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