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Six Poems from Kim So Yeon's Mathematician's Morning (2013)
"Really Really Nice"
Suddenly I sang a song loudlyLike an old car running out of fuel.
You continued the next line loudlyOur stride must have looked like marching.
When two sing the same songtheir mouths get the same shape,at the same timeat the same street.
Or turning the corner,they can say the same thing at the same time"Wow, it's a full moon!"stuff like that.
They share the same deception thattheir dream will not be refractedeven if they turn the corner. [End Page 147] Or you can put gloves ona snowman sweating excessivelylike you put a flower in an armored vehicle.
Streetlights are outOur shadows fade away.After we turn that corner, let's be ghosts.Like a lizard crawls with a flower in its mouthout of a garbage can leaning against the wall.
We promise to believe only in hidden things,like a corpse kept behind the stageWe become each other's back.It was really really nice. [End Page 148]
A Battlefield
From the knees of lovers who went through every possible fight drifts an indefinable fishy smell, the smell of a beast no one should know about. About to say I'm scared, she ends up saying I'm fine. When they mix up rice together, crashing spoons, their days of the past are mixed in red. Each other's future sharply shines at each other's nape like a spearhead. About to say it's perilous, she ends up saying it's precious. When one becomes shabby to the other, the two sluggishly change their bodies and pass the heavy afternoon. In the eyes of lovers who shared every possible confession, indefinable affliction is inscribed one by one. Reflecting the affliction that nobody should know about as fascination, each other's eyes are suffering, or scenery. About to say, you're becoming my one and only nightmare, she instead rises to do the dishes. A sperm whale floats out of the tap water. Dipping their fingertips in the deep sea, she thinks about red blood confined to blue veins, thinks about being dissolved and being dyed. The evening gets splattered. In the room of the lovers who completed every possible love, unknown plants grow to touch the ceiling, giving off an indefinable murky fragrance. From the enormous fruits nobody should know about, pus-like juice drips down. About to say Oh my God, she ends up saying Lovely. [End Page 149]
Dawn
A scary beast is walking. A scary forest hiding a scary beast is walking. Shrieks of scary birds concealing the roars of a scaryforest are spreading.
From there, the sun sluggishly is rising up.Needle-leaves lose the chill air and grow pointier.
How will the screams grow sharper?Right before the round bubble burst, I heard a scream.I wish this scream could eat into the city.
Words that were so overused walk toward failure.It seems the time to shut up has already passed.
Over the forest's scars, toes grow like mushrooms. Somewhat similarly to the screams. The sun arrives before the moon disappears. As if they must stick together while it is still possible to do that.
The tree walks on its roots and stands in front of me.
It's scarier than a scary beast.Scary things always use their feet first. Feet are scary.Feet know only of fatigue and can never be discouraged. [End Page 150]
If the Future Spills Down
I want to become a faraway place.
Like a child with one ear pressed to the railway tracklistening to the sound of a faraway place.
What should I do to become a place farther away?In my dream I could become even a child.I could dream a nightmare.
Becoming a child whose body keeps shaking like a compass needleI get afraid I may have done something wrong.Becoming a child whose body keeps fluttering like a flagI get afraid I may have fallen into a silly love.
With the heart of the first-born pupwho lived for just ten daysWith the heart of a child on her way to make a graveholding its still warm body in her arms
I will wake up from my dream.
I would become a child who comes to knowthat her mom who spanked her shoutingDon't cry, don't cry,was in fact feeling like crying herself.
In such moments, children come hereto wave their hands at strangers. [End Page 151] In a dream it would be a brief send-off,Unfortunately this is not a dream so they
Become adults in that spot, waiting for somebody.In the end, having forgotten what they were waiting for
With the heart of a child tanned darkWho waved at a train passing by
Now I want to become a train passing by.
I want to know that children waving for no reasonstill exist everywhere. [End Page 152]
Blanket's Insomnia
You look likesomeone who falls asleep to put his blanket to sleep
Nestled in your armsthe green blanket tosses and turns little by little.
Like someonetaking the poison from things they used to holdand moving it into their own body,you make the face of someone thinking of a far distant place.
Instead of straightening out your tail or your headlike a poisonous insectyou always raise the corners of your mouth
Like someone putting a blanket to restyour sleep is round.Big and small circles of sleepbubble up in your perimeter like soap bubbles.
You lie on your sidefallen in deep sleepwith two hands pressed together like one in prayerPlease, I beg you.
This is not a dreamWhen not speaking, it seems to be the last confession you ever left behindand so I take it to be a request. [End Page 153] Blanket lies down like the Reclining Buddha at the Emerald TempleIt touches your skin.Your skin is the first to wake from light sleep. [End Page 154]
Area Mangwon-dong
Now a day is walking in a hunched back,folding its hands behind like an old manpicking up the used cardboard boxes.
I picked up a shiny pebble.Holding firmly the complete warmthinside a complete round in my hand,
I walked through the alley of ten years ago.The same persimmon trees, the same bathhouse building, the same playground,and the same broken toys.
I picked up a dollAnd gently stroked its angelic facethat looks like a devil with one eyeball missing.
I need a piece of news,news saying nothing has happened.
Too many leaves were falling,but the cry for their liveswas not heard.Like the deaf sign language,leaves are falling down all day long.
It needs to be more darkenedFor me to see all the soft lightsFor me to find a way to my old housewith more soft lights. [End Page 155] Though nothing has arrived yet,I stop praying on the spot where I stand,as if meeting a person I've waited for.
Gleaning a day ten years ago, I put it in my pocket.The night has come back safe. [End Page 156]
Kim So Yeon was born in Kyungju, South Korea. She studied Korean literature at the Catholic University of Korea, where she also earned her master’s degree. She has taught poetry at the Seoul Institute of the Arts, and at Korea National University of Arts, where a number of her students have gone on to become professional poets. She was a part of a literary circle called “21st-century Outlook,” and has four poetry collections: Pushed to the Limit (1996), Exhaustion of Light Pulls the Night (2006), Bones Called Tears (2009), Mathematician’s Morning (2013), and To i (2018). Her essay collections, Dictionary of the Mind (2008), The World of Siot (2012), and There Is No Love in Love (2019), also gained wider recognition. Kim won the tenth Nojak Literature Prize in 2010, the fifty-seventh Hyundae Literary Award in 2011, and the twelfth Yi Yuksa Poetry Award in 2015.
Chung Eun-Gwi was born in Kyungju, South Korea. After earning a PhD at SUNY Buffalo, she has taught modern poetry and translation in Korea. Currently, she is Professor of the Department of English Literature and Culture at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies in Seoul. She translates poetry into both Korean and English, and her publications include articles, translations, poems, and reviews in various journals including World Literature Today, Cordite, and Azalea. Her recent publications are Bari's Love Song (2019), Ah, Mouthless Things (2017), and Fifteen Seconds Without Sorrow (2016).
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