게처럼 꽉 물고

게처럼 꽉 물고
놓지 않으려는 마음을
게 발처럼 뚝뚝 끊어 버리고
마음 없이 살고 싶다

조용히 방금 스쳐간
구름보다도 조용히
마음 비우고가 아니라
그냥 마음 없이 살고 싶다
저물녘 마음속 흐르던 강물들
서로 엃겨 온 길
갈 길 잃고 헤맬 때
어떤 강물은 가슴 답답해
둔치에 기어 올랐다가
할 수 없이 흘러내린다
그 흘러 내린 자리를
마음 사라진 자리로 삼고 싶다
내림 줄 쳐진 시간 본 적이 있는가?

- 황동규

自殺

I wanted to tell you
Today that

I will not
I will not sleep

to your breathing today.

Instead
I will be flailing
limbs
Un-wanting
Dismantling
Body

Shattered
Dangled
Cracked

Holes
in place

for your exit.

I'm no longer
You couldn't be

Home

Armor

I slit
the soft veil of my
thin skin
following the blue lines
now crimson.

Trailing home
to the palm

closed
tightened
fist

I warp
how I remember you.

You

the one who
wears the taste of my
collar bone,
the small of my back,
the taste of
the back of my knees
(now blown)
like yesterday's laundry.

the one who
dabs the scent of my flesh
as unwashed sheets of mornings after
drained of sweat nothings.

Once, you held my palm to your lips
tasting my subtle singularity
hardening to my warmth

Rivers rose
rushing
following
the blue-hue veins back
the hardened, criminal walls of this heart.

Stealing Bases

In the morning mess
I find you waiting

The sky thick with wet

Clouds
Unable to
Hold it all in

You on your dark
Brooding cloud
Offer to take me

To places I need to be

I rage against you
For I cannot abide by
Such laws of (your)confusion

Bound by floods,
Diminished shorelines

You stand where if you wait long enough
The tides will pull you in

(Everyone's bound to be
Pulled in
by the tow)

So no.

I'm waiting for the one
Who remains steady
Just a soft rocking over my waves

He'll anchor
Wait
Then
Sail us both back
To(for) shore.

Thanksgiving

Isolation harvest
solace in silence.
Cars filled
with space
Empty of drivers
A small child
strapped into
the passenger’s seat.

I’m spacing out my deadlines
toward you.

We are sparse
far and close;

a circle
surrounds our unyielding arms
our distance,
concentric.

The chain gang
hammer out the dents of our past.

You rest as I
peace your
noise,

the pieces,
shatter-proof glass shards
though you’re
an ax.

You’d surely
leave a mark.

(Leave a mark.
I can take it.)
I’ll finger the wound
and come to you
each day
for more.

Coup de Grace

Bodies made solid by weights succumb
to illness. Years of focused practice

lost in that afternoon of neglect.
What we are felt after the fact--

walls with his name graffitied on them,
late night actors who could've been

his double. Dolls left in a drawer
unopened for years like those boxes

of books in the attic that became
our inheritance. The things loved least

loved at last. Weather vanes renewed
by wind. But the former tenants are gone.

Our words a bridge. Just as my kiss
once sealed the tomb of his empty mouth.

Timothy Liu

A Poem from Dana

The Saddest Poem

I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.

Write, for instance: "The night is full of stars,
and the stars, blue, shiver in the distance."

The night wind whirls in the sky and sings.

I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.

On a night like this, I held her in my arms
As time takes us to another dimension
I kissed her lips as though it would be my last
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me

I cannot define or describe true love
But I know it because I felt it
Searching for the truth, I erased the blur
She loved me, and sometimes I loved her

On a night like this, she smiled and laughed
As I performed my idiotic dance craft
Two separate souls became one
On a night like this…

I had fallen in love time and time again
Always with the same person
The same night each other were discovered
We who were, we are now no longer

I no longer love her, but how much I loved her
My voice searched the wind to touch her ear
On a night like this, she’s held in the arms
In the arms of someone else’s

She’d now made true someone’s wishes
As she once belonged to my own kisses
I no longer love her, but perhaps I still love her
because on a night like this, next to me she lied

On a night like this, I still miss her voice
I still miss her touch, on a night like this
Although this may be the last pain she causes me
And this may be the last poem I write for her

Pablo Neruda