Dandelions of Hope - Park Soo-jin

Amidst concrete walls and barbed wires
Dandelions bloom, defying despair

Tongue - Lee Jang-wook

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.

That World of Rapture - Kim Su-yeong

Even at the sound of the song
Of the flying creatures that pass over the roof where l live
I try not to be enraptured.

Winter barley - Kim Su-yeong

My body hurts

So I stagger in the sun.

My body hurts

So I stagger in the sun.

Black Port - Ch'on Yang-Hui

The tavern's red lamp bobs hoarse as if damp

and under the breakwater waves whimper all day long.

Because of the ever-changing waterways, or because of people,

the road that curves toward the port touches the village.

Sleeping on the Street - Yi Byeong-Ryul

Removing your clothes like old newsprint

I lay you down raw on a damp mattress and look down on you.

The Crying Game - Tanya Ko Hong

One November morning outside Saratoga Springs

over coffee at the Red Roof Inn you say

We’re leaving for Florida

No Need to Savor Youth - Na Hyeseok

Her flesh is soft, soft

her skin radiant

her hair silky black

her eyes sparkling, sparkling

In the Field Filling Up with Snow - Seo Jeong-ju

It’s   all   right,

It’s   all   right,

It’s   all   right,

It’s   all   right–

Mother - Ki Hyung-do

Mother

Is not coming home. She left

for the market, carrying on her head thirty 

stems of young radish to sell. She’s not

coming home. The sun has long

Set. I sit in the room like

A cold ball of uneaten rice in a bowl.

Flower snake - So Chong-Ju

A back road pungent with musk and mint.
So beautiful, that snake. . .
What huge griefs brought you to birth?
Such a repulsive body!

Those Who I Love - Chung Ho-seung

I do not love those who do not have their shades.
I do not love those who do not love their shades.

Mud Flats - Kim Soo-Bok

She lies there with her hugely pregnant body.
At dawn a ship leaves, cutting through her stomach.
As it emerges from her body, headed for the sea,

When someone tells you “you look smart” - Jiwon Lee

When someone tells you
You look smart,
What does it mean?

Missing - Lee Jang-wook

I was gradually delivered to you.
I was born outside of myself.

Hummingbird - Yearn Hong Choi

1
A tiny bird’s long beak is
penetrating into the nectar of an oasis tree’s flower
on the New Mexico desert.

Meditation on Ginkgo Nuts Left by My Father - Lee Gil-Won

When it reached the sea,
The river quieted for the first time,
After sending up clouds of spray, shaking the rocks,
And stirring up muddy water from time to time.

Moon - Bak Cheol

Lame Geum-taek
bought a soccer ball two weeks ago.
Three months before, seeing the artificial lawn of the mini-soccer-ground
newly installed in the neighborhood park
he had twisted his head upward, saying: Neat, Neat,
as if inspecting a newly-trimmed grave mound.

I Go Walking into a Spring-Tree - Kim Su-Bok

Constantly inclined to start talking to anyone,
sitting idly in a room with the light out,

Pine Tree - Kim Ki-Taek

Even pine needles are broad, in their earliest stages.
Their present form, now sharpened and firmed,
Traces of the passing chill, creating openings between the leaves, thin slicing forks.
Traces of cold blood passing through reptiles' veins.