It's with humor that I look back to my days in Korea.  There are days when I look back, much like Lot's wife, to the vast kingdom falling away from me.  And I feel inside me a pillar of strength disintegrate to salt, with the sentiments I had as a child growing up in post-war Busan.  Often times I look back to remember a vital part of my youth that is the foundation for what I am now.  As I relive the city, I start to remember with strange vividness-- the sights, the smells, the air, the touch, the tastes of the wonderful life spent in what America calls "poverty."  The pain of loss, the endurance of toil, in the midst of a throbbing bustling city recovering from devastation, exploitation, bribed politicians, high crime-- was what made me thrive.

I have often time wondered about my life in the idyllic town atmosphere of Busan.  My memories always draw me back to the same place, to the beginning of my existence, and to the beginning of my memories.  It was a bustling town, growing rapidly.  Yet, the world in which I lived, to me was small and quaint, familiar in its vicinity, where farmers and city dwellers lived together in harmony.  As I grew older and travelled further away, my Busan stayed as quaint and dear to me, while the world as I knew it became more unfamiliar in its vastness.   ...

       The Razor's Edge  (after the movie)

Through the silence of the Souls,
Through the deep meditation of my Heart,
I find through this isolation
The sweet solace of escape.

Without words, without a sound,
I lose myself in order to forget,
The love I once knew.
Of how the heart leaves one's self
And feels with such sorrow--
The sharp pain,
The blunt edge,
of the Razor's Edge.
 

        So She Dreams

From the deep silence of the ocean I am awakened;
Through the eye of the storm I rise.
While the seas heave and crash,
Warning me of danger,
By the ruins of what once was
I gaze upon the face of a man,
Half mine, half earthbound--
And with that gaze,
I am lost.

She rises from the ocean with stars in her eyes.
With the first breath of the forbidden world,
She feels the sharp sensation of air that stings and bites.
With the first step she winces with pain
As needles plunge deep into her flesh
Like a thousand knives.
Screaming, yet silent,
She gazes up at the stars
As the moon flows down her hair
And kisses her feet,
Enveloping in a halo shroud.

Should I falter, I drink of death.
Should I follow, I drink of love
Of such I've never known in the deep abyss.
For visions never seen,
For bliss never imagined,
I leave my world farther behind me.

So she enters a world where all dreams come true,
Before the seas swallow her whole.

              Pearls before Swine

You ask me to enter, with your soft gaze.

You lighten my heart, and tell me all dreams are possible.
It is only when I reach, that I fall upon the path,
Full of needles, pain at each step.
As illusive as the dreams may be,
You wait until I fall--
To tell me that is love.

And that plain and simple girl
Who took the glory for her own--
Denied the truth for the crown.
And you--
Knew I was the one,
But denied me
as a mute.

To me, all for a swine,
that throws away a pearl,
for a pile of dung.

            In a Glance

In the sweet heat of mixed perfumes and chatter
Sweet plum wine flows sweetly.

In a glance I see your desires,
In a word I know your wishes.

I look down upon the glass
Red my cheeks and heart to want.

While two hearts can beat to every sound,
While two bodies can mingle to every tune,

Images of what could be swirl and vanish
Giving way to one ending each time.

Wine turns bitter.
I walk away.
 

           The Dying Flame

I look through your eyes
And I see that the light has gone out.
All I see are ashes,
Blowing in the shadows.
I traverse through your eyes
Pulled in by your ghostly stare--Flowing through the quarters of your mind
That breathes dust.

       Le Baiser  (The Kiss) --  for Brancusi

With this kiss I bestow,
May you feel the surgence of my love,
An eternal moment
In which a thousand dreams fuse
In one instance of passion.

With this breath I give,
May you feel the heat of my soul,
Slowly covering your body,
Like a large blanket
That enfolds the burning flesh beneath.

With my life I give,
May you cherish the rhythm of my heart,
Pulpitate with fear or happiness,
Tremor with sorrow or laughter.
May you fuse with my body and soul,
In one heart, breath, lips,
Transcending time and space
To new heights of ecstacy,
Unrealized passions,
To new visions of self,
Dreams and abounding love.
 

          Prince of Suffering

I know her well.

I have seen the eyes, dark beneath the lids,
Mouth red as a petal of fresh tulip,
Her cheeks blossoming like a rose,
Her hair spread like the sun at dawn.

And inside me is the desire
So great to bring a tear to mine eyes.

Each day I come to catch sight of her
And carry her image to my coffin, my home.
She is the only vision of hope within my dark world.
Why must I be tortured by such great desire,
Each night, each day.

Dear maiden,
If you can feel,
If you can see my tormented face in the candlelight--
The pale face, mine lifeless eyes,
The white lips wanting to be kissed,
Clad in black, heavy robe.

Many nights I have wanted to lower my head
And thrust myself into your fragile sweet neck,
To be fused with your blood and make you mine.
But your beauty stops me.
Though you may never know,
I will suffer eternity
To leave your universe in untroubled bliss.

My love, if in some dream I shall appear before you,
Unclad from my robe,
Untouched by this sickness.
May this dream last forever,
And may you feel the unsurmountable love
I am suffering for you.
 

        The Razor's Edge II

In the storm I'm hanging on to the edge,
Swinging back and forth,
Seeing the sky whirl before me with each swing.

I'm hanging on with my life,
Looking down below
At a world that's so vast, uncertain, and bleak.

Like on a Razor's Edge,
I'm walking with grace
On a fine line
Between love and hate,
To another plane of understanding
Between you and I.
 

     True Love III
I am True Love.
I am the goddess of this universe.
My worshippers of all generations seek me.
Lovers pray for me,
Children obey me,
Soldiers die for me.
What they seek, they will never find.
What they seek, I will never give.
Thus I dance and dance before their eyes,
Entrancing them,
Alluring them,
In the reflections of illusional promises.
 

         Beethoven's Silence

The world was a symphony.  Every morning I awoke with music in my ears.
The birds singing were concertos,
The winds blowing were sonatas,
The thunder and storms were symphonies.
My ears hummed and rang to every sound, with notes flowing through my mind.

Then one day, everything stopped.  A complete silence.

As I tried to listen, harder and harder, I heard two beats resonating from deep
within my heart.
They beat louder and louder.
Soon I felt a different kind of music...
This music one couldn't hear...
This music one had to feel.
 

Harmony  (my latest prose)
       My grandmother, Harmony, walked in pendulum motion-- left, right, left, right-- in a pace that was all her own.  As she walked next to me, I looked up to see the sun shine on her silvery gray hair and her dark skin that was patterned with many lines and brown gems.  As we matched our walking rhythm, she held my hand as she began her tale once again about how I should have been born a boy....
      "You would have been lucky if you were born with that something special, that gift of happiness.  If only you were born a boy!" Harmony said while showing me her pinky.  "If only you were born with one of these!"
     I looked down thinking that I must have been a failure to others upon my birth.  At the same time, her pinky made me wonder about the world thought the eyes of a wiener.  In the town bathhouse, I saw my classmates, those with, and those without wieners.  I did not know what difference that little attachment made, so much so that Harmony claimed it was the source of luck.  The only difference I saw was that in school, the boys got to pee standing up around a bucket while us girls had to wait in line to pee squatting in the outhouse.  But my cousin Jinny found a way to pee standing up.  At the last New Year's family gathering, all the girls rushed to see Jinny lined up with the boys peeing against the wall.  There she was, all proud of herself, that she was able to join the other group instead of peeing in isolation in little outhouse bins.  She broke the barrier between the difference between boys and girls.    ....
 
 

Maestros

Ezra Pound:

    Mr. Nixon

    X
...    With a placid and uneducated mistress
    He exercises his talents
    And the soil meets his distress.

This is from Diptych Rome-London, New Directions Books, New York, 1994, p. 46.  I love this one.  It reminds me of George in It's A Wonderful Life, sitting in Mr. Potter's office, smoking a cigar.  That's what Ezra felt like when he sat in front of Mr. Nixon, in that "cream gilded cabin of his steam yacht..."  so seductive, yet no cigar!

From Ernest Fenollosa: The Chinese written character as a medium for poetry, edited by Ezra Pound, City Lights Books, San Francisco, 1991, p. 35-36.  I love seeing the Chinese characters and their corresponding meaning, and how the images of the characters enhance the meaning of the poem.

Na Audiart

Though thou well dost wish me ill
        Audiart, Audiart,

Where thy bodice laces start
As ivy fingers clutching through
Its crevices,
        Audiart, Audiart....

I came across this translation by Ezra Pound this year and just laughed hilariously at his "ivy fingers clutching through its crevices."  The rest of the poem is along the same lines, with the admirer stating that he will be waiting as she softens her heart with time, and will pursue her even after her beauty passes away.  This excerpt is from Selected Poems of Ezra Pound, New Direction Paperbook, New York, 1957.

The River-Merchant's Wife:  A Letter  (one of my favorite poems by Li T'ai Po)

While my hair was still cut straight across my forehead
I played about the front gate, pulling flowers.
You came by on bamboo stilts, playing horse,
You walked about my seat, playing with blue plums.
And we went on living in the village of Chokan:
Two small people, without dislike or suspicion.
    .....
Translated by Ezra Pound.  Ibid.  This happens to be my favorite because as children, we have innocent courtships, without dislike, prejudice, or suspicions.  The poem starts from innocent love that starts from childhood, and follows it as it develops with age, to one full of longing.

The Beautiful Toilet  (may a woman never be one!  attributed to Mei Sheng, 140 b.c.)

Blue, blue is the grass about the river
And the willows have overfilled the close garden.
And within, the mistress, in the midmost of her youth,
White, white of face, hesitates, passing the door.
Slender, she puts forth a slender hand;

And she was a courtezan in the old days,
And she has married a sot,
Who now goes drunkly out
And leaves her too much alone.

Translated by Ezra Pound.  Ibid.  They called women like that a toilet in those days.  What an analogy.

 Cinnamon Wine

Moon bright
            in the high star sky,
Spring night
            and the cool wind rises.
Orchid house,
            and they quarrel as they pretty and prepare--
Behind lace curtains
            someone waiting once again to be
                    love-stirred.

Apart from the great beauty of these poems, they are important in the history of Chinese verse for two reasons:  1) they are written in the five-syllable line (wu-yen shih) which asserted dominance for a long time thereafter; 2) they are in the quatrain form and so stand as a major base for the Tang dynasty's poetry.  The Tzu Yeh poems also stand as important antecedents to one of the two most rigorous classical Chinese verse forms, the chueh-chu.  Major Chinese poets (among them the Liang "Martial Emperor," Wang Han, and Li Po) admired Tzu Yeh's poems and imitated them.

The Gradual Canticle For Augustine

... Chips of ice
from the mouth of a lover are not always better,
Nor a desert dreaming always a mirage.
 

During that summer
When unicorns were still possible;
When the purpose of knees was to be skinned;
When shiny horse chest nuts ... were puffed in green lizard silence
While straddling thick branches far above and away
from the softening effect of civilization;

During that summer--
which may never have been at all;
But which has become more real than the one that was--
Watermelons ruled.         ....

And when we unscrew the lid
And slice off a piece
And let it linger on our tongue:
Unicorns become possible again.

(this book is now worth 10 times its value.  you're the first person who gave me more, through something that was so fundamentally enjoyable.  you did not take anything from me like others.  and for that I'm thankful, even if nothing comes out of this.)

        from The Snows of Kilimanjaro:
        He had gone to a place to dance with her afterward, she danced badly, and left her for a hot Armenian slut, that swung her belly against him so it almost scalded.     ....
        "Love is a dunghill," said Harry.  "And I'm the cock that gets on it to crow."   ...
The rich were dull and they drank too much, or they played too much backgammon (golf by resorts they have taken from those like the Comptons).  They were dull and they were repetitious.  He remembered poor Julian and his romantic awe of them and how he had started a story once that began, "The very rich are different from you and me."  And how some one had said to Julian, Yes, they have more money.  But that was not humorous to Julian.  He thought they were a glamourous race and when he found they weren't it wrecked him just as much as any other thing that wrecked him.  (being rich is a state of mind and nothing more.  in England, it's sometimes preferable to have old money, or lineage, than money.  being rich in mind makes you lazy, resorting to luxuries, whereas in reality, it's just an upgrade of shelter, transportation, food, and entertainment/leisure.  sometimes being rich can be dangerous, when one uses it for power, to assert dominion and violence, and discriminate different treatment toward one who doesn't have money.  and when it gets that way, i assert my richness in lifestyle, with style.  and if that life of celebrities and great events makes them hate me more for it, then so much the better for it.  money is only worth the value you place in it.)

    from Cat in the Rain:
    "You look pretty darn nice," he said.
    ... "I want to pull my hair back tight and smooth and make a big knot at the back that I can feel," she said.  "I want to have a kitty to sit on my lap and purr when I stroke her."
    "Yeah?" George said from the bed.
    "And I want to eat at a table with my own silver and I want candles.  And I want it to be spring and I want to brush my hair out in front of a mirror and I want a kitty and I want some new clothes."
    "Oh, shut up and get something to read," George said.

Then you have the rich and nothing is as ever as it was again.  (own comment:  the rich come into an area out of boredom where there is great fun and charm, and strip mall everything, then leave)....When I saw my wife again standing by the tracks as the train came in by the piled logs at the station, I wished I had died before I ever loved anyone but her.  ....  But this is how Paris was in the early days when we were very poor and very happy.  (i came here, to a city on SoCal, where apt. prices were cheap, parking only $2, and now, all is changed, with a big Nordstrom Rack downtown.  i feel used.  i feel like i was the piker, and they followed me, and now are kicking me out.)

      from The Gambler, the Nun, the Radio
Revolution is a catharsis; an ecstasy which can only be prolonged by tyranny.  The opiums are for before and for after.  (during the Opium War, the British and the French came to China, and they liked what they saw and wanted to stay there.  They ended up looting the Forbidden Palace and the Secret Palace.  It's a good thing, they haven't touched the Hermit Kingdom.  All the mess they created, with wars afterwards, because they liked what they saw.  And they went as a Christian and Catholic nation, while the missionaries did all the dirty work.)

    Hemingway is tremendously funny this time around, with a hint of loss and sadness.  All that hoopla theme studying in college undermined his humor.  I love it.

Thomas De Quincey:
"the Daughter of Lebanon"  in Confessions of an English Opium Eater-- Damascus, or Om el Denia, mother of the world is the Arabic title of Damascus.  That is was before Abraham -- i.e., already an old establishment much more than a thousand years before the siege of Troy, and than two thousand years before the Christian era -- may be inferred from Genesis 15, verse 2, and by the general consent of all eastern races, Damascus is accredited as taking precedency in age of all cities to the west of the Indus.

How in our warring we have forgotten that Jacob married the two daughters of Leban.  And his brother Esau the daughter of Ishmael, his half father who founded the present day Arabia.  Abraham had a son from his servant first before Sarah.  What he created were two formidable countries with different ideologies with different stakes to protect and fight for.  I know later in life, the many wives and children he had.  It had meaning then, but today, we have forgotten, that they have a common bond.  This amazing story related to me the problems that have come about over time, and the strange intricacies of their relationship to one another, to sadly forget about human bondage.