Επιμέλεια: Εύα Πετροπούλου Λιανού
Translation: Byeong Cheol Kang
Wee, Sang Jin is a Korean poetess. She is an Executive of Korean PEN center and former vice vice-president of the Korea Modern Poets Association.
She published 3 collections of poetry book, ‘Thread with sunlight’, ‘Madonna of the Old Moon’, ‘A watchmaker does not look at the time’.
Murmuring Flower By Wee Sang-jin
Have you ever been standing behind the sentences
With a razor blade melting down in them?
My room has been littered with wasted papers
Since nobody knows when.
Flowers make murmuring sounds,
As if they’re hatching out of eggs,
Popping out of a printer,
With each number on their forehead,
Similar to the cut-tails of lizards,
I was looking for words, wandering
Whether I was in sleepwalking or not.
Geniuses disappeared in time show up,
Pulling my hairs back, stirring sediments precipitated,
Making new words float for me catch.
Sentences looking like a mould broken from inside,
Naked people, passing by a city drawn in pencil,
Didn’t leave any traces of words behind,
We are holding the same book but reading different pages,
As if groping for the meaning in dissonant sounds
Coming from the Buddhist’s Bell,
And failing to reach the end our doubts.
The files of wasted papers are being left,
Dropping from the sky like heavy snow
Over the clock that has bloodshot eyes.
Who’s going to recognize the sentences
Cut by a razor blade melting down?
Here is an ear, opening to a tiny rustling sound of leaf,
Like time on the clock, never wasting a second of its own.
(Translated by Kim in-young)
중얼거리는 꽃
면도칼이 녹아내리는 문장 뒤에 서 본 적이 있나?
언제부턴가, 그 방은 파지가 쌓이기 시작했어
알 껍질을 깨고 프린터에서 빠져나오는
꽃이 중얼거린다
너의 이마에 찍힌 번호
도마뱀의 잘린 꼬리 같았지
나는 몽유병에 걸린 듯 단어를 찾아다녔지
사라진 천재들이 내 머리칼을 잡아당길 때
처음 듣는 낱말의 침전물이 부유한다
뼈대가 부서진 소조 같은 문장
발가벗은 사람들은 연필로 그려진
도시를 지나며 아무 말도 흘리지 않았어
우린 범종에 낀 불협화음처럼
같은 책을 들고 다른 페이지를 뒤적였지
의심의 맨 끝에 도착하지는 못했어
충혈된 시계 위로 폭설처럼
쏟아져 내리는 파지
누가 녹아내리는 면도칼의 문장을 알아챌 수 있을까?
1초도 자기 자신을 낭비하지 않는 시간처럼
바스락거리는 이파리 소리
도무지 닫히지 않는 귀 하나, 여기 있다
