56th Modern Korean Literature Translation Awards Poetry Grand Prize: Calling 1
Cover of Pak Seo-won's poetry collection, which includes "Calling 1" / Courtesy of Choicheuks Publishing
Written by Pak Seo-won
Translated by Sooj Heo
Calling 1
I love. I love wild honey and locusts at my waist, flesh prepared for lust. Searing the back of my hand with a cigarette, growing fuller each time I sin, like bamboo, plunging my face into the pale green flame, weeping, I love. I love, like a little bird dead in a back alley, like a heaven-cursed ox wagging its last tail, in a world spun through eons, throwing a stone, stepping from stone to stone, from star to star, from moon to moon, barefoot, like a cart in the winter fields, circling your house once, circling your garden once, circling your eyes and circling your blood all night, flesh ready to be cursed. Called by god, getting lighter as my fingernails and toenails turn brown, becoming a downy rabbit, I love. I love, for a thousand years and ten thousand years, in a damned, damned wedding gown, blowing a horn, yes, bring greater pain. The more precarious I am, the happier I get, the more I writhe, the more beautiful I become, so free, the root of shame, I, with a whip and a pair of leather shoes at my waist, still driving the carriage of mad horses through the jungle, still,
Yes, bring greater pain. My love
Calling 2
When you hold out your hand, even to the mudflat a flock of doves
comes, coo coo coo
When you sweep the hem of your robe, storm clouds
roll ecstatic down my crooked spine
When you call, I become all the blades of grass in the fields
food for insects
my eyeballs a meal for hungry crows
my death known to no one
I become the gatekeeper at a temple of bones
and go among the droplets beaded everywhere on spiderwebs
Did you see me turn silver lantern gold lantern flower lantern
with a little pack donkey jingle jingle jingle
I pass through the city gate to the people
Everyone, receive blessings. Blessings
What frozen breath calls me
Everyone, receive fortune. Fortune
What desperate voice welcomes me
Though you are near, I have nothing more to give
I can't even be the broken ice, where do I
go, even my soul becomes a rag and
sings and echoes ridge over ridge to the far hills
oak trees dogwoods convulse aahhhh
aahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh the hidden
silk thread unravels, spinning wheels whirr in every village
wives hum along
drunk children beat the drums
the church tower, silver bell gold bell flower bell peal all night
the old stable, jack donkeys bear young
soldiers return from the battlefield
Everyone, dance the dance of blessing. Dance of blessing
What bone-aching soul calls me again
Everyone, dance the dance of eternity. Dance of eternity
What forsaken soul loves me again
When you blink once by my side,
Fasting Prayer
1
That summer was pale
On the street full of branches laden with bent leaves
children swarmed, though born, they did not grow
Though I flogged myself many times to start something new, the day’s color vanishes as noon deepens, what bone aching scent blows in from somewhere, I could not shed a single drop of blood
2
That summer even the monsoon passed me by
under the firmness of the sun floating like a white saucer
Unable to eat or excrete, in a small room smelling of mothballs, only the
loathsome hymn roused me, growling at me to live and live
Meanwhile, the devil that had been building its nest inside me kept fainting at
the hymn's keen sting
Mother, mother, I think my skin is peeling
That summer Mother didn’t cry, Mother, this is a gamble, I have to plant trees
every day, I have to study, my child, do such things later, right now you must drive
out the evil spirits
That summer, my whole body twisted into a flower-purple pretzel, Punishment O punishment, I asked again and again
Lord, who is everywhere and nowhere