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  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

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  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

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  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

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  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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  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

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  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

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  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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  Two Poems by Ahn Miok

  Last of the Summer It isn’t that I can’t write It’s like when I try to look at something I can’t see it the way I want Like someone who left their two eyes in zero gravity Someone who left behind their two hands and feet If I say I am that someone If I say I’m going through a period of not writing Would you understand? Summer, returning without fail Even more lush than before Just as I thought it was over. Someone vowing not to say anything at all Because they can’t speak of unhappiness or pain without smiling. In the half-empty water bottle, there were a bird’s melted wings. With each step, I crushed summer fruits underfoot. Since when has the word fruit Been so packed with thorns? A warm, friendly face Melting away Trampled upon The last one of the year. I want to give someone who’s crying a gift of even more tears, So many they can’t tell which are their own. Midday Diary It’s supposed to be the rainy season, but it wasn’t raining. I split an apricot with my child. The apricot was hard and tasteless. I tried to be lighter. My child came home from daycare, and we colored together. My child only wanted to color with the white colored pencil. I said choose a different color, white won’t show up. But my child said no, I want to use white. At the playground, my child called out the names of friends. My child saw a small bird and asked where the big bird went. In the big planter out in the street, there were Tomato vines fruiting in clusters. They looked like trees. My face was evaporating Rising toward the clouds. When we heard a motorbike passing outside the window Or the sound of a bird singing on a branch, I asked what’s that sound, but my child knew them all. There was white rain. There was a white puddle. Looking closely at the sketchbook I could see the picture. The rain touches the ground, trying to be lighter all at once.     by Ahn Miok Translatedby Seth Chandler 

  by Ahn Miok

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  Two Poems by Jin Eun-young

  Pity about That Principle of Sufficient Reason Without reason my heart – a red swimming tube adrift in the middle of the sea  Without reason I waited for you at the overpass, in front of the pharmacy, under the chariot Without reason I secretly hated a bunch of people Without reason the wind blows a paper leaf toward me Reasonless like the traveler’s bag with twelve paths in it, the shoes in the muck Without reason the balloon wants to fly clinging to the line of a sentence Without reason the rich get rich, the machines churn, spinning their limbs Without reason the concrete ceilings crumble like freshly baked pie  Without reason the Children’s Day cotton candy is wet with redness Reasonless the sadness followed them babbling like a stream      The children and the elderly, the women and the men, the dogs and cats of all colors  Without reason the coloring practice that tries not go outside the lines of nothingness Without reason I wanted to disappear in style Without reason I was reborn in the mouth of sufficient reason Without reason all the reasons that arrive too late at each place      shine in the garden deep in the night while everyone sleeps, like the thorns on a glow-in-the-dark rose       without reason –  Freedom to Write No places in the universe are the same The heart – a fruit that turns a different color each day The place we surrendered each other Try using the blue scissors, when you cut paper It feels good I put brackets around the questions that are wrong [Let’s keep the false answers as friendship] Husserl said, Epoche It’s okay to not know, you glue it together, you can cut it apart You stand there holding the empty bag What’s not in here that it’s this heavy [Messily] glue it together [Crookedly] you can cut it [As is] it stays – like a tissue bloodied     by Jin Eun-young Translatedby Hedgie Choi 

  by Jin Eun-young

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  Two Poems by Baek Eunsun

  Island of Infinite Sky     I want to cover myself in blue. The birds are far. Black plastic bag on the street. Why are beaks sharp. Blue falls.      You can’t talk of blue anymore and the more you think of blue the more you’re pushed outside of blue. Like ice in water. The shadow nearing. The bird that doesn’t come. The sharpness fallinga way.   Blue, which you’ve never even seen. Stacked talons and air. The wings of the pavement lying flat are pretty.   Cold pan, tomatoes leaned over. Expressions on faces trip and fall. From alleys from roofs from hills. Like a pool. The angles of birds whose four corners are alike. Habits, you fold up thrice and put in thesink.   Erased, the birds of morning.   Bird Bird Bird                              Bird Bird                    Bird Bird   Today’s weather. Your habits of speech. In the end, blue. In the end, blue once more. Because you were away from blue for so long, you can’t have any islands besides blue. Blueless birds with blue.   In the end, all this is blue. So you say. With your sharp mouth, birdlike.       Night of Cherry Blossoms   Teacher, the winter has gone already, and spring has come. Light shines brightest in the moment of its turning over – I’m finally beginning to see that. There have been a few tests, but I’ve gotten used to living in Japan now, I’m pulling my weight.   The cherry blossom is pushing forth its round bud. The air throbs all over. I think I may witness the moment the petals open, a first. A warm breeze blows against me while I walk the river, but I feel a chill deeper than I’ve ever felt before.   I’ve stopped writing poems. Feels like a dream, those days when I sat at a desk, writing and erasing one sentence over and over until the day broke. In those days, I had gone and buried my two hands deep in the woods and I couldn’t hold anything until new hands sprouted.   You could say I got a poem for each time I gave up my hands. Sometimes, it itched and ached. All I could do was stay stuck in the dark like an incense stick, smoldering away. Thought spun like a crazed circle, accelerating infinitely.   Teacher, you always said that everything was in one place. I hoped to understand what that meant someday. Since the bewitched and possessed are bound to end up hunch backed.   I’m keeping a bird in the place where my heart once was. It flew in at a sleepy hour and built its nest there, wouldn’t leave, and I tried, for a while, to run it out, but then gave up. I gave it a name and it became my only family in this foreign place.   That the very beautiful sometimes approaches not life, but death – if I could live without imagining such athing, might I have changed? That because of its chill, spring shines likeglass.   Translatedby Hedgie Choi

  by Baek Eunsun

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  Two Poems by You Hee-kyoung

  Story   - What fell was a coin. What fell clashed into the sound of a coin, clattered along the narrow sound, and after wobbling round and round, gently, at last, stopped.     The subject of his inquiry was the heads or tails of a coin. He would toss the coin from anywhere, and wherever he was, the sound of a falling coin continued without end. Weal. Woe. Happiness. Sadness. Memory. Oblivion. Life. Death. The sequence of events was too haphazard to find a pattern. He recorded this fact. He wanted to understand. However, every inquiry in the world ends in the same murmurs. What is knowing. The lull of the future. The suspension of possibility. The insight from out of the blue. At last, he decides to betray the judgment of the coin. Because he has grown weary. From inside a dark room, he tossed the last coin of his life. As the universe spins, this is how it is. Weal. Death. Happiness. Oblivion. Woe. Happiness. Life. Sadness. The disorderly origins of binary opposition. A choice like this defers conclusion. Because from within this dark room, the coin is nowhere to be seen. In search of the coin, he crawls into every nook and corner, toward the darker depths of the room. By the time the landlord unlocked the door with a key, there was no one in the room. His furnishings went toward his overdue rent. When the last of the furniture was moved out, the coin on the floor became the lot of the movers.         Story   - Winter night rabbit worries.     At that moment, I looked outside the window. And under a streetlamp, a dime a dozen and so dim, bordering on darkness as if better suited for startling someone, there was a small and white object. I thought the object to be arabbit. It was a rabbit and became even more still a rabbit, with long ears and red eyes, hop-hopping around. It was that kind of rabbit, I’m certain of this. Really, a rabbit under a streetlamp. In a fit of excitement I shouted, Everyone, it’s a rabbit—there’s a rabbit over there. But not only was no one around, the rabbit didn’t budge. Unable to tear my gaze from the rabbit, I began to grow suspicious that this rabbit that didn’t try to hide its long ears, or blink its red eyes, or hop-hop away was perhaps a white pebble or a discarded bread bag. A small, white rock with long ears and red eyes. A breadbag that hop-hops away to disappear somewhere. The form of the rabbit with the eyes of a white pebble and the long ears of a bread bag sits still under the streetlamp, and so I become filled with doubt—it can’t not be a rabbit, it couldn’t possibly be a rabbit, could it—until at last—Everyone, that isn’t a rabbit, that’s no rabbit. But there’s no one around, and now it grows dark outside the window. I was so torn between the rabbit and the not-rabbit—I had even resolved to no longer gaze out the window. But still, on bitter winter nights, when a stubborn wind visits to rattle the windows and you’re too chilled to the bone to fall asleep, when a night like this visits, I can’t help but worry about the rabbit—if it’s too cold outside, if the rabbit is safe and sound—I get the urge to glance out the window.       Translatedby Stine An

  by You Hee-kyoung

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  Ten Poems by Lee Sumyeong

  Herons Play the Heron Game Heron is jump-rope. Heron is pit. Heron is throat. Heron is kidnapping.   A heron plays the heron game.   The tables are one. The tables are two. The tables are three. The tables are placed in the woods.   Hand raised, The woods depart. The tables are none.   The heron alights on the table. The table is walking around as the herondives onto it.   The table collapses. The woods depart.   The herons are one. The herons are two. The herons are three. The herons are none.   The herons play the heron game in thewoods.   Herons Play the Heron Game (Segyesa, 1998)   Teeth Dance   Whenever he got home, his teeth fell out. He put the teeth in a cup in the bathroom and smiled a toothless smile in themirror. Every morning, he put his teeth back in place one by one beforeleaving. One night, after he came home from an exhausting day, he was awoken from his sleep by a strange sound coming from thebathroom. When he went to see what it was, the teeth were out of their cup andclick-clacking against each other in a big dance. “That looks fun! Can I join?” he asked, and one tooth replied, “Come on in!” When he danced, the teeth all went right back into the cup. He went around with a backpack full of items for sale. He worked very hard, but few people wanted any of his items, and the backpack was as heavy at night as in the morning. When he died, his backpack and the items inside ended up all over the place, but the teeth in the bathroom were buried with him. Every night, he danced with the teeth.   A Cat Watching a Video of a Cat (Moonji, 2004)     The Left Rain Falls, the Right Rain Doesn’t   When I walk with your hand in mine, The left rain falls, the right rain doesn’t   We always have too many hands, I suddenly remember the moment my hand was divided into two.   The moment the invisible scissors fell.   Awakening footsteps What’s inside our footsteps? What’s standing against our footsteps?   We always have too many rains, The left rain falls, the right rain doesn’t.   When I walk with your hand in mine, Our bodies leave us. Our bodies, watching us.   Our buttons, fallen off and wandering from us. Into the buttons’ many   Buttonholes   The left rain falls, the right raindoesn’t.   Always Too Much Rain (Moonji, 2011)     Tree’s Rotation   Like a captive stone I had no opinion.   The tree curves and bends. This is a part of its rotation But the arc it traces,   Long on a trajectory of desertion, Does not return.   Like a captive eraser   Rubbing away the coiled voice, The body closes down,   A lump scattered all over the place, alump I push forward and put into action.   One day, I was one with mystone-throwing. I was within the stones I threw.   Always Too Much Rain (Moonji, 2011)     Ediya Coffee   Who knows what time it was. From here on I’ll have to walk, but The road is a mess. I turned my head. A man in a white shirt, out  in front of Ediya Coffee, Do you hear me? Do you hear what I’m saying? He was shouting into his phone. His face was a contorted mess. I could hear him, I could hear him saying, You messed with the wrong guy. I’ll have to walk from here, but the bugs Made a mess of the street lights. A drunk old woman was sitting on the ground, Telling someone to bring more alcohol. It’s true, she said. Hurry up and get over here, she said. Looks like no more walking for today, I whistled. I’ll have to walk from here, but Who knows what time it was. It’s not true, the woman said again. Everyone bounced out of Death Once more And started pummeling death with whatever they could find. The bundles I spent all night packing are a mess Scattered scraps of cloth wandering about, what a mess, I sighed And started neatly folding the shirts that were left.   Distribution Warehouse (Moonji, 2018)     City Gas   We took a walk through the rotten public square   Rotten leaves, rotten apples rolling about   I don’t know how to play games. You have to learn how to tap the screen, you say. I have to learn. How to tap and keep tapping, how to do the new attack. Okay, I’m ready.   Take off the gloves, the white gloves, put them away, put those hands away. I have to learn.   A person lays newspaper on the ground and lies down. Lies under the newspaper. A few pages tumble away, rolling over around manhole cover.   The manhole cover reads City Gas. No one ever opens it.   There is gas. Gas is available to us. Gas has no color, no smell, no weight. Gas makes no sound, it’s invisible. But gas is soft, and gas is mild, and gas flows to us subtly and gently, and gas caresses us, and our thoughts are filled with gas. The city gas supply expanded nationwide. So   There’s no need for walks. There’s no point in watching the sun set on our walk. The sun sinks before we can even say goodbye.   The end of the square is already visible. We follow the path leading straight to the end, the straight path. In the rotten square, You stand, a lackadaisical song flows from my lips.   You raise your straight forehead and say, Okay, please just stop. Stop tapping the screen. Stopusing your rotten fingers. I don’t use them. I don’t learn the new game.     City Gas (Moonji, 2022)     What’s Reflected in the Window   I look at the window. At what’s reflected in the window   If this is all someone’s thought, then I am detained within someone’s thought without even knowing what it is.   If I am someone’s thought, I materialize their thought. I cannot open their thought and get out.   For a moment, I have penetrated their dream.   I stop them.   The curtain is cast away. I am surprised by how close I am. I try to change their thought, but at the same time I am locking their thought away. With my every move   What’s reflected in the window Right now, someone’s thoughts are being torn to pieces.   Always Too Much Rain (Moonji, 2011)   Broken Stairs   I walk up the stairs. Broken stairs   With each step I take The stairs disappear.   Two people are fighting. Throwing stairs at each other   Everyone is fighting.   One person breaks another’s arm And tosses it far away.   The far-flung arm Returns And climbs the stairs.   I keep tumbling Down the stairs Toward myself.   I climb the stairs, But the stairs are not visible.   I sit at the guillotine, But I already have no head.   The Curve of the Red Brick Wall (Minumsa, 2001)     Dissection   No eyes, Only blood. Blood opens its eyes.   Light steps into the dark Dark steps into the light   No mouth, No scream disappearing into the mouth, Only blood. Blood opens its mouth.   No home   The windows all fly away at once, Taking the house with them.   The light within light The dark within dark   No you, Only the blood That designs you.   I wipe away the blood.   There is no blood, and I am drenched in blood.   A Cat Watching a Video of a Cat (Moonji, 2004)   Apple Tree     I eat an apple every morning. Apple piles up in my body. Once I’m completely full of apples, the apples finally die. When the apples die, I look at the apple tree. The apple tree is beautiful.   Sometimes something else happens. The apples I eat flee from me. Apples shining and fragrant like the sun, the sun of today which murdered yesterday. The apples set the apple tree ablaze. The apple tree is beautiful.   Herons Play the Heron Game (Segyesa, 1998)     All poems translated by Seth Chandler Korean Works Mentioned: • Herons Play the Heron Game (Segyesa, 1998)   『왜가리는 왜가리 놀이를 한다』 (세계사, 1998) • A Cat Watching a Video of a Cat (Moonji, 2004)   『고양이 비디오를 보는 고양이』 (문학과지성사, 2004) • Always Too Much Rain (Moonji, 2011)   『언제나 너무 많은 비들』 (문학과지성사, 2011) • Distribution Warehouse (Moonji, 2018)   『물류창고』 (문학과지성사, 2018) • City Gas (Moonji, 2022)   『도시 가스』 (문학과지성사, 2022) • The Curve of the Red Brick Wall (Minumsa, 2001)    『붉은 담장의 커브』 (민음사, 2001)

  by Lee Sumyeong