Apr 04
By Vanessa Falco
“Love is like quicksilver in the hand. Leave the fingers open and it stays. Clutch it, and it darts away.”
When James woke up he was in his grandparent’s apartment and he was
sweating. It must have been early still because he could smell his grandfather’s cigarette smoke in the living room where he slept. The ondol bang got so hot under him each winter night he wanted to run into the sea which he had always been sure possessed a secret way of healing thing—and stay there until he became himself again.
Until he was himself again.
In the kitchen was his mother. He loved the way her face appeared in recent dreams, like her bones were glowing from underneath her skin, singing for him. Tonight it reminded him of the mussels he found with Sadie. When she picked them up, they glowed furiously—pink then ivory then a color he didn’t know— as she continued to cradle them in her hands, rolling them in and out of moonlight.
Jan 17
By Mizaru
I
Hey all you denizens of Haebangchon. You have been noticed and some of you have even been found. I have taken notice. When you hit the main drag here—the boulevard of slapdash dreams—and turn your daily schlep of teaching English into a prance of taking the stage at Cannes or Coachella or bustin’ a move onto the set of Jersey Shore; your ticket has been punched because you have talent and it is a big talent.
I can’t stand to see you sitting in the cafes and vamping it up on facebook when all you need is a great cash influx: the seed money to your genius. No one is messing with your chi here. Whether you are an actor, artist, musician or quiz night marvel this is not a head trip: your time has come.
Remember the only difference between you and those swerving through the Brooklyn art cafes and open mics with their laptops in action is thirty thousand or so U.S. in the bank account. That is it and as every HBCvestite can tell us all: the Muse works in mysterious ways. The Nigerians have solved your most pressing problem! More specifically the ones hovering around your ‘hood.
Jan 17
By Sara Squires
Doggy style
Koreans know what’s best for you,
So when you’re ill know what to do?
They’ll tell you when you’re feeling ruff,
To go and eat the meats that’s tough.
For eating soup plied with dog meat,
Can cure all colds and summer heat
And really it is clear to see,
It’s great for men’s virility,
Certainly worth every dollar,
Gets you hot under the collar.
It’s also good for ladies skin,
It does not have to be a sin.
Dec 23
By Paul Auster
I heard this story from Auggie Wren. Since Auggie doesn’t come off too well in it, at least not as well as he’d like to, he’s asked me not to use his real name. Other than that, the whole business about the lost wallet and the blind woman and the Christmas dinner is just as he told it to me.
Auggie and I have known each other for close to eleven years now. He works behind the counter of a cigar store on Court Street in downtown Brooklyn, and since it’s the only store that carries the little Dutch cigars I like to smoke, I go in there fairly often. For a long time, I didn’t give much thought to Auggie Wren. He was the strange little man who wore a hooded blue sweatshirt and sold me cigars and magazines, the impish, wisecracking character who always had something funny to say about the weather, the Mets or the politicians in Washington, and that was the extent of it.
But then one day several years ago he happened to be looking through a magazine in the store, and he stumbled across a review of one of my books. He knew it was me because a photograph accompanied the review, and after that things changed between us. I was no longer just another customer to Auggie, I had become a distinguished person.
Nov 22
By Jesse Coy Nelson
If asked to describe the scene in the alleyway where his friend, Mike, and his girlfriend, Reggie, had found him after concern over his absence sent them on a search and recover mission, he would’ve drawn a blank. He remembered neither the pool of blood beneath his head nor Reggie’s panic, or Mike’s quick-thinking action of getting them to the hospital.
The hospital was where memory began to filter back to him, albeit in scraps, as though someone held a blanket that had been attacked by a knife in downward slashing motions, the strands of cloth that remained representing Scott’s memory, as impressions not necessarily connected by any fabric. There had been an x-ray, isolating the crushing pain that he felt in his head. There had been Mike, making some quip about Timothy Cotton, whoever that was, while they waited for the diagnosis. Scott had had no idea as to what Mike was talking about, and when he told him so, Mike continued on with the point, saying that that was the whole reason why Scott had left the cafe in the first place, none of which Scott could remember.
Nov 08
By Maire Kulik
Oh G-20 how you torment the masses!
It’d be better if we listened to the wisdom of mass opinion
—and you didn’t arrive.
Because the wisdom of vast crowds has always been that of reason.
Harbouring your evil policies of mass-privatisation and neo-liberalism,
Further establishing the ownership of global resources.
Oh G-20!
To hinder a developing country with your waves of publicity;
So many headlines wasted that could have gone toward celebrity news.
Oct 25
By Gabriel Sylvian with Iwazaru
The Eternal of My Youth
I want something different that is not this.
I want to go somewhere different that is not here.
Suffering
Loneliness
Longing
The eternal triangle of my youth.
Oct 24
By John Kay
“Go on then, so what’s the connection between Ken Dodd and Kim Jong il?”
”Ok, both men have a wild shock of dark hair; both men are exactly 5 feet 7 inches tall; both are fully experienced in the art of public speaking: only Ken Dodd is intentionally absurd and funny while Kim Jong Il does it by accident. My plan is this; first Ken Dodd is trained to look, walk, talk and think like Kim Jong il. This may have to be done partly by hypnosis just like nikita only without the sex appeal. Then the next time Kim Jong Il goes on a diplomatic begging mission to China a switch is made. Our aging comedian and former chart topper makes his Stalinist way to Pyongyang; while Kim Jong il is swiftly smuggled out of China and kept under lock and key. Once in Pyongyang our comedian come dictator starts a massive series of reforms both economic and political, which lead to the first democratic elections north of the DMZ. Unification is then only a handshake away.”
Oct 09
“Like I said,” resumed Mike, speaking solely to Reggie, “I can’t see it from here. Even so, supposing that fellow is missing half his pinkie finger. What’s more likely… there’s someone else out there in the big, wide world missing half a pinky finger… or someone who, even though their one-hit wonder band was buried, still made millions on that one hit, is now slumming in South Korea, teaching English to Korean munchkins?”
Aug 22
By Iwazaru
Lake Naju
The cliffs rise proud and strong from Naju’s shores
where silence spreads into eternity.
The mountains are prostrate in servitude
to the timeless grace and beauty beheld
below in the wandering steel green waters
that have called to peasants, kings and poets.
A mighty muse softly wrapped and sealed away.
Fingers of wind stroke her shimmering skin
then disappear into the thick treetops
and off over the high eastern ridges
Jul 05
By Gabriel Sylvian with Iwazaru
Last year, in honor of the twentieth anniversary of poet Gi Hyeong-do’s death (1960-1989), a collection of writings on Gi’s life, art and legacy was published by Munhakgwa jiseongsa, including essays by several who knew Gi personally: poets, friends, and colleagues. Not surprisingly, the words “gay” or “homosexual” make no appearance in the book’s 476 pages. Then again, one might say, neither do those words appear in any of Gi’s own writings. Does this absence justify the continuing taboo on discussions of Gi’s sexuality? Do attempts to recuperate a voice from pre-LGBT Korean history (pre-1990s) for a present-day LGBT politics make any sense? More
Jun 20
By John Kay
Night on a hard wooden floor and mosquitoes on a mission. The nuns up and about the whole night reciting sutras and praying and burning incense. In the morning they shaved his head. In the small courtyard, the pudgy-faced young monk, now nun, who yesterday had a bucket, today held a razor. For a split second Oh panicked as he looked at the hand holding the razor, then reason took hold. Slowly with the razor she scraped clean every inch of his wizened scalp. Then he was given a set of clothes both grey and baggy.
Jun 13
By John Kay
Oh Young Taek; nut-brown, stooped with age yet with a full-head of black hair; Five feet 7 inches in his stockinged feet; a resident of Hannam-dong, Seoul. A connoisseur of cigars, tax dodges, room salons and screen golf. A self-made man with a trip to the Philippines in the pipeline but with something on his mind, journeys to Seoul station; the taxi driver impolite and disgruntled about something no one would ever fathom; with a big shiny pate and crooked spectacles dropped Oh off in front of the old station. That historical relic, that old girl; it looked as old and as rundown as Oh. Boarded up and no longer operational; now almost forgotten, like the derelicts and drunks, the broken, the browbeaten and the mad, camped in its shadows.
May 31
Hmmm, Something smells burning.
It smells like rubber.
A boy with sneakers is sleeping with a dirty band on his arm.
They will come back again; pain and sorrow have always been coming back and going away.
But, also, images on a postcard.
Permanent like a ROCK at the bottom of The Ocean,
It can be stormy, rainy, the fact is, nothing moves it.
It brings its own disturbed peace.
May 17
By Gabriel Sylvian with Iwazaru
As Korea continues to undergo changes far beyond economic development, there are individuals and groups demanding recognition for those whom were ignored, misrepresented, discriminated and ostracized because they didn’t fit into the traditional Korean mold.
At Seoul National University, the Korean Gay Literature Project is on a mission to bring respect to sexual minorities through literature. Modern poet Gi Hyoung-do is one such figure readers can explore and utilize as a window into Korea’s past.
What follows is a look into his short life and the poetry that he wrote.
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