m being followed by someone’s cheerGrateful but unwelcome, sweet but revolting, precious but repulsive such mindless words arethat I slow downso they run on ahead Holding an umbrella is too much so last night arriving in a snowstorm I took off my coat and unwound my scarf and washed my gloves and underwear and lowered myself into a hot tub My hands floated up and when I took off my ring I rose up like steam Open the bathroom ceiling Fly farjust a little farther nowand leave behindthese flowersleaning against othersSo long to get heremy nose is freezing but even herea tour guide visits every morningThey say people like me cometo this tombstone every day Hide the Falling Rain He never did tell mewhat he was stroking Crouched all night stroking andfalling asleep like thatevery night for 20, 50 years I’ve only heardthisNever saw it That he never came backis reason enough to believe it If he comes backwill I hear what he stroked and strokedfrom his own mouth Orwould he bring it out of a trunkand show me himselfWill my eyes grow wideand reach outto touch it myself If what he strokedis like falling raina snowmanor fog or smoke I’ve never met him buthe slept crouched over every nightAs long as I don’t forget thatI don’t need to meet him All I need is to go up highto where there’s no oneand shout his name on occasion Buthe never even told me his nameand that makes me believe it a little more Translated by Anton Hur

by Kim So Yeon
Two Poems by Hwang Yuwon

Spectacle Trapped inside an empty wine glass, struggling leggily in all directionsslipping this way and that, the centipedehaving realized finally that there’s nowhere to run todoesn’t become violent but instead turns off its engine for a momentand enters total stillness. At this unexpected attitude, I was a little surprisedand, paying no attention to my little surprise,the centipede bent its body slightlyand, starting with the legs on the right side, one by onelicked them, then started on the left legs, one by onefrom beginning to endlike a woman taking a freshly wrung mop to the church floorwith great careexalted, you could even sayas if each one of its too-long too-many legs were some ancient manuscriptand its mandibles, made, apparently, to chew and swallow tiny bits of thingswere licking themone by one, as if to turn their pages.Solemnly moved, you let the centipede go.Its legs flowing far away againis surely a flow you’re seeing for the first timeand how shoddy is a body if it didn’t even have such a flow— Like a riverside with no riverLike a café on the riverside with no flow of people. Therefore, there is a flow.There is a flow andthere is the riverside scenery accompanied by the flow.And sitting at a café, after enduring the day’s ups and downs,there I am, fiddling with the leggy stem of a wine glass.Near dawn, at the riversideat that place that could be the Seine or the Hongjecheonremembering the centipede and its leisure— which seemed to say that it is not captive now and no one is watching orso what ifsomeone is watching— there I am, lifting the wine glass once more.At night, when the red wine with its thousands of legscrawls into my throat and goes totally silentI, thinking hard about how I too have nowhere to runempty the glass and get up andtry flowing wherever— imitating the ripple of the centipedeflowing into the wine glassflowing out of the wine glasswith the feeling of the centipede. But here’s my flow, not even as good as the centipede’s. Oh you beyond the glass—you’re not so different from me, all humans are a spectacle—stare away, take it all in. Blank In my dream my hair went whiteIn my head the white Snow was coming downBy the time I realized I was almost all the way across the riverThere was already so much snow on my headIt must be because my mind’s whited outThat it’s still snowing inside my headIt must be the snowstorm ragingThat makes it impossible to see an inch aheadIt’s nice not to seeBecause it doesn’t matter where you go, if you can’t seeAll the footsteps will disappearNow I am standing on some other landFrom there it seems it’s still snowing on the river behind meNow I don’t have to go back thereI can’t go back there—that single factHardens in the coldHeavy snow is like a blank sheetAnd sometimes brilliantWhich is so dear to me that I look once againAt that blank sheetLook at this blank sheetThat I’ve writtenThis blank sheet I wroteHas become so bright by Hwang Yuwon Translated by Hedgie Choi

by Hwang Yuwon
Two Poems by Lee Min-ha

Hole I suppose just outside the desire to touch lies the desire to stay away. A mind and a mind were stuck together. White and white wouldn’t come apart. What is empty is filled to the brim. If I make a fist and give it a push, it will sink right in. It will sink right in and I will never get it back. The cold, stiff lumps of muscle. The monitor was cold late at night. It was paused. Time and time were stuck together. Sentence and sentence wouldn’t come apart. The ones who clenched their eyes too hard—they are dead. Their insides were caves. Their eyes had been closed for so long, the water was over a hundred meters deep. Water was stuck to water. Darkness and darkness wouldn’t come apart. Someone went in with a candle. Their webbed feet, so elegant, swiftly glided over to a faraway moment. Was the last thing they heard their own first cry? Is a moment just outside eternity? The dead eye flinched. From its waxy face, an eyelash fell. Downstream God is lying in the dark one-person room at the far end of the hallway.It’s like God hung us outside the window and forgot about it. The birds that have cut the cords dripdown the glass. We wipe and wipe and drop our palms. God has collected a dozen doll’s arms. In the drawer,there’s even an old Korean textbook. A white mouth, a black mouth. I parted my hairand learned to ventriloquizeand earned this beautiful body. On nights like this, I could count eyelashes. If this night is God’s nightmare,let’s wash the rags for us to wear and lie down a little while longer.I dreamt that we turned our itchy backs and took turns winding our springs, our breaths clouding the air,and I grew so unbelievably close to belief that I returned to the arms of a human. by Lee Min-ha Translated by Soeun Seo

by Lee Min-ha
Two Poems by Go Myeongjae

We Close Our Eyes to Kiss Dogs and snow and children are all composed of the same element.I wanted to hold the snow water inside mebecause I wanted that pure power, how wildly it bucks.If only I could massage my cold, stiff armsas I tidy up the snowy bowls of runaway dogs. If I rub the pus of a cow into the areaand kissand hold hands with an immigrantand listen to the horns rise on a potatoas I whisper, I love you, I love you, like a snowflake all collars would grow big into hula hoops.As dead dogs drag out their long tongues, the streams rush,the mountain range tippy toes, my neck bursts open, and root vegetables stretch their legs,I am watching you rise to land in the dark.With a hand to my festering nape,I grate a cold potato and rub it on like snow.I kiss the door of your dim room. And I, I will grow recklessly stranger.I will dip my fingers into a flower, and, pollinated,pick my belly button.I hope lilies erupt from my mouth, my ears!We lock pinkies across the barbed-wire fence, mixing prints.IDs, national borders, whatever, we laugh like flowers. Words with no feet, ears with no words, cows with no horns.The frontier of blossoms brims over to the northand because I fear my brows would fly away like birdsI wear heavy rain boots to kiss your mouth. To become poetry by the clearest area.We close our eyes to kissbecause the future is brilliant.Hearts of dogs grow big at the sound of footsteps on the snowbecause that is the interval at which a stranger is approaching.The front gates are the lips of a house. When you ring the bellthe world approaches, instead of fluttering wings. I Like That When Mom Sleeps, Grandma Shines Through I like the soft look of giant trees lowering their branches on a rainy day.I like the elasticity of a raindrop’s sudden bounce from the bridge of my nose, too.I like the damp leap of a green frog.I like the open holes in the Chinese characters to the word “exposure.”When the gunshot of a waterdrop rings out, summer races.The tree shakes, summer runs with its front drenched.I like that on the way to the hospital there’s a small flower shop, like hope.I like that rain falls on everyone equally.I like that when I wear rain boots the rhythm of a green frog comes to me.I like a child’s knees inside mine. I like that inside methe future of a new sproutdoes not run, it boldly leaps.I like that the soles of my feet tickle when I see a puddle of water.I like my shins that run towards love without a care for spattering puddles of mud. I like seeing the kumquats strewn about haphazardly on the balcony floor.I like the small build of a kumquat, not a tangerine.I like the handprints of light that cling to a brass instrument.I like a promise better than an agreement,how we lock our most tender fingers with each other.I like the unstoppable intimacy that blossoms from between a peach and a balsam.I like it so much I can’t even breathe.I like that when Mom sleeps, Grandma shines through. I dimly miss the one who passed.When the peach inside a heart is cut in half,I like the sorrow of the fruit’s flesh, the fruit knife, the scent, everything.I can’t stop touching the keepsakes of the dead. When it rains like this and the phone grows quiet,when love is bruised to a pulp and its raw flesh festers,inside me, love rains down like lances, strikes my raw flesh, shakes the summer, and drums on the green of the tall tree.On the streets, on the tents, on my rain boots, on sprouts, on the green frogyour complexion, drawn recklessly, glittered haphazardly like kumquats and I liked it.It was beautiful, the face of someone taking a step back.I ran until my lungs exploded to see the last of that face. It kept the rest of my summer from regrets. by Go Myeongjae Translated by Soeun Seo

by Go Myeongjae
Two Poems by Lee Jenny

Meeting on a Byroad We agreed to meet on a byroad and parted. Each of us were on a road off of which branched countless byroads, but we parted as if we would surely recognize the one we decided to meet on. On the first byroad there were fallen leaves. The leaves covered the road. The season had arrived there early and in fullness. The leafy road was good to arrange meetings in and good to imagine the shade of out-of-season trees in. The possibility of tree shade led to the possibility of upcoming seasons. And the upcoming seasons called forth the possibility of a love that streams together under the pea-colored leaves. When I passed love’s byroad, the puddle’s byroad appeared. And the puddles, cold and clear, were good for looking at the reflections of things. And for hopping over, unbeknownst to all. And for wetting your two feet, the ones you keep hidden. The puddle was calling forth its watery shadow. And, on the dry soil, drawing today’s sky. Hop over the one and only sky of today. Hop over the one and only cloud in today’s sky. Hop over the leaf drifting between the clouds in the cold, clear sky. Now hop over the lushness of the tree that is no longer there. We kept arriving, arriving somewhere. Covered with things that were not me. Wrapped up in things that were empty of you. When we went forward, forward, the next byroad began to appear. As always, we were standing on the byroad by the byroad, by and by. We met, no longer knowing where we’d agreed to meet. Thinking we’d passed that place long ago. Where there had been yesterday’s restaurant, there was today’s restaurant. Where there had been a mailbox, a bleached wood sign. And red gravel, in place of the green grass. Even as we’re endlessly bisected, by and by. Even as we flow forth, tumbling along. We meet again, here, once more. On this endlessly bifurcating road. When I turned my head, you and I of long ago were meeting by the byroad by the byroad. We’ll meet again, as long as there remains a scene that waits for words. Writing, push through the sentence that knows no end and you arrive at the shade of a forgotten tree. My face, reflected in a single puddle, flowed in layers and layers. The Night’s Direction and Marble Games The mountain I knew was one that wouldn’t open. The marble I knew was like that too, wouldn’t ever roll. What forces act on things that roll? You asked this with the face of an old hermit, as if scrutinizing the curvature of outer space. On a flat plane rather than a curved surface. There is a mountain that only opens and shows itself when the will to perceive space and time is active. Your face doesn’t resonate at all. It’s like a marble of dust that shows itself only through the scattering of light. Your face was rolled up like an ancient papyrus scroll. No one could read your interior anymore so you began to roll. Rolling in the direction of all those dust marbles. To roll was to be thrown. To be thrown was to be abandoned. And to be abandoned was to love. Because in those days, the only things we were willing to throw were the things we’d loved with all our hearts. The dust marble was rolling endlessly from mountain to mountain. How is it that we keep shaking in these scenes from a long-ago night? You asked this fixing your face into an old one again, so I looked at your mouth. To write down the sentence, verbatim, that the mouth of darkness opened to reveal. To bury in my heart the afterimage of light that unfolds only in the dark. But night is a thing that flows and flows. That layers and layers over itself and then dissipates. And the hermit’s forest was opened a long time ago, said the old mouth. I cradled my face as though I were groping the elderly one. The birds were fleeing, differently. The crowds of night were flying bluely. The world was making invisible holes and throwing in the loved ones, one by one. If you can die well, you can live well too. Like dancing, like dancing. I wrote that down, before I even woke up. In that barely-recalled memory of night. In the delusion of a world I believed I could touch. Rolling, rolling still, from one direction to the next, infinitely. There was a night when I rolled my heart, rounded and still-soft. It used to be that something in my chest would sink if I wrote the name of a living person in red. by Lee Jenny Translated by Hedgie Choi

by Lee Jenny
Ten Poems by Yi Won

Voices Stone, some things thus far emerged and hardenedLight, some things leaking out, spreading their flesh apartWall, some things thus far pushedPath, some things thus far thrownWindow, until no longer touching Outside, until surging upwardIn, until there’s nowhere to fallBlood, something all mixed upEar, something that crawled outBack, something the world missedColor, something dug up, something rooted outMe, only now emerging from the mirror, so many things to bury in the mireYou, already emerged from the mirror, and so many things buried in the airEye, something broken, something shatteredStar, something tornDream, something soaked in bloodSeed, the darkest somethingEgg, something shut tight, something fierce, even thereBone, something left alone, even thereHand, something branching out, even thereMouth, something puckering closed, even thereDoor, impatient, belated, overdueBody, unsightly confession of shadowGod, something attached to the fingertipsFlower, vomitWater, brought to a boilKnife, brimming to the throatWhite, fluttering The History of an Impossible Page(Moonji, 2012) ShadowsThe floors the walls must be the silhouette of death, so can you imagine how much the shadows’ backs must hurt? When dancers prance and float through the air, can you imagine how the sinews of shadows contract with abandoned solitude? When a man or child flings themself from the railing, can you imagine the feelings of the shadow who failed to jump up as well? When the body disappears into thin air and the shadow still remains, can you imagine the shadow’s thoughts in that moment?The History of an Impossible Page(Moonji, 2012) Apple Store The trees become forests intent upon splitting shadow The birds made their sounds where they got their beaks stuck The flowers grown in different directions are all bunched in one vase The old mother crawls into the heart and The chair never stops tempering the air Until sour and sweet blent together in one place The apple grew round Let Love Be Born(Moonji, 2017) You Were All There in My Dream You were all thereSo I was busy All of you and me were busy Me and all of you were busy meeting eyesBusy moving feet, busy stoppingBusy making betweens. Diverging moments shined I heard the sound of an absent button falling and rollingMy and all of your rustling legsBuried to the knee All of you were thereSo I was busy, but it wasn’t a bad dream I wanted to call you over butYou were all thereSo I was handing out empty plates I liked you all holding your platesMe and all of you appearedWearing white shirts and holding white plates The light was uncut butA diagonal stroke ran across the shirt The dream of all of you and me continuedThe garden had grown more spacious at some pointAll of you and I arrived at a hill Below were rows of high-rise buildings with windowsLike gaping holes in their bodies The white plates took you all over thereAll of you crowded there with your white plates You were all there in my dreamSo I was busy. It wasn’t too bad You were all there, but the white plates were still stackedAll of your shadows were much more than thatThey didn’t follow into the linear world, yourShadows. I understood them You Were All There in My Dream(모:든시 vol. 8, 2019) Small People Community On Saturday, I went to the restaurant. It was just me and the owner. The owner chopped cabbage, and I looked out the window. Our necks turned in two directions, and in the dimly lit restaurant the owner and I were mottled shadow. I set my spoon and chopsticks side by side in front of my right hand. On Friday, I went to the restaurant. The radio was on. I met eyes with the owner. The eyes smiled. When the talking stopped, the music started. There was a rumble in the owner’s throat as they chopped cabbage, and I thought of the curviness of a cross section. On Thursday, I went to the restaurant. The TV was turned on to the news. I was the only person in the restaurant. I looked back and forth between the three items on the menu. Outside the window was all sunlight. The owner never came. I counted the hydrangeas I’d seen on the way over. On Wednesday, I didn’t go to the restaurant. I stood out front for a minute. I couldn’t see inside. Only the feathery cirrus in the distance and me with my nearby solitude. Someone passing by asked if there was still time to eat. I said you could go in if it’s open. It was overcast, then rained for a bit before clearing up when I wanted to stop by another district on Tuesday. I wandered all around an apartment complex. I imagined a convenience store after midnight where birds could go in, and loosening trees lining the street. It was late at night. On Monday, I went into the restaurant where there were only two tables, where both tables were empty, where the sound of chopping cabbage piled up steadily, where the silence was rising. I sent the sands of a fifteen-minute hourglass through two turns, then lifted my fractured heel and left. The light coming in over the chopping cabbage sometimes looked like drops of blood. Spreading and seeping. Once my mind was set on the sound of chopping cabbage, the food was never ready. I took the white napkin spread barely over the top of the silence and folded it in half and then half again while I waited.Small People Community(Literature and Society vol. 134, 2021) Friendly Gathering One person brought four plums The first person to reach for the plums used their right thumb and forefinger to pick up the least red one, and the second person took the reddest one They looked at each other and each took a bite Tart and sweet, said the first person who’d reached for the plums There was no way of knowing what the second person thought There were supposed to be four people, but one person showed up late and ate two plums They ate one quickly, then looked at the plate with a mischievous smile and ate the other The one who didn’t get a plum wasn’t at the table yet, having said only that they hadn’t written a single email today The ones who’d eaten only one plum were worried that they were now short one plum The one who’d eaten two plums was wearing a white shirt and beige shorts There were no plums on the plate, but the plate was wet, and one person’s plum pit was next to their right arm, and the other person’s plum pit was wrapped up in a tissue next to their right arm, too Who knows what happened to the plum pits of the person who ate two, and a little bit of silence and a little bit of peace stood in place between the clouds floating inside The person who’d eaten the less red plum stretched their hands over their head Whether they’d wear the clouds splitting above them as a hat was a problem for another time Then there was the scuttering sound of a chair sliding across the floor Was it the one who ate two plums getting up from their seat? The one who wrote today’s emails finally arriving? The one trying to throw off this damp sack? There was no way of knowing The angle was set where the sound came from Friendly Gathering(Siindongne, Aug. 2019) Shared Kitchen Here there’s glass on three sides Anyone passing by can see in It’s common to look in and see someone sitting at the end or middle of the long rectangular table, eating alone, looking back like a reflection in a mirror On the other side of the table is the sink, on the other side of the sink is the induction burner, on the other side of the induction burner is the refrigerator The shared side-by-side refrigerator is divided into shelves assigned to each person Label things with your name on a sticky note The king oyster mushrooms, chargrilled ham, and carton of ten eggs on the second shelf all have the same name on them, so they belong to that name Anything without a name on it and anything on the Everyone Shelf belongs to everybody On the Everyone Shelf, there’s cabbage browning where it’s been cut and a carrot or two rolling around You can’t put your name on anything on the Everyone Shelf, or on anything that belongs to everybody In the world of Everyone, if someone eats too much, the rest can’t eat This way, if there’s bread and it’s not getting eaten, you eat it without knowing who gave up their portion This way, whenever you open the fridge, you strangely find your eyes wandering to the Everyone Shelf before your assigned shelf or your sticky-noted ingredients This way, no one considers your hesitation, when faced with the ingredients, to be a prayer for everybody This way, you always pause and wonder if you used ingredients with someone else’s name on them, even though you didn’t Here, the rule is to wash the dishes you used and clean up like you were never here Here, chairs are pulled out from the table as if you’ll be right back, and slippers with the same size and design lie flipped over on top of each other, and a few are strewn all over Until the feet leave those slippers, this is the shared kitchen Shared Kitchen(Webzin Gongsisa, June. 2020) All Language The problem is it’s hard to distinguish the sound of footsteps The one who went near the cat had a funeral to go to and left in a hurry and the one afraid of the cat had to stay The problem is welcoming footsteps and frightened footsteps both thud-duh-duh The cat comes running at the sound of footsteps but even if I raise my voice and shout “I’m not ks I’m oo” happy voice and scared voice both swing up up and away It wasn’t a game of ring toss with foot and neck but if I stomp thump my footneck shakes the cat stops in its tracks Oh this works thump thump if I stomp around like this The problem is the signal “come here” and “get away from me” have the same feel When I rush inside thud-duh-duh and shut the glass door the cat stops its four paws and waits When I knock on the glass it stares The problem is it’s hard to distinguish the gesture “go away” from the signal “stay here” The cat sits outside the sliding glass door and when I knock on the glass and wave it away it whines meooow meooow The problem is “ooo ooo” drops like marbles but doesn’t roll and if there’s a sudden pitter patter my footsteps get soaked and my ankles don’t get soakedAll Language(파란 vol. 14, 2019)BiosphereIt seems the small class is finally starting Of the mind things would look a lot better if people shrank a bit, somehow or other It seems that small, funny feeling is finally coming on Tend to believe the light is a note the plants the birds never forget to bring back Never once encountered the start or end of light, but tend to believe light is keeping an eye on humans passing through That watching is already declaring That emptying what’s within is already action What’s superior is what’s vaporized, erased, often wholly obscured There’s a rustling sound There’s a pecking sound Like the shadow of a hatchet dangling by a thread, it seems the small class is finally starting Can’t interpret the note, can’t estimate its intentions, but tend to think it’s honest to categorize human into arm, leg, torso, head Biosphere(Webzin View vol. 57, 2022)Rare Earth Equation* There are no humans here No cars There are many cats It might seem like a lie but there isn’t a single tree, so there’s no shade No matter how far you go, just blistering sun There are many cuts wrapping round and round, and green grass like a razor’s cutting edge There are lots of aphasic clouds Lots of sadness stuffed into corners So the cats must slink through the burning sunlight They strike a human pose as they doze beneath the crumbling walls, and the grass gradually turns a pale-blue green as it grows to resemble horror Here where there’s no people, where the sound of swaying grass fills the air, there’s lots of rocks shaped like dried-up hearts And lots of boulders grown big and fat It might seem like a lie, but all the cats are yellow And all the people who used to call them Aurora are gone There are lots of lumpy, bumpy holes There are lots of empty pots All the birds here say the same thing The birds strip off their feet, and the feet pile up in the pots The Auroras slink out from the gray boulders There’s no end to them More come to fill their place And the holes are filled in as well The cats’ footsteps get slowly further away The grass grows all around when no one’s looking *rare earth equation: an evolutionary biology termRare Earth Equation (Webzine View vol. 57, 2022)By Yi won All Poems Translated by Seth Chandler Korean Works Mentioned: • When They Ruled the Earth (Moonji, 1996)『그들이 지구를 지배했을 때』 (문학과지성사, 1996)• A Thousand Moons Rising Over the River of Yahoo! (Moonji, 2001)『야후!의 강물에 천 개의 달이 뜬다』 (문학과지성사, 2001)• The World’s Lightest Motorcycle (tr. E. J. Koh, Marci Calabretta Cancio-Bello, Zephyr Press, 2021)『세상에서 가장 가벼운 오토바이』 (문학과지성사, 2007)• “Voices,” “Shadows,” The History of an Impossible Page (Moonji, 2012)「그림자들」, 「목소리들」, 『불가능한 종이의 역사』 (문학과지성사, 2012)• “Apple Store,” Let Love Be Born (Moonji, 2017)「애플 스토어」, 『사랑은 탄생하라』 (문학과지성사, 2017)• “Machine–Mudang (1),” The Smallest Discovery (Minumsa, 2017)「기계-무당 (1)」, 『최소의 발견』 (민음사, 2017)• “Friendly Gathering,” (Siindongne, Aug. 2019)「친목 모임」 (시인동네 2019년 8월호, 2019)• “Shared Kitchen” (Webzine Gongsisa, June. 2020)「공용 키친」 (웹진 공정한시인의사회 2020년 6월호)• “Small People Community,” (Literature and Society vol. 134, 2021)「작은 사람 공동체」, (문학과사회 2021년 여름호, 2021)• “Biosphere,” “Rare Earth Equation,” (Webzine View vol. 57, 2022)「생물권」, 「희귀한 지구 방정식」, (웹진 비유 2022년 9월호, 2022)

by Yi Won
Two Poems by Hwang Inchan

Seeing What’s Seen A house where birds can be seen out the windowIf I say look, you can see the birds here You say,Everyone who lives in a house where you can see the birds says that But anyone would say it The window lets in lots of lightLight filters tenderly through the leaves and fills the room Wow, you can see the birds here, If someone comes over and says it one dayThe birds scatter in a flutter of wings Not Seeing What’s Unseen A story. An ownerless dog was looking this way and barking.It was looking at something behind me, But when I turned to look, there was nothing there. Really, a ghost story in this day and age?You say with a laugh. But the ownerless dog is still looking this way and barking. Thinking of fingertips at my fingertips, thinking my back itches but is it okay to move? Then, please come up hereAn outstretched hand appears, but I couldn’t know whose hand. by Hwang InchanTranslated by Seth Chandler

by Hwang Inchan
Two Poems by Chang Seung Ri

After gaze of a dying pig next to a dead piga rainbow drained of yellow the moment I am filled by the hole that pierces through the mirror I merry-go-roundto the childhood of the end forward, forwardsince tears are round when are you saddest?when I laugh like a child Gnu Herd Cross the river with your death as a shield – Grief asks why nothingness fears annihilation by Chang Seung Ri Translated by Hedgie Choi

by Chang Seung Ri
Ten Poems by Ra Heeduk

Easter Sunday Bacteria and viruses have become the most terrifying god, finally. For the reason that they are invisible for the reason that people have fallen dead everywhere they pass by, for the reason the power shows that humans are like chaff blown by the wind. There is no evidence that bacteria and viruses have hearts, but these oldest beings, especially intelligent, learned the secret of being immortal quite early on. To get something, you have to throw something away. What we have given up is independence. Instead, we can dwell on any creature. We became omnipresent in the world. That’s how the history of the Billionaire Dynasty began. At every alley they might have crossed, white tents set up, people lined up with their mouths open, several times a day, they washed their hands and mumbled It's gonna be okay, gonna be okay, it’s gonna be okay, nothing will happen. Chapels all closed at once, all day long, watching the disaster news live on the black TV more intently than the sermon, we spent the Sabbath. Drive-through confessions, as we were sitting in the car, God seemed to pass by for a second. This Easter, no one was resurrected. Easter eggs were painted with masked faces, Layers of dust piled up in the house instead of a virus. When we opened the window, the dust flew up for a second and settled down like the ashen wings of an angel visible, invisible, faintly, foggy enough though. Easter Sunday (Munhakdongne, 2021) Birds of the Pleistocene The giant dinosaurs are all gone, but Fish, birds, and humans survived, how? A bird that has lost its feathers Why does its beak get sharper and sharper? How much more pointed will conifers be? Why do thorns begin to sprout on dry branches? Why do birds cry at dawn? What does darkness try to bring by crying? Who has swallowed the sun? Where are the plastics or drifts accumulated? When does the new ice age end? Why are there just ice floes? Where are the crow and the thrush? Where did the hydras come from? If one of the heads is cut off, Do two heads really sprout? How much blood flew from the severed head? How much blood ran down the drain? Why is the evidence of slaughter fading? Has the wind stirring between heaven and earth become calm? Why don’t rocks and stones fly up? Where have the dead birds gone? When all the birds die, what comes after the Pleistocene? Birds of the Pleistocene (Munhakdongne, 2021) Glaciers’ Funeral* People gathered at the foot of the Alps. Mourners at the Pizol glaciers’ funeral have come quite a long way. Men in black suits and black hats, women in black dresses and black scarves or veils, and children too who have to live in a world where Earth’s glaciers have melted. On the glaciers’ graves of scattered stones hands putting down flowers. A funeral dirge from the horn echoed through the air. In Iceland, Ok Glacier became the first to lose its status as a glacier, and a memorial ‘A Letter to the Future’ was erected on the spot.** Whenever Earth’s temperature rises, the white army of the glacier fought with all its might, but it was a long time ago that the huge front lines began to crumble. In the battle of fire and ice, there is only retreat, retreat, retreat, retreat. The Columbia Glacier has retreated as much as four kilometers during the last three years*** Blue blood has flown into the sea, large and small drift ices are floating like the bodies of the dead in the war, □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ The world has already lost many roofs. The Alpine ice cap and the ice cap on Mount Kilimanjaro, all are just around the corner. Store Glacier, Solheim Glacier, Matanuska Glacier, Petermann Glacier, Ok Glacier, Surprise Glacier, Planpincieux Glacier, Upsala Glacier, Mendenhall Glacier, Great Aletsch Glacier, Perito Moreno Glacier, Franz Josef Glacier, Muir Glacier, Athabasca Glacier, Vatna Glacier, Taylor Glacier, Krone Glacier, Briksdal Glacier, Jakobshavn Glacier, Larsen Glacier, Smith Glacier, Pope Glacier, Kohler Glacier, Totten Glacier We came from that vanishing, vanishing chunk of ice. Drifting far away from the ice skirt and living in the city of fire, we may be awakened by the scream of a glacier cracking, then realize later, dreams filled with blue blood are not only dreams but also the funeral for glaciers day after day. * On September 22, 2019, at an altitude of 2,700 m in the Swiss Alps, near the summit of the Mount Pizol, more than 250 local residents and environmentalists held a funeral for the Pizol glacier to raise awareness of the climate crisis. ** A memorial for a glacier in Iceland that disappeared after seven hundred years. *** Words of James Balog, an American photographer, in Jeff Orlowski’s documentary Chasing Ice (2012). Glaciers’ Funeral* (Munhakdongne, 2021) How Far the Rose Came From A bunch of roses just delivered How far the rose came from, Surely these are not the flowers from Kenya? A bundle of roses Left a long trail of carbon footprints, mainly on a highway. Leaving the hands that cut and trimmed the roses, loaded into a refrigerated truck, and on the way here, the flowers have suppressed the desire to bloom again and again and now finally bloom after arriving at the wholesale store People of the city can’t notice the smell of gasoline mixed with the scent of roses. To make a single rose bloom, it requires seven to thirteen liters of water, not a scops owl’s crying since spring, and a lot more gasoline than that. Nature of twenty roses Fragmented scent Flowers withering at a terrifying speed as soon as they bloom A bunch of roses to be thrown into the incinerator, not a compost pile Today, let’s follow the invisible carbon footprint until a bundle of roses bloom and wilt. How Far the Rose Came From (Munhakdongne, 2021) Milk Cows The milk cows inside the barn They’ve never stepped on grass. Instead of wet grass, cows eat, the feed in a cart moving along the rails, and feed the milking robots back and forth. Electronic devices and cameras Read the exact position of the cows and udders. The washing rollers whirr all at once, and the milking robots attach a nipple cup and start milking. The cows, no longer surprised at the scanning of the red 3D laser, rotating like a conveyor belt, let themselves go with the robots. Twenty-four hours a day, all week, without a break for several years, We milk your cows. Yes, we need more robots! To employ these consistent employees, with no strikes, no absences, We get a bank loan, renovate the barn, buy hygiene products and disinfectants, grow more corn for feed, buy more tractors to do that, keep running the milking robots to meet the quota, send cows with problems to a slaughter house, negotiate prices with the executive of a large company, we milk our heads dry grab our lives and squeeze Downing a few glasses of leftover milk, you tap at the calculator, How many more machines should I put in? How many more cows should I dispose of? Milk Cows (Munhakdongne, 2021) A Black Leaf Was a certain disaster foretold by the name of that place? Chernobyl, the black leaf It’s too easy for humans who cannot make a leaf to turn a whole city into a black leaf. Defects in the reactor, a few coincidences or inevitabilites, and the blinding flames, what would happen after that no one could have predicted or imagined. Endless dead bodies near the power plant Two-headed birds Fish without fins Apple trees that no longer bloom Deformed tomatoes and potatoes Bread and salt imbued with death Dogs and cats irradiated Horses drooling and bleeding A man’s whole body covered with ulcers and sores A pregnant woman and a girl who died suddenly But no one now talks about the deaths of 1.5 million people. The inhabitants in a thirty kilometers radius were relocated, But over two million Belarusians still remain in the contaminated areas* Famine continues for several years, a hungry beast grows inside people, one by one, burns everything combustible in the house, eats away even the inedible, and eats off the plague like a sandwich of death. Neither seen nor heard, the radiation that burned the world like a black leaf is so deeply rooted that the particles of fire never disappear even if dirt is removed and removed. Only fear can teach us,** she said, but what did we learn from a few nuclear lessons? Occasionally, tourists come to see the signs of disaster. Grass and trees are abundant among the ruined buildings, and wild animals abound, but no one sits on the grass or picks berries. At the place where the broken statue of Prometheus and the angel of death stand together. * Svetlana Alexievich, Voices from Chernobyl, Dalkey Archive, 2005. ** Ibid. A Black Leaf (Munhakdongne, 2021) Blood and Oil Oil is the devil’s excrement, Juan Pablo Pérez Alfonso once said.* As the Minister of Mines and Hydrocarbons of Venezuela, he led the establishment of OPEC, but knew quite well he knew better than anyone else that oil is a powerful vehicle for corruption and conflict, Rockefeller, to sell more of his own oil, dumped lamps and stoves on the cheap. With 100 million oil barrels sold to the world every day Their greatest fear was a drop in consumption. Drill and drill again! As if the climate crisis isn’t an issue, drilling towers piping into clay and bedrock, data sent to the data center, the Earth torn to shreds and riddled with holes. Is there anybody who hasn’t drunk this juice of death, constantly pumped from the ground? These fossil fuels, arising from dead organisms and ascending through chimneys and exhaust vents, will slaughter the Earth the most quickly. Oil and gas exported with war, might also disrupt their supplies for a long time. In winter, when the price of crude oil and gas skyrockets, I think of a natural gas pipeline passing through the Baltic Sea. They say oil and gas have their own spirit. Instead of teaching the horror of depletion and apocalypse, let them serve a new god, let them know the beauty of the blazing flame. Red as blood redder than blood finally, red with blood, Ye who stain the world, No more bleeding for oil. The blood is red, the oil is black, but blood and oil belong to the same lineage called Porphyrin.** as Russian oil and Ukrainian blood sometimes can be synonyms. * Reza Negarestani, Cyclonopedia, re.press, 2008. ** Ibid. Blood and Oil (The Quarterly Changbi, 2023) Water’s Borderline The water of the world is spinning faster and faster. As fresh water rises north, water in the tropics and the subtropics is drying up. Water in the southern hemisphere is sucked helplessly into the northern hemisphere, When was the last time I saw a raindrop? Refugees moving north and north in search of water though there is no war, Standing in line at the border, they wait only to be sucked into a rubber hose. But the border is as hard as ice. Raindrops do not fall, Only dry stones are stacked like a rugged monument. In the far distance, the glacier collapses helplessly, The water of the world starts spinning faster and faster, the freshwater line is rising north like the waterweed line like the tree line Day after day, a new water line is drawn on the map. Water’s Borderline (Sangjinghag-yeonguso, Aug. 2022) A Spider Starfish Having no eyes, no brain. Seeing with my whole body, Feeling with my whole body, Thinking with my whole body, I notice in the depths of the deep sea, that a predator approaches that light descends or is refracted and that even the shadows move. With my five arms and a thousand limestone lenses I can find food or shelter, I can run away nimbly Even if my arm is ripped off My body is regenerated, exhaling light instead of moans. I am mutilated, therefore I exist. I respond, therefore I exist. I run away, therefore I exist. I move on, therefore I exist. I am regenerated, therefore I exist. I multiply, therefore I exist. I am intertwined, therefore I exist. I communicate, therefore I exist. I connect, therefore I exist. I diffract, therefore I exist. I reflect, therefore I exist. I transform, therefore I exist. Now you need to think with your eyes You must learn how to see with your brain. Like a spider starfish, Like an echinoderm, neither a spider nor a starfish. A Spider Starfish (Position, vol. 38, 2022) A Mushroom at the End of the World Have you ever heard the sound of a spore popping? I was squatting on the veranda, ‘cause I couldn’t sleep late at night. Like a faint firecracker, the spores of mushrooms were bursting from the pot. In the night garden, something amazing was happening. The day after a rain, mushrooms will sprout in the forest, too. A forest of rocks, moss, roots, and hyphae intertwined like a net. Mushrooms love shade. Mushrooms grow feeding on dead trees. Termites that can chew wood but cannot digest it, fungi that help their digestion, in their garden, mushrooms, instead of flowers, will spread their skirts wide. Imagining the underground world I walked along a damp, winding road, into the deeper forest, into the farther and farther forest. In Morocco, Korea, Bhutan, and from a distant place Matsutake is calling me.* Into the forest, where the spore-popping sounds like firecrackers towards the mushroom at the end of the world. * Tsing Anna L., The Mushroom at the End of the World (Princeton University Press, 2015). A Mushroom at the End of the World (Position, vol. 38, 2022) By Ra Heeduk All Poems Translated by Eun-Gwi Chung Korean Works Mentioned: • “Easter Sunday,” “Glaciers’ Funeral,” “How Far the Rose Came From,” “Milk Cows,” “Birds of the Pleistocene,” “A Black Leaf,” Possibilist (Munhakdongne, 2021) 「어떤 부활절」, 「빙하 장례식」, 「장미는얼마나 멀리서 왔는지」, 「젖소들」, 「검은 잎사귀」, 『가능주의자』 (문학동네,2021) • “Blood and Oil,” (The Quarterly Changbi, 2023) 「피와 석유」, (창작과비평 199호, 2023) • “Water’s Borderline,” (Sangjinghag-yeonguso, Aug. 2022) 「물의 국경선」, (상징학연구소 2022년 가을호, 2022) • “A Spider Starfish,” (Position, vol. 38, 2022) 「거미불가사리」, (포지션 38호, 2022) • “A Mushroom at the End of the World,” (Position, vol. 38, 2022) 「세상 끝의 버섯」, (포지션 38호, 2022)

by Ra Heeduk
Two Poems by Kim Un

I Don't Know Where the Leak Has Sprung I opened the bathroom door and you were crying inside. Bent double as you cried sitting on the toilet. Why are you crying, I almost asked. You wouldn’t have answered, anyway. Still, why are you crying, I almost asked and didn’t, again. Because it was useless. Whatever the reason, and whomever the tears were for, a crying person is a crying person. An overflowing person. To ask a question to stop the flow is already too late. Until the crying ceases or the tears are stopped or waiting for the tears to dry, I stare into the bathroom. I stare at you. Thankfully, the bathroom lacks the tiniest window. Nowhere for cries to leak to the outside. No outer wall for tear tracks to stain. A cloud that would’ve been visible had there been a bathroom window passes outside the living room window. Watching it stopped me in my tracks and made me forget you’re crying. How to console you? How to stop the cloud? I am an other. A loving other. A hating other. A stranger other. A cloud flowing whichever way and an other of this morning stopped in his tracks. The single other who would’ve been enough has now stopped the other who would’ve overwhelmed even two. In front of the bathroom, I hold in the cloud. I feel something flowing down like water. I don’t know where the leak has sprung. The Sadness of a Single Cup Thinking of a single cup brings out its sadness. Even a sadness once glimpsed and forgotten. The sadness is held within it. A single cup’s beaded condensation is sadly rounded and flows in an attitude of sadness and becomes the final days of sadness and evaporates and encrusts and the single cup is alone and the single cup is ridiculously a single cup regardless of what it’s made of a single cup’s shape and attitude and temper are held in a pillar of sadness in a well of sadness in the wrong words of sadness in the wrongly named sadness continuing to answer yes yes like an answering machine of sadness as it sits. There is a single cup. There may be two there may be three but the cup is a cup and the sadness is not brought out. Better it’s not brought out almost as the overflowing sadness is poured into one cup then two cups then by the third it is like a bomb mixed with this and that accompanied by dizziness and it wouldn’t be surprising if there was a drop because of this use of a single cup which continues to be sad. A thing that sits for the sake of continuing to be sad. How else would I remain seated when I should’ve fallen long ago. I sit to empty myself. The cup exists to keep pouring into. by Kim Un Translated by Anton Hur

by Kim Un

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Lines

Poetry