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Spotlight On Three Poets: Yoon Zelim, Heo Yeon, Lee Jangwook scrap
by Yoon Zelim
November 14, 2014
Author Bio 작가 소개
Yoon Zelim
Snow Falls on the Subway
- Yoon Zelim
To cross the river
the subway rises above ground
An ajumma1 sits silently
nudging her companion’s side to say
the snow is falling
An old man in the next seat shakes his grandson
whose eyes are half closed
and points outside the window with a part of his finger missing
the snow is falling
A young man and woman who have been standing sullenly
turn to look at each other
the snow is falling
A red-haired girl who sits reading a comic book
swiftly pulls out her cell phone
the snow is falling
Snow is falling on the Han River2
Snow is falling on the subway
All are grateful
when the subway comes above ground momentarily
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1 A common Korean term for a middle-aged married woman
2 A river that runs through Seoul
* Translated by Chae-Pyong Song and Anne Rashid.
The Road to the Sana Temple
- Yoon Zelim
Passing an old man thrashing sesame plants,
passing a pregnant woman
who stands with an umbrella for a parasol
watching young maple foliage on a cliff,
passing a middle-aged man
who sits in a taxi with the off-duty sign on
waiting for his wife who is inside the mobile laboratory,
passing the lovers
who crouch on the stepping stones--
under the late autumn sunlight, the trout and salmon weave giddy patterns;
they point at them again and again,
saying the water is so clear, the fish are so many
Passing the passing spring water,
passing the passing trees,
passing the passing rain—
the people of the river village;
*Translated by Chae-Pyong Song and Anne Rashid.
The One Inside Was Already Outside
- Heo Yeon
The rumor that firelight burns for someone is a joke by childish troubadors.
Firelight simply burns for itself.
Has firelight ever belonged to me?
Have I ever been firelight?
The fact that someone else is not going to die in place of me,
is not going to take the underpass in place of me
not going to linger in the corridors of a university hospital
not going to ruffle through the pages of magazines,
there are times when that fact is cooler than an early morning in winter.
The so-called solitude bestowed on me after fighting with gravity once I am upright,
there are times when that is really fortunate.
There is no lie more stupid than to say that you have combined flesh.
That stuff does not combine.
The one inside was already the one outside
and is the one who will go outside again.
Did I ever see a strong ray of light make a detour round anything?
Did I ever see anything left behind?
Has rain ever once addressed a single word to me?
Ever forgiven me?
It’s because there is always only me in this breathtakingly beautiful world
that I feel dizzy like this.
* Translated by Brother Anthony of Taizé.
A Bad Boy Is Standing
- Heo Yeon
There are moments for forgetting how time is flowing by. Partly because living has no particular value, but mainly because the bits of life’s broken glass always stay lying pathetically in one place, like debris. Glittering fiercely.
I too find it hard to believe, but I used to forget I was hungry while I wrote a couple of poems. That’s how things were, then. The poems smashed and glittered as though I was running off with a woman who was my social superior, and I reckoned that my situation was better than any neck tie-wearing brigade or gang of thieves. So I was lonely.
Blue—the color that embellished me, sometimes sadly, sometimes squalidly. Nowadays I no longer have that color, that once made me a boy, made me a poet, and made me roam back-alleys. Made me sorry, too.
I made myself. Making myself was an easier matter than slicing and biting an apple. Still, I shall live on as a blue memory. Being able to be young despite being old. Living as a bit of blue glass.
Like some kind of law, a boy is standing.
A bad boy is standing.
* Translated by Brother Anthony of Taizé.
Tongue
- Lee Jangwook
Put out your tongue.
I’ll give you a lump of sugar.
Every time something reaches your soft stomach from enamel teeth
a process of transformation is required
in order to maximize its nutritional value,
to make everything one.
Standing before a man selling ice-cream,
childrens’ tongues burn coldly
and everyone feels afraid
if they stop to wonder
why animals’ teeth are so hard.
On the tongue
lozenges become round,
the tooth you once loved suddenly adopts an unfamiliar expression,
laughs, weeps, the sun sets.
Between all yesterday’s things
and all today’s things,
things sweet and fearful
are born on the tongue.
Sugar lumps.
Blazing sugar lumps.
Now put out your long tongue,
its roots extending down through your body,
red, moist,
your tongue.
* Translated by Brother Anthony of Taizé.
Torso
- Lee Jangwook
Sometimes I have no head.
Without habits
and without any cold-blooded expression,
I keep warming toward people.
Though I cut off my arms
and cut of my head,
my two feet wait for the bus,
my two hands greet people joyfully,
my lips go on muttering on their own.
In three seconds I forget my cut-off fingernails,
it takes three weeks to install a habit in my body,
but putting on a really cold-blooded expression
requires a whole lifetime.
As my self-portrait for today,
matching the back view of my torso,
I would like to have holy lips
that ever speak contradictions,
but that can only be once my whole body has vanished,
and since today there are still things sprouting out of my body,
since today there are still things I want to cut off,
I continue, without even lips to mutter with,
with my whole body . . .
* Translated by Brother Anthony of Taizé
Writer 필자 소개
Yoon Zelim
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