Kim Gaihyun



‘Don’t be stupid’ (‘바보같이 굴지 마’)

I looked at his darkening profile, So, you are Korean? No, Chinese, he said If he were the black guy last night I’d keep talking about Kenya and Obama How his dad used to be working in the bank whose …

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Volcano Meditation (화산 명상)

All the best men are interested in other men, or their forearms are strong and lightly haired. All the best men are already without that which they need no longer. So it is that each woman, adrift, ends up with …

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Sudden Rain, Tilba Tilba (갑작스런 비, 틸바 틸바*)

We no longer go out to paint, unless the object to be represented is such that it cannot be transported. – Lang Shi Ning (Giuseppe Castiglione, Qing Dynasty court painter) The fly-screen door has only just banged shut & already …

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Everyday Magician (매일의 마술사)

another boy catches a drive ►by bullet in his chest. born with straightjackets we buy records and start fires. gravity lets go. in the city no-one drowned last night. the florist saws another white lady in half. so many mis-made …

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Do Not Feed the Lion (사자에게 먹이를 주지 마라)

enter the tangle stay in groups, make sure you’re alone bare your fangs, smile with tiger eyes do not feed the lion scratch your back watch the big cat take your hands start to run when your confidence wanes do …

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The New Scientist (새로운 과학자)

like a brave flag parading in the slipstream of some desk jockey’s eight start day the miracles of this season ruffle like a party dress or the leaves in the trees that ridge as snug as a favourite collar and …

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View from the Yarra Bend with two men (두 남자와 야라 벤드*에서 내려다 본 풍경)

An ugly gentleman, six-and-a-half feet tall, combs his black hair across one ear, and then another. Mallee gums eavesdrop the space where the magpies dig for paddle pops and ants, and he sees himself face down beneath the bench and …

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View from the memory in which we try to kiss each other (우리가 서로에게 입맞추려 했던 기억으로부터의 모습)

Firstly, I would like to say that I am sorry. Right now I’m kissing you on the shore of a lake so broad it is pulling all of the vistas of the earth in toward it. The plug island at …

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Five Sijo For My Raider (침입자를 위한 다섯 수의 시조)

Enemy, you have raided my country, your handwriting floats

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This Is a Poem Without Mothers (이것은 어머니들이 없는 시다)

The alarm in the morning is made of rubber invents the day around it like a drum. Leonard Cohen. Um. The alarm in the morning is made of stones we unearthed near a horse. My father, smoking a cigar. The …

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Carp (잉어)

One summer the creek dried up. After cricket, me and a couple of the other boys, In our whites, Went down to the creek bed. There was just a large puddle left, very muddy. In it, a carp: huge. It …

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A survey of bearded men (수염 기른 남자들에 대한 조사)

I grow a beard because I hate constant shaving I grow a beard to look distinguished I grow a beard because it is the natural thing to do I grow a beard because it is manly I grow a beard …

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“The sky becomes” (“하늘은 된다”)

THE SKY BECOMES more assertive and does not care for my clothes. I stare at the driver until he stops cold, assertive. She tells me a story of brothers and hospitals, it’s about success and inquiry. I remembered the way …

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Bagnier (바그니에)

When their skirts swell in the flouncing water like the thick wave of a stingray, and their hair grows weedlike on their cheeks, and their eyes are as swift as shoaled fish, that’s when I know I’m needed most. Their …

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Terrace (테라스)

for Tara A girl in coral and horn glasses is discussing the relative frequency of her massages and orgasms, and how protein shakes are made from cattle hearts, and how the sniffer dogs might find the Valium in her handbag. …

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The peeling (껍질)

Your peripheries don’t rest easily, expanding to embrace the imposing strips of fallen bark that gather all the russet pigments of carmine and leaf mould with the mealy beige of new skins, uneven pieces from an impossible jigsaw circling the …

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Nesting songs (둥지 틀기의 노래)

First song Familiar curves of the downhill road home, bodies swaying in unison with steep corners; the quickening of movement inside: a great fish turns and glides away, an allegro low in the torso. On the lounge room floor, a …

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짐승 가공하기 (Curing the animal)

My husband hands me the animal. A soft neck roll and a dead eye, a lustreless fur that I must touch to strip and salt and peg to dry. He is away all the day in the dust. a eucalypt …

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The Farmhouse (Ffermdy Cilewent) (농장 (펌디 싸일웬트*))

in the other room, the bulls stamp and snort their long horns scratch the walls licked by its mother, flies gather at the calf’s forehead drool dropping to the floor the smell of hay their piss and shit smear our …

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Sisters, 1907 (1907년, 자매들)

We are dandelions on the grass. Pale and slight, any breeze might blow us away. All around us, the vines obscure the harsh lines of stone steps          angular borders Behind apron and pinafore, our small hands work in our pockets: a …

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Himalayan Fire (히말라야의 불)

As you casually entered the gompa —travel weary, a meagre warmth in you too much mist in the lungs— the winter sun hit the sutras. The mountain light, having raised the black frost shafted the night wind south raided the …

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Homecoming (귀향)

You land with gold over the Red Centre still in your head. The road taking you home to the sea is a lizard flattened in the heat. The light does the talking, the light splinters all over the place. Who …

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Old Photo: The Union Buries … (오래된 사진: 조합원이 땅에 묻는 …)

A solid pack around his grave. Good steel to a magnet, the sky leaden with the warmth, somehow, of common ground. I did not know them all but the bulk of them knew me. Their leader told them of his …

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To the God Skype (나의 신 스카이프에게)

The face of the loved one the only face the face which speaks to mine. One leaf curls to the other they fold, in and out To each other’s autumn breeze. Her perspiration, the brow that she wipes her labours …

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