from Douglas Moore’s blog Art of Quotation
“The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that it has never tried to contact us.”
Bill Watterson, author Calvin and Hobbes, cartoonist
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Self-portrait by Choi Seung-ja
another Korean poem translated by Geul on the blog Cardiac Slaves of the Stars
(translated from the Korean by geul)
I am nobody’s disciple
nor can I be anyone’s friend.
Dreaming a wicked dream in the weeds or bog
Offspring of darkness, flesh spied in shadow.
*
Mother, I am darkness.
From the morning old Adam and Eve
got up from the grass
I am the sadness of a long body.
*
In the bright streets children
twitter like birds
bloom like flowers
those dazzling natural people in the sunlight
the docile liquor they drink
doesn’t suit the split end of this tongue.
Coiled up in the weeds or the bog
only waiting for the poison of my sadness to spread through this body
*
Just as the child in the womb seeks
the mother’s love
facing the sky crying furtively
I dream an evil dream from the sun.
“Nothing worse could happen to one than to be…”
from Douglas Moore’s Art of Quotation
“Nothing worse could happen to one than to be completely understood.”
– Carl Gustav Jung, Swiss, psychiatrist, psychotherapist
“…You live several lives while reading.”
from Douglas Moore’s blog Art of Quotation
“A great book should leave you with many experiences, and slightly exhausted at the end. You live several lives while reading.”
“What hurts the victim most is not the cruelty of the oppressor, but the silence of the bystander.”
from Douglas Moore’s blog Art of Quotation
“What hurts the victim most is not the cruelty of the oppressor, but the silence of the bystander.”
Elie Wiesel, writer, holocaust survivor, writer, Nobel Prize
“How to fight loneliness” by Wilco and Choi Seung-ja’s “In order not to be lonely”
another Korean poem translated into English and a Wilco song translated into Korean by Geul on the blog Cardiac Slaves of the Stars
I serendipitously discovered two poems about dealing with loneliness. One is a song by Wilco, an American alternative rock band from Chicago. I translated the English lyrics of the song into Korean in case anyone out there was thirsting for a translation. The other is a Korean poem by Choi Seung-ja, which is translated below.
How to fight loneliness – Wilco
*
How to fight loneliness
Smile all the time
Shine your teeth ’til meaningless
Sharpen them with lies
And whatever’s going down
Will follow you around
That’s how you fight loneliness
You laugh at every joke
Drag your blanket blindly
Fill your heart with smoke
And the first thing that you want
Will be the last thing you ever need
That’s how you fight it
Just smile all the time
Just smile all the time
Just smile all the time
Just smile all the time
외로움을 싸우는 법
항상…
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At Muneui Village by Go Eun (Ko Un)
another Korean poem in translatıon by Geul on the blog Cardiac Slaves of the Stars
(translated from the Korean by geul)
I went to Muneui in winter and saw.
How the road that led there
barely met others that split off.
Death wishes the road be desolate as death itself.
The roads close their ears once with dry sounds
and extend out toward the cold side.
But life turns around on the road
to return to the sleeping village to let fly the ashes
and because I abruptly cross my arms
the far mountain is too near.
Snow, you cover up death, what more will you cover?
I went to Muneui in winter and saw.
While holding life in its arms,
to the end, Death declines an individual death
then hearing the sound of people
it goes forward a ways and turns to look back.
Because everything is low
in this world the snow falls
and no matter how we throw stones
they do not…
View original post 20 more words
“There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when… “
from Douglas Moore’s blog Art of Quotation
“There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.”
– Elie Wiesel, Romanian, American, writer, professor, political activist, Nobel Laureate, Holocaust survivor,
“Most of the trouble in the world is caused by people wanting to be important.”
from Douglas Moore’s Art of Quotation
“Most of the trouble in the world is caused by people wanting to be important.”
T. S. Eliot, English, writer
“The object of art is to give life shape.”
and again from Douglas Moore’s The Art of Quotation blog
“The object of art is to give life shape.”
— Jean Anouilh, French, playwright
Leonard Durso 