Siyoung Doung [South Korea]

 

Time Smokes Laughter
 
It rains like the news, and snows like an advertisement.
 
The sound of ripples and smoke...
Things gossip more than people.
 
Caught up in life,
we must seize opportunities, grab what we want,
and get a job… get a something…
 
we must look through the cracks of the 'now.‘
 
Even if we can't keep our promise,
we must keep the 'flow.‘
 
The present is an exclamation point.
Painting paints on nouns.
 
Once we start living, we want to keep living.
It's a drug, more than a drug.
 
Time smokes laughter.
 
 

Picking Up Time with Tweezers
 
I pick up time with a pair of tweezers.
 
“Just what on earth?” opens its wide eyes in surprise
the sky’s shell, watching, and even the clouds begin to stir.
 
No room,
no house,
no entrance,
“now” is a boundary.
 
People, like objects whose names we know yet do not understand,
answer “yes, yes” as they resist,
scratching the back of the present.
 
What wears down is what is polished
what gleams
pebble-time lamps
the pupils of time
From here, I look out to the very beginning
 
June, with its tendrils,
crosses the curved clock of valley waters,
heading somewhere beyond.
 
 
 
A Briefly Exposed Obscenity
 
Melancholy Street, No. 1–19
 
In the maze within my mind, room to room,
crumpled thoughts search for an iron to smooth their creases.
 
Like letters I am learning for the first time,
I try a crooked, awkward smile.
 
Thought is the master of words,
to speak kindly,
I follow after good thoughts.
 
Like a strange well—
I peer into old memories,
and sorrow gazes back at me.
 
Between yesterday and tomorrow—
today steps outside, selling sandwiches of time.
 
Midwinter passes through Gwanghwamun;
a woman leaves behind her perfume like a trap.
With her lips, she scatters the words, “Heaven of lies.”
People like mosaics gather—triangles, squares—
the city paints a rounded landscape like a face.
 
“Now” is the body of time,
a briefly exposed obscenity.
 
 

Author’s Bionote:
 
*Dr. Siyoung Doung is a Korean poet, literary scholar and professor. She earned her Ph.D. in Korean Language and Literature from Hanyang University after graduating from Dongguk University, and further pursued humanities studies at the University of Regensburg in Germany. She has taught at Korea Tourism University and Jilin University of Finance and Economics. Debuting as a poet in 2003, she has published numerous poetry collections and critical works, particularly in semiotics and modern Korean literature, along with travel essays. Her literary achievements have been recognized with major awards, including the Park Hwa-mok Literary Award, the Korean Buddhist Literature Grand Prize, the Dongguk Literary Award, and the Woltan Park Jong-hwa Literary Award. She also received a creative grant from Arts Council Korea. Dr. Doung currently serves as the 5th President of the Korean Association of World Literature and lives in Seoul.