“Tell me now, what should a man want
But to sit alone, sipping his cup of wine?”
I should like to have visitors come and discuss philosophy
And not have the tax-collector coming to collect taxes:
My three sons married into good families
And my five daughters wedded to steady husbands.
Then I could jog through a happy five-score years
And, at the end, need no Paradise.
translated by Arthur Waley
Month: October 2023
On Taedong River by Im Je
As I watch girls walking on spring grass,
Willows drooping on the river make my heart ache.
If I could weave these thread-like willows,
I’d make a gown in which my love could dance.
translated by Sung-Il Lee
The Meeting by Tess Gallagher
My name is not my own
and you are lost in the sameness
of yours: marriage, divorce,
marriage, the name changed
like a billboard at the side of my life.
That day I saw you last
you were wearing a blue suit
in the mid-winter haze.
It was too big for you.
Your shoulders didn’t belong.
I heard you: “If you feel
the rightness of a thing, do it.”
Twelve years we’ve come
and not a word between us.
Last night you got off a bus
in my dream. Your body
seemed too small for itself. It was
hurt by something outside my sleep.
You took off your coat.
I could see the bones of your arms.
We didn’t mention it.
You asked for something ordinary
and wrong, vitamins, I think.
You had your camera on your chest
like a complicated doorknob.
You didn’t open.
My hands came back
to me. I was awake in that last café
where I did not say brother, where
I stood apart from your sorrow
in my great young indifference.
Tired lives had run you out.
You were going away. “Let them
have their bastard courage!”
Your hands came back
to you. You touched me, that hand
out of the grave. Early
and late, this hour has closed
around us.
On a Swift Boat by Kim Ku-yong
From the swift boat with a full-blown sail
Mountains pass quickly, shoreline gliding by.
In a foreign land, one asks about customs;
But beautiful scenery compels me to compose lines.
On a stretch of land where ancient kingdoms prospered,
The month of May flows on the crystal stream.
Do not regret that you have neither wealth nor fame;
Don’t wind and moon follow wherever you go?
translated by Sung-Il Lee
Longing for Home by Yi Tae-so
My heart aches to recall the moon above Mount Ami;
My heart aches to recall the clouds around Mount Ami.
Though clouds follow the moon wherever I go,
It is the crystal-clear peak of Mount Ami that I long for.
translated by Sung-Il Lee
The Red Cockatoo by Po Chü-i
Sent as a present from Annam—
A red cockatoo.
Coloured like the peach-tree blossom,
Speaking with the speech of men.
And they did to it what is always done
To the learned and eloquent.
They took a cage with stout bars
And shut it up inside.
translated by Arthur Waley
After an Old Song by Kim Su-on
Upon the thick ice of midwinter
Let us spread the frosted bamboo leaves.
Though I freeze to death with you,
I wish the cock would never crow.
translated by Sung-Il Lee
3am Sunday morning in Moda
a glass of whiskey
a cigar
and the cool night air
on my balcony
watching the occasional plane
drift by in the sky
amid the few stars
this city sky offers
and a sort of peace
prevails
the melancholy
at bay
and the ghosts
resting quietly
in their corners
of the mind
Meerting in Dreams by Hwang Jini
Pining for each other, we can meet only in dreams;
Yet while I rejoice to see you there, you rejoice to see me here.
If we are to dream of each other on a night to come,
Let us set out at the same time to meet on the road.
translated by Sung-Il Lee
Life in Leisure by Kil Jae
Living alone in leisure in a hut by the stream,
I enjoy more than my share of moon and wind.
Though no one comes to visit, birds sing to me.
I move my cot near the bamboo grove, and lie down to rest.
translated by Sung-Il Lee
Leonard Durso 