Rather than open the morning paper smelling of ink
I lightly double-click at dawn onto the odorless Internet
I click the complimentary PDF that shows me
the exact image of a printed newspaper page
The KOSDAQ has no wings now
Total short-term foreign debt of 50,000,000,000 dollars
With every click another page turns
I continuously click the world
With a click one world collapses and
another one rises
The sun floats up It’s had a chip installed too
I look at a 12-page article: “The computer receives
wireless signals from my body in which fiber optics carrying
microelectrodes have been grafted into my arms’ nerve structure.”
then click onto the website of Kevin Warwick who dreams of the first
human robot I am visitor no. 28,412
I have a gene I’d like to insert too
My right hand’s forefinger moving the mouse around
I click onto my e-mail Another message arrived last night
I click the attached file that k of Toronto sent
Red roses drip dew from their petals and
Bloom inside a white picket fence
The flowers k sent haven’t wilted
I immediately click on the dialpad of the free Internet phone
I click k’s number
I become connected across 6589 miles
Maybe I’m also a program that someone’s installed
Moving the slippery mouse around with my right hand I
Click on literature I click on periodicals
I click onto the April issue of the literary webzine Novel
The “Little Prince” on the cover who says “The desert is beautiful
because somewhere it’s hiding a spring.”
constantly changes the scene around him I open the window a bit more and
click onto the Internet bookstore Aladdin I look at the list of new publications
I click to order Paul Auster’s The Music of Chance at 20% off
and René Girard’s Violence and the Sacred at 15% off
Outside my window mundane affairs all bumping around
inside a produce truck in a four-beat rhythm koong-chak koong-chak koong-chaja koongchak
I take up the four-beat bongjak time and
idly looking at the street the truck is on click its map
I follow a route out of Seoul and arrive at
Hwa m Temple The sound of a wooden bell spreads out from the camellias arrayed
in front of the altar Hands together in prayer
I click on a 60%-discount coupon for a condo in the Chiri Mountains
Onto my knees under the printer
a coupon drops down like a camellia petal I
click the I attached to the camellia petal
Zero categories and 177 sites come up
as the search result for the word I
But where am I
Searching for I I click the sites in order
lunacy movie India and I…splIt and
…comIng out…suIng all alone…I again, Inc.…
want to Impart storIes…the earth and I….
Heard the click of the double-humped camel’s hooves
An oasis is nearby Continuing on I click therefore I am

 
Translated by Walter K. Lew