korea summer shorts

I. 3-4 months

june was spent
repeating
"lets take advantage of tonight
before monsoons
and
august humid heat
hit."

july is spent
repeating
"i am sitting here
listening to
the
rain
fall down"

august will be spent
repeating
"i fuckin' hate this humidity
will it EVER
end?
where did winter go?"

september and how its spent
is anybody's guess.


II. on writing

this week
the sentences translated
trickle in
at leaky faucet pace
leaving me the time
to do my real
work


III. this morning

awaking to evidence of
lines criss-crossed
(perhaps tis my own fault
for allowing them to be so open
blurred)
but
we each have our own pen
with which to draw.
i ink mine in words


IV. the past

out of a need
not birthed
but resulted from
birthing --
of cords cut
(literal
and
real)
any line thrown
i have
bound to my
indent
grasping for
a knot
to remain
tied.
resulting in
damaged
webs
of spider's
silk.

-- and like a bug
i would get so
stuck. --

V. today

through the wires
that run overhead
satellite connected
we speak
in a technology
i thought for my
children's
children
never in (my)
lifetime.

it is the invisible which
connects us
the flutterings of
interwebs.

VI. friends

i am suspicious
of any --
no matter how good --
who do not surround
their lives
with
ones who
live
accountable
and whole
hearted
admitting
self insecurities
and
changing.
who know the value of
a
step
and the need for
love
lines.


VII. 일곱

as a child
i learned these numbers
at summer camp
and
tae kwon do
yelling each one out
happy to be 9
and looking forward to the age of
10
punching our fists straight out into the air
i broke a board with one
yalp
i cried like rain
when i failed in front of
family.
and in counting
found no
consolation.

VIII. nostalgia

20s waking in the alps
always brought me
back to earth
no matter where my lines
would spin
i long for odysseys like
that again
days gone past
what now to do with this
golden
fleece?

IX. present

like glasses that keep needing
to be topped off
i sense the shot
turned pint
turned
pitcher
turned
keg
i keep
refilling

one day i'll be a tanker

X. no longer

how i once did
i can no longer
do
punish you
for not being
what you could
never be
punish me
for not being
what i should not
never
be.

i cannot
go back
to past.
(nostalgic though i am)

i pull out my pen
in the repeating phrase
of july
draw my lines
upon this fleece thats golden
yell out sino count
while ink bleeds humid

and laugh with friends
whilst they down
martinis
and i smoke
cigarettes

all connected by the
spider's
interwebs
in which im no longer

stuck.


kim thompson seoul. s. korea thurs. afternoon. 7 july '11

push-n-pull

push-n-pull
push-n-pull

july's sky
and streets
weep out
my soul

all the lives i could have been
all the pavement i have lost
all the language stripped

push-n-pull
push-n-pull

is it crying up
or is it sobbing down?
how then is it
my eyes remain so
dry?

how then is it
that i then still find small delight(s)?

push-n-pull
push-n-pull

the childhood i will never have
the family i will never know

if i date you
if i sleep with you
if our bodies become so enjoined with fluids
will i then be
returned to
this place
as yours?

or is this
just
one big
final
farewell
fuck
to the life
that
i cannot put back together?
for the life that
fell from the wall
and
that the king's horses
and king's men
have long gone away from?

push-n-pull
push-n-pull

words please wait
words please stay
until i make it to my home
until i finish walking up and down these streets
words rush in backwards
from all sides

this school boy that i could have been
this beautiful woman confident in heels that i might have been
this married ahjuma with children
this child tugging on its umma's hand

push-n-pull
push-n-pull

the rain hits
humid
doors are sliding
the river han
keeps calling
conjoined with
the mighty
mississippi
stream

i am water bound.
i am pulled
and
pushed
by your silence
by your stares
by your speech that runs garbled in my brain

i am yi sang's wild hair
i am some other poet's dream
i am my own dna
come back to haunt me
in my dreams
of bicycle aeroplanes
and a father that i cannot
scream at
for his
leaving

push-n-pull
push-n-pull

the closer i come to
some enlightened form
the greater i feel this
bursting from within
of pulling pushing
anger
of pushing pulling
seethe
of pulled pushed
fists that i never raise
to the sky that falls down
through my
9 dollar umbrella
of pushed pulled
strings and strands of filamental
loss

push-n-pull
push-n-pull
and then theres all the tugging

am i just making peace
with a thing that will never
can never
be?
i speak (of) the practice of forgiveness...
but for her
i have so little
and yet for her i am
without a limit

push-n-pull
push-n-pull

is this really going to make me
better off?
is this really going to be the road to
my own inner paradise?

if i capture as many
in my cage like heart
will i become by capturing
the thing that i can never
go back to
being?

if i master poetry in my mother's tongue
as im mastering in my other mother's tongue
will i finally have all the words i lack
for the immensity of this
push
pull repetitive
stress injury
heartline
fracture
that i dont know how to mend?

if i lean in far enough
will i walk on water
part the seas
or drown in heavy monsoon droughts of dry?

if i return to my ancestors' practices
will i ever look jaw dropping in a hanbok?
will i ever know how to tie that tie
and walk with such utter grace
in place of daily
swagger?

can the hanguk hetae
the horangi
this tiger shaped peninsula
ever give birth to any kind of
strawberries?
will the magpie return the song
that ive forgotten
but hear playing out
each day
in the push-n-pull of
city melodies
of my people
my
people
MY people
chattering in cafes
oblivious to
the 200,000 sent away?

she does not want to see me
she does not want to lose me
thunder rumbles loudly as i write these lines
and yet she does not speak

i am lost with and without
i am found without and with

i am the only one who looks as her
and yet for her i am the one most
foreign
my birthright traded
for a pot of western stew
my place as eldest
sold
for
for
for...

for what?

sold so that i could grow up the youngest?
sold so that this land of magpies and the hetae
could turn blind eye to how "oori"/"we" is only lived out
in grammar
sold so that i could be more exotic than my tattered self is truly?
(i am not good
i just contain)
(i am not bad
i just explain)
i am not pushed
i am just pulled
i am not pulled
i am just
pushed

i have taken beautiful and made her ugly
i have taken ugly and made her female deity
i have squandered and well spent my youth
i am paying off my sins of negligence for others
i am reveling in the reward for my love for others
i am still this kind of player whose benched myself from playing
i am still this johnny and june carter cash lifelong love analogizer...
i will make you the most beloved
i will make you the most despised
i am evil good
i am good evil
i am wild raging thats been calmed by time...
i stopped punching my knuckles through glass and walls
years ago
but i still carry all that raging molten lava
cooled by inner springs...
it bubbles to the surface when i let loose my
fettered feathers.

push-n-pull
push-n-pull

with here there is no peace
with here there is some land of morning calm
my own name speaks of this
my own names
are more than one
and when she calls me by my truest first
my heart returns to birth

with here there is no perfect resolution
with here there is only the unearthing
of a past that cannot be found
only tasted in the food
only recalled in all the most minute of moments
that my body knows but my mind cannot name.

the longer i am here
the more deeply i feel into knowing
the life it is i lost...
- the child (that) i never got to be
- the awkward adolescent (that) i never was
- the art student the kiosk worker the lady on the street
- the mother
- the lover
that was set to full erase
the day she sent my heart away from hers

there is no happy ending to this story
there can only ever be the middle

its all just
push-n-pull
pull-n-push

there are no words
for pain like this
pain that leaves me scrambling for words
and breath
and somehow still sensing life more lovely
but somewhere now
in all this sense of push-n-pull
i finally can untighten...
shower you
with my sponge squeezed self
with what this
summer storm torrential pour
is like.

push-n-pull
push-n-pull.

there is a certain sound in between the time
the water falls from sky to earth.
i am suspended somewhere in that
middle
of the push
and
pull
of
my mothers'
tears.



-- k. thompson. 15.35 seoul. s. korea. sunday. 3 july.