beginnings (cont.)

i want to

go back to a beginning that ive forgotten

to swim the chasm of the sea

to walk on water

fly on air

float through breezes

to grow my life from dust formed trees

and

to watch night dreams

grow into

day life.

i want to live

that space between

the words

the thoughts

want to

let go all the edges

watch words shoot forth free flight

from the center of my chest

we were all born of

silent explosions

born of

the connection of spaces

born of an act

born of a desire

born of a grief

born of a mystery

a void

a realm

born

of other.

i want to go back to that beginning

that i can no longer recall

go back to those first breaths

born of this very air

over by hongdae

next to hapjeong

i retrace the steps of my own carried feet

i want to return

to the place of their act

to whisper to self

the truth of the future

for those days when all would feel so

lost

to remember

what i have always known

i want to take the sea water

that swells in my chest

that drips down my cheeks

to the tips of my fingers

transforming to the smoke clouds of words

take all these words

all these half finished sentences

all these fragmented starts

and build bridges within my

galaxial self

i want to

live in the middle

right in the center

of everything now

and then fling it all

upwards

sky high

to watch it all be transformed

into

the art

the act

of

letting go

and rebirth.

i want to pick up the past

sling it over my shoulder

and release it dead weighted to

the bottom of some kind of

deep azure blue

so that the day you call

i can tell you

"ive let it all go

and found my center of being

way back in my beginning."


- kim thompson seoul. s. korea. sat. 24 sept @ 19.11

Once Removed

Hello Thursdays! I am new to writing poetry and eager to learn and grow from being in community with each of you. I want to thank you for sharing your art and inviting me to be part of this project. I am sharing the piece that I started while living in MN, and continued to write as I begin learning Korean language while living in Korea. Thank you for giving me a space to share it. Peace and love~

기 화영
******

What good is half the story?

Told in tortured tongue, twisted and tamed.

Recoded Korean complete with English Talk function. 

Even she daydreams of songs I sung and sounds undone.

My first language once removed.

Case K85-160. 

Another non-native English speaker numbered and claimed. 

In two-world paradigm of white-normative worthiness.

Let’s call her Lori Jane.

I wanna blow up this “East meets West” bullshit--

That never let me beg the question:

How do I claim the class privilege that cost me my mother?

How do I hug her when she hid her white guilt in my humanity?

Can any of us consent in this time of capitalism?

Each person made product, produced by imperialist consumer culture. 

“Get your…bootless mail-order baby."

Easy addition to your four-person family equation.

I’m gonna pass on the long-winded rant about global white supremacy, dominant narratives of heteropatriarchy, and constructions of hegemonic masculinity...

But for now, let’s consider my desire: 

To talk to her, my birthmother once removed.

Three decades. 

Two continents. 

One ocean. 

I came all this way just to say “I love you,” to first mother once removed. 

Is it anything but injustice that when I hold her hand, 

I can’t tell her about my day. 

The friends I made at school today. 

The stories we shared over kimchi and rice, mystery meat, and baby fish soup.

To third mother now removed: 

Even “I love you” fails us when my brown skin betrays your good intentions. 

“I love you.” Three words held hostage by the histories of violence that I carry with me, each day, on this bruise called my back. 

“I love you.” English language on lease as long as I don’t call you racist.

This is my orphan love story. 

Crafted in American-made, Midwest English.

I am your bootless mail-order baby gone bad. 

Gone evil.

Raging against the capitalist machine.

Waking up the rebel sleeper force of overseas Korean adoptees. 

Calling all Yellow Devils! 

To reject our constricted status: language-less Korean learners when living in our motherland.

I want to learn at school today--

The other half of my story. 

Reclaiming Kee, Wha Yung!

Self-determined Asian American and deconstructed transnational adoption symptom.

Blue Eyes

in this morning light bright,
the weather cock is silent.

not an atom moves or rubs its back
against this sea of matter black
and velvet air

one pearl in cosmic ellipse.

i doubt that angels exist.
what colour would be their eyes

i wonder

could i catch a silver trout,
pretend that i am Hugo?

those pearls, they are her eyes
and i fear not death by water.