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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
Two Poems by Lee Young Ju

Literary Composition Going through, with a person, a tunnel in the night. A person I didn’t know but thought might be my teacher. A person I dragged with me, a person wearing a heavy backpack, our hands cold with sweat. The hike never ends. The person’s heavy, a world shoved into the backpack is hot. A burning smell from somewhere. I see my teacher for the first time. A shining face, marred, must mean we’re buddies. How we, while, by, breaking, love; how we speak. A person litters pieces of themselves towards me, though I don’t have a world to call my teacher anymore. Shrapnel lodged into my waist. Hoping for a good scar. My hands are feeling the air, searching for where the pain starts. A person smiles faintly in the tunnel and shakes my hand, the one they were holding already. Look, they whisper, literature was our mistake, but living beings are complex and we lack the scripts to write them down anyway. There are numerous tunnels on the continent. Going through a tunnel to school day after day has changed my face somehow to a rat’s. A subway train out of commission, a creased plaid shirt, a destroyed chain link fence, a blind abandoned dog, one long hot wire, apparently connected, a notebook whose name has been erased. I still pass through, holding on to the handrail. I pass through the endless space. A person stands by me. Teacher, could it be my continent is the notebook that will soon be burned? Is it the white rat’s fate to crawl all the way while fumbling for the shrapnel that continues to burrow? A person has fallen silent. Lowers their backpack. I stand on the handrail with no one else and stare at the infinite ground. The familiar dark. A dark packed dense. Carefully open the backpack. I came close but managed not to be friends with the person. We aren’t friends but Those that shine in the abyss. In the backpack are white bandages. A Trip to the Grasslands if what I need to prove myself is the strength needed to endure the pain of being whipped I have enough the story of digging up the black mud from the grasslands the story of being buried in a hole in the grasslands you promised you wouldn’t write such poems anymore a white utterance a mutterance no one talks about me I’m happy it’s calm here and your insides are cooking a family can grow or shrink a white animal cries thin and long next to a fire everyone grabs a tong hears it cry tries to get in front shoving shoulders having stopped in my tracks upon witnessing two people being torn apart from love I’m happy people who don’t know each other drink hot-hot tea and try calling someone they don’t know Grandma white leather’s starting to smell good the tent’s burning from within how do I relate to anything from beside a burning storage unit the leather’s being peeled off the grandma who doesn’t know where she’s vacationing you’re pouring blood into a bucket everyone drags other people by the face to eat before they do they fall into the bucket and flap their arms around a family is meant to suffer damage over time you have become a crimson bucket you roll on the ground I’m on a corner of the tent happy to be while my family grew into the thickness of night I slept alone in a barn with my backpack a whipped white animal in the grasslands falls you fall and I see your face and think it might be mine and feel your forehead the sun’s brilliance the whip is dyed gold and the white animal we said we wouldn’t anymore write such poems I had hoped for a warm corner I was there everywhere in my dream the person closest to me picked up a knife and cried stabbed the back of my hand said crying do you think farm animals are food the white animal is next to the storage unit out of breath I said no more poems like this no one speaks no one can speak cry as you might the trip won’t end the grasslands are beyond vast the backpack has been turned inside out has been dug by Lee Young-ju Translated by Jae Kim

by Lee Young Ju
Two Poems by Eins Hwang

My Friend’s Ex-Wife Sometimes I miss my friend’s ex-wife a whole lot. Whose friend are you?! my friend would pout. Friend, I can see you any time at all. Your ex-wife, though, I rarely get to see her now and it’s all your fault! Her signature cutesy hehe still rings in my ears. Her constant, wistful smile is still vivid in my eyes. But I can’t even mention her name or I might become an ex-friend. My friend’s ex-wife, who my friend had loved. She’s been the wife of another for a while now, my friend’s ex-wife. Life and Dog Is that person even allowed to have such a beautiful dog? That person, with their rough, unfortunate face. I doubt they can even feed themself. Oh, what a beautiful dog. Its coat gleams and its gaze is deep. It must be well-bred and well-loved. The Quasimodo-like owner dotes on it, worships it, and it seems to love the owner, the dog, much too beautiful for these tenement streets. So, what, is that person only allowed to have dogs that aren’t beautiful? What, they shouldn’t have any dogs at all? by Eins Hwang Translated by Soeun Seo

by Eins Hwang
Two Poems by An Taewoon

Certain Human Emotions and Instances Thinking back over various days, Over certain human emotions and instances, For Some, these instances and emotions begin to seem strange That day Those two days By chance it’s excitement it’s resolve it’s chance discomfort it’s contradiction it’s seeping in by chance For Some, when your surroundings seem suddenly familiar while going about daily life You might stop to buy blueberries and socks and sundubu on the way home, gazing at the shapes and colors with fresh eyes And then thinking, hm, been using money for so long Money persists, appearing and disappearing, for a long time. A medium, finance. And then thinking, am I like money, given and taken, passing momentarily through some hands, not passing through others but somehow persisting? For Some, which days might come to mind? Reflect Saturate It’s surprise by chance it’s a juncture it’s sorrow by chance it’s exuberance it’s solemnity by chance Some might think of days to come Feel some ambivalence about People whose place of work is the zoo but do their best to take care of everything they can as the humans in that place Take responsibility and contemplate close to nature and send back to nature or remain and spend their time stopping other humans Realizing that wild animals don’t pity themselves That day Those two days Some, how are you? As I walk on the overpass, past the shop, along the floodbank, in the park, through the spaces we’ve made, I realize, hm, so this is the living area of humanity And if I go somewhere else on a day off, in that space there are flowers and grass and leaves and animals walking It seems some animals don’t avoid humans. That feels strange, and there are some animals with jobs And the animals with jobs stare back at the many human lives, then move on through still other humans. In that way, time passes. Amid the many days, Some, are you living well? I mean, I wonder what area you’re wandering What series of emotions and instances your life consists of I am here Saying let us cast a coarse net as flowing pieces, let us be caught in it here, Becoming a distant person and remembering the past, about wind music and spring wind, Rewinding the video of a dead person in the future, I am here Suddenly frightened by human ways of thinking, that eating an animal could give you its power For Some, some things seem to pass by all at once in a flash I sometimes momentarily enact my will, and sometimes step back And become a person who kindles memories Wondering what it means to live a good life as a human To Some, I ask how are you? I am here But what is the feeling of being here? Suddenly it felt strange And I looked around. Goose Bojagi Practice 1. He’s walking. He puts his hand in his pocket and feels the touch of cloth. He realizes it’s a goose bojagi. But that’s for wedding ceremonies—and where’s the goose and gander? Why does he only have the piece of cloth that wraps them? He doubts himself for thinking it’s a goose bojagi. He decides to find the geese. Maybe he’ll get to see some ducks at least. He walks to the streamside. 2. He’s at a traditional wedding. The bride and groom are his friends. He watches the ceremony happily. The geese bearer passes the wooden goose and gander wrapped in the goose bojagi to the groom, and the groom places them on the goose altar. But just as the groom bends to bow before the bride’s parents, he’s suddenly jumped between them and snatched up the wooden geese. He’s thrown off the goose bojagi, and he’s running way with the wood carvings. The bride and groom and all the wedding guests stare after him. That’s when I picked up the goose bojagi. I tie the bojagi around my wrist. 3. You take regular walks at the pond. After observing the limping goose over several days, you decide you’ve got to check on it. You take the goose to the wildlife hospital. It looks like it’s been bit by a turtle. After examining it, you risk surgery. Luckily, the goose’s condition improves. You tuck it in under a blanket. “You’ll be able to fly again tomorrow after a good night’s rest,” you think as you drift off to sleep. 4. As he walks down the street, he discovers a red piece of cloth. He looks it over this way and that. It’s a curious shape. Strange. Something like a stingray kite. Maybe a rhombus. It has two tails attached to one corner. He folds it like a paper airplane. He tries to throw it. It doesn’t fly well. He sits down on a bench and keeps trying. I’m watching him do it, “Stop trying to make it fly. It’s for wrapping things. It’s a goose bojagi. You wrap it around like this.” I hold up my left hand like a beak. I tie the bojagi around my left wrist. He touches my wrist. He tries to send it flying far away. Again. Does it fly? 5. He’d received the goose bojagi as a gift. But what about the geese? The wooden goose and gander? There aren’t any. Just the goose bojagi. He pondered what to do with it. He put it on the desk. He’d have to find something to wrap. What would it go well with? His phone? A mirror? His wallet? A pencil? He tried tying it to various things. He placed them on the windowsill. Interesting. That made it feel like the wind was blowing. 6. I crumpled the goose bojagi, then opened it again. I crumple it and toss it in the air and catch it. I unfold it and toss it. It wraps my face. 7. You roll around in your sleep a lot. 8. You’re walking in the park. You watch as a red cloth comes flying your way. It falls at your feet. Just as you bend to pick it up, someone rushes over. It must be the cloth’s owner. You stop. You wait for his reaction. But a few moments pass without any sign from him. You look away and pick up the cloth. You gaze intently at it. While you observe the goose bojagi’s shape, he snaps a picture of you. Then he leaves. 9. He coddles the goose bojagi. Who knows where he got it, but he’s holding it in his hands. He and the goose bojagi are in the tub. They relax together and soak in the warm water. He dunks the goose bojagi in the water and floats it on the surface. Hahaha—he’s putting the goose bojagi around his neck and smiling. by An Taewoon Translated by Seth Chandler

by An Taewoon

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