TWO POEMS by Jimin Seo

/ / ISSUE 25

from Crown for Peasant Heads

X. 







You are not there as a matter of course.
You carry the box you dust in. You kick 
the dog wayside, no telling what’s worse:
the damage you carry or damage picked
clean from the teeth and spat out. What 
is hurt when your own animal yelps
and retreats to a corner of the room? What
bares better its knives and cleans a bone 
than your own cruel fangs. You animal.
You master of damage. You bad dog. 

Your light comes through this minimal
heaven to rattle the dustbin you’re dogged
All your weight slung into this white hole.
Where have you been this whole time? Where?



 

 

땅 파고 지랄 떠는 그 새끼


My language is a worry
the world can’t convince
me I’m right.

I’m a man who hugs
head-cocked 
into an abacus. I kiss

the dirt with my knees,
count the last bar
of my wife’s song.  

I lose my wife 
to a bet. Hang
a sign she can’t see

on her wrist. Tie 
up her hair 
in a pony 

knot, yoke her 
to a marketplace,
give up my riches.

My wife gives 
children I wanted 
and dies.

Pay off my debt,
debtor. Move her to a vault
where no fault

is this honest: endless
green beauty
with lightning streaks,

an odor of doubt
brocaded on my coat.
A bastard digs his own pothole.

ISSUE 25
POEMS

EN ROUTE by Suphil Lee Park

TWO POEMS by Alexandra Teague

GHAZAL NO. 2 by M. Cynthia Cheung

[MY GRANDFATHER WALKED IN THE SNOW] by Cleo Qian

IN THE END, THE ALEFS CURL by Iqra Khan

THREE POEMS by Mónica Gomery

GEOMETRY by Karen Kevorkian

from PSALMS OF LAMENT FOR DIVINE IMPERATIVES by Jennifer Metsker

TWO POEMS by Jimin Seo

THE PLEASURE IS IN THE WORK by Stella Hayes

WHAT ELSE COULD I HAVE DONE by Mikael de Lara Co

FICTION

MY DINNER THEATRE WITH ANDRÉ by Christopher Hebert

KHOSHBAKHTAM by Kent Kosack

TRANSLATION

from RED MELANCHOLIA by Helena Boberg trans. Johannes Goransson (from Swedish)

AND WHAT HAPPENS IF I WANT TO NAME EVERYTHING?, ASKS THE FEMALE DISCIPLE by Mayra Santos-Febres trans. Seth Michelson (from Spanish) 

THREE POEMS by Bronka Nowicka trans. Katarzyna Szuster (from Polish)

[A POEM] by Beatriz Miralles de Imperial trans. Layla Benitez-James (from Spanish)

[UNTITLED 1] by Vladislav Hristov trans. Katarina Stoykova (from Bulgarian) 

FROM NORTH by Baek Sok trans. Jack Jung (from Korean)

WHEN OTHER PEOPLE ARE WRITING POEMS by Oh Kyu-won trans. Jack Jung (from Korean)

TWO POEMS by Ashraf Zhagal trans. Ghada Mourad

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