A Hen

Rain hammers away at the keyboard till it’s all bloody red mud splatters trees
fall and the chickens tremble inside the water-filled coop she hammers away
till the keyboard is bloodied she hammers away so hard that a crimson flower
of flesh blooms on top of her skull the crown flutters like a flag, her heart
placed on top of her head the lit window screams because the light in the 
room was turned off at one point her typewriter-teeth endlessly collect the
feed onto the paper she lowers her head, feels her forehead three women left
home today they left the coop crying you all know where they have been 
taken she spreads her ten fingers and clutches her desk, types the tears one at
a time night arrives and the rain lets up her beloved’s leather shoes drop 
outside the window and she lays an egg while hammering away at the keyboard
the conveyer belt swiftly takes away her egg she mustn’t go outside today her
body, the book of pain, has barely made it through a page of flesh, bleeding, 
but the calendar she pecks out daily is still on the same page why is she 
making a calendar that no one looks at? her eyes want to sleep, so they close
slowly from the bottom to the top outside the window, the rain, as if it had
been lying in wait, begins to hammer away at the keyboard blood splatters on
the window her eyes flash open and her heart, a loop of painful blood vessels,
flinches and bleeds on top of her head the crown turns crimson once again

 

The Way To Melodrama 4
white day white night

        White Snow. White rabbit. White night because white snow fell overnight.
White rabbit stares at white steel-barred window. White gown. White sheet. 
White wrist. White hat. White skirt. White legs turning. White sandal. Gave 
birth to a white baby because of white snow. White rice that you eat while 
holding a white umbrella. I ate it—a white pill that makes white blood. White 
God inside white snow rises as high as the window. There is a white secret 
inside white snow. White blanket. White sweat. White skin of baby Jesus. The 
white wall is too high. White lips. White nose. There are too many white rats in 
white milk. White breath, can’t breathe. There is no road because white snow 
keeps coming down. White devil. White hell. It’s too far. White yawn. White
sleep. Please untie white bandages. White writing on white paper. I will erase my
white poem. Oblivious innocence of White God, open my blood’s path outwards.

        It’s remarkable. 
        Every morning I open my white eyelids, 
        squeeze out white toothpaste, 
        and shove it against my white teeth as I 
        tear open a white tent and walk out the door.

        White shovel inside white snow. One white house. White window. White
lamp inside a white curtain. White grandfather, please eat. White bread sent
from God. White butterfly. Butterfly. Butterfly. Butterfly. Mother, please look 
at the white butterfly. My god, how can this be? How many days has it been?
White mother. White cough. White sigh. White breasts. White powdery snow
slides in back of white ears and falls softly softly on top of a desk. White snow 
is falling. Young white woman’s white smile. White birds land and pile up one
by one. Closed eyes of the birds. White bird is pressing me down. It’s too 
heavy. Please remove the blanket. Jellyfish multiply inside the sea. Sea becomes 
firm like jelly. White sea. Sea crumbles like white powder. White rabbit on top 
of white sand. White wrist. White needle.

        White snow fills up
        the white snow wall fills up 
        but I keep pushing the white wall high high up into the air 
        Where is the end of my old civilisation?
        Hell of tenderness 
        A white ant that fell into white sugar hell 
        White sugar melts 
        White sugar hell binds the white ant like honey 
        Can’t breathe

 

The Saints—Mr and Mrs Janitor

They are rummaging through the corpses. Those who ignite and hold the 
torchlights. Outside our sleep, the roads are wet from the rain, and they tear 
off our nametags. The torn-off nametags quickly pile up into a heap. Eyeglasses
pile up with eyeglasses. Suitcases with suitcases. Shinbones with shinbones.
Babies with babies who are thrown out into the future far, far away. The 
years that I’ve lived heap up, and on the side of the road a trial slowly goes 
on inside a green metal booth. A blazing bonfire. One of the janitors throws 
my book towards the fire. It flares up every time the book lands, and the
leather shoes from which my feet have slipped, that used to roam around like 
a pair of fat married rats, give off a stench as they burn. The janitors who 
wear masks like the KKK, with a glowing cross on their backs, press down on 
my three meals with their feet. They sweep up the intestines that burst and 
spill out. My naked body folded tightly gets pressed down once again by their 
feet before heading for the gas chamber. The pressed corpses are placed in 
sacks then loaded onto a truck. Behind the door of my sleep, the Auschwitz 
of Seoul unfolds all night long. Teeth with teeth, fingernails with fingernails. 
The stench circles the same spot unable to disperse during the rainy night. 
The janitors finish up the job of sorting, load the corpses dripping with gravy, 
and take off down the road next to an apartment building. They need to hurry, 
for once again, today, the crematories are full and the grounds are already 
filled with corpses. The collapsed pink department store—we wept and
clapped hysterically when the janitors like aged babies made it out alive from 
under the heap of 500 dead bodies. The saints, Mr and Mrs Janitor, who will 
live forever, tie me up—I who will utter “O Time”—and exit the sleeping 
city. The torn black sacks flutter like an elegy. Whose skull is this? A head 
with closed eyes falls from the truck and gets crushed again inside my dream.