ξενιτεια

Poem on the Disaster at Lisbon

For reasons I'm much too lazy to explain, a few weeks ago I translated Voltaire's "Poem on the Disaster at Lisbon".  Strangely yet conveniently, the first version I found of it online turns out to be some earlier or rougher draft.  At any rate it's both darker and as far as I can tell, untranslated online. 

I'm no translator, though I do like to tinker with language.  Hence, my interpretation is more jagged than some of the more traditional ones I've found (of another version).  At any rate, in all its unpolished glory, here 'tis.

(My work first, then Voltaire's.)

On the Lisbon Disaster
or, an examination of the proposition, "all is well"

Unhappy mortals. The terrible Earth.
Of all the disasters, a heap of fright:
Run to these contemptible, stinking ruins,
this rubble, this wreckage, these sad ashes,
with your useless sorrow, your constant talk
of that failed philosophy: all is well.
These women and children tossed together
under fallen marble, limbs asunder.
A hundred thousand wretches swallowed
in the Earth, bleeding, broken, buried
alive beneath their own roofs, helplessly
ending their doleful days in horrible torment.
What will you say to the half-whispered pleas
of their fading voices, to the grim sight
of their burning ashes – that there are health
codes? A Welldoer that does as he wills?
Will you tell this great mass of victims that
God is vengeful?  Their death the price of sin?
What sins?  Crushed at their mothers' breasts, what sins
have these bloodied babies committed?
Undone Lisbon, did she have more vices than
London or Paris drenched in wickedness?
Lisbon plunges to the void while Paris
dances.  Calm thoughts, cool minds, if your town
were overturned on you, we would hear you
call for a change of heart, tears for children,
for women, even for yourself. Because
Good is for God alone, Evil for us.
To the world, suspended on the abyss
my plea is innocent, my cry righteous:
I am beset by all cruelties,
the passion of the evildoers, the snares
of death – and I have overcome them all.
Friends of my evils, let me complain.
It's hubris, you say, traitorous arrogance,
that imagines being bad is a path
to becoming better.  Go ahead, ask
the waves of the Tage, rifle through the debris
and bloody bits, ask the dying on their
grim voyage, if it is Pride who begs –
O God, help me.
Heaven, pity miserable mankind.
All is well, you say, and all is fated.
Yet what the world over could be worse
but this hellhole, this Lisbon devoured?
Are you satisfied that the First Cause -
omniscient, omnipotent, the Creator -
cannot cast us  inclement weather without
setting burning volcanoes in our path?
Not to offend my Master, I humbly ask
if this sulfurous, saltpeter Hell pit
could have erupted deep in the desert?
I respect my God, but I love my World.
When man dares to wail at such calamity
it is hardly hubris, but reasonable.
Let no one speak to my stricken heart
of unchangeable laws of necessity.
This chain of corpses, of  souls, of worlds.
Dreams of the wise.  Deep mirages.
When the Eternal Laws mute the elements,
and tumble the rocks beneath gusty winds,
when they shatter oaks with lightening,
they do not feel the smashing blow at all.
But I live and feel and my oppressed heart
questions the well-doing God who made them.
I make good use of the sense he gave me.
Wherefore does the worker unmake his work?
The pot says nothing to its potter.
So why should I be so vile, so weak, so base?
It cannot speak nor think - this urn is made
and crashing breaks, but receives no heart
from its maker that could seek good or be unhappy.
Unhappiness, say you, is another
creature's.  It belongs to my own rotting
corpse bearing thousands of  maggots.
When death puts an end to the evil I've
endured, what relief to be eaten by worms!
Sad calculators of human misery,
console me not. You aggravate my pain.
I see in you nothing but vain effort –
proud misfortune feinting contentedness.
I am but a small part of the masses:
Yes, as animals yet damned to live,
all sentient beings, born under the same law,
living in sorrow, and dying like me.
The raptor screeches over his weak prey,
his gory talons curling joyfully;
all seems well for him. But soon there comes
an eagle with slicing beak.  The raptor falls.
Then man's deadly bullet reaches the high-
flown eagle; then man on the fields of war,
hunkered in the dust, bleeding, shot through,
on a heap of dying men, serves
a bitter repast to the savager birds.
Thus all the world over, all groan, born under
these torments, perishing one by one.
And you make of this fatal chaos,
in the pain of each, a common happiness?
What joy!  Mortal. A pathetic weakling.
You cry all is well, in a sad small voice.
The universe denies you. Your own heart,
your mind refutes the error a hundred times.
Elements, animals, people, all war.
We must admit it – Evil walks the Earth,
its secret purpose unknown to us still.
Has Evil befallen the righteous?
Has black Typhon, Arimane the barbarian
condemned us to suffer under tyranny?
My mind won't believe that these odious
monsters who shook the world were once gods.
But how do we understand a good god,
a god who made us, who cherishes us,
who loves us, who crushes his handiwork?
Who can quiet my uncertain mind?
My frightened eye scans these voids in vain,
All I see around me sadness and crime.
My shadows have darkened your clarities.
God came down to comfort our accursed race;
he visited the Earth, and nothing changed.
An arrogant sophist says that he can't;
Another says he can but didn't want to.
Doubtless he wanted to, but while we reason,
the chthonic foundations shake Lisbon
and thirty cities rain ruin from the red
banks of the Tage to the sea at Cadis.
Either man is born guilty and God
punishes us, or this absolute master of
time and space, without pity, wrath or peace,
indifferent, with his first edict lets fall
eternal torment; or the rough matter
of our rebel master has fatal defects.
Or perhaps God tests us and each mortal
passage is but a narrow pass leading
to the Everlasting. We will brush off
these fleeting troubles, Death will be
a blessing to end our misery.
But when we emerge from this dreaded pass,
who will pretend to be worthy of joy?
Wherever we end up, we'll tremble, no doubt.
We've always feared the unknown most.
It's useless to question silent Nature –
we need a god who speaks to human folk.
Surely only he can defend his work,
console the weak, and enlighten the sage.
The man who doubts errs in leaving to seek
futilely in the river reeds for help.
Leibniz learnt nothing from his unseen noeuds.
Why in the best possible universe
does an eternal disorder, a glum
chaos, fuse our pointless pleasures with real woe?
Or why do the guiltless suffer alongside
the guilty beneath evil inescapable.
I can't imagine any more all is well.
I'm like a doctor – alas! I know nothing.
Plato said that long ago man had wings,
a body impervious to mortal shots.
Sorrow and death couldn't approach his brilliance.
How unlike today! He crawls, breaths, dies -
all who are born must perish in the end.
Nature is the empire of destruction.
A weakling made of nerves and dry bones
can't withstand the shock of the elements'.
This mix of blood, of liquor, of powder
since it was made has sought its own destruction.
These feelings beset its delicate nerves,
sunk it in sorrow, the ministry of death.
Thus what I have learned from Nature's own voice.
I give up Plato, Epicurus.
Bayle knows more than both of them – I'll ask him.
All things equal, Bayle teaches us to doubt.
Wise and grand enough for lacking method.
He destroys all else and fights himself.
Man a stranger to himself, an unknown.
Who am I? Where am I? Where am I going?
Whence came I?
From atoms spinning in this mass of mud,
shaken by death.  The dice have been thrown.
But these are thinking atoms, whose eyes
reason guided, have mapped the heavens.
We've launched our being into the midst
of infinity, lacking the power
to know ourselves or even see ourselves.
I know our days are given to suffering;
by the hand of pleasure we dry our tears.
But pleasure vanishes as the shadow;
shame, regret, and loss innumerable.
The past for us but a sad memory,
the present pointless without a future,
if the grave of night deletes our thoughts.
One day all will be well.  So we hope.
All is well here and now.  Our illusion.
Wise men mislead me, God alone is right.
Humbly I sigh, submit to my ordeal.
I will not question omnipotence.
I used to sing less sorrowfully
of idle pleasures and tempting laws.
My suffering and my age have taught me
that the woebegone hate weakness.
I will bow my heart without murmur
or charge before the god I must implore.
It must be.  Mortals. Mortals must suffer,
submit in silence, love, then die.

Poëme sur la destruction de Lisbonne,
ou examen de cet axiome, tout est bien .

ô malheureux mortels ! ô terre déplorable !
ô de tous les fléaux, assemblage effroyable !
D' inutiles douleurs, éternel entretien...
philosophes trompés, qui criez, tout est bien ,
accourez : contemples ces ruines affreuses,
ces débris, ces lambeaux, ces cendres malheureuses.
Ces femmes, ces enfans, l' un sur l' autre entassés
sous ces marbres rompus, ces membres dispersés ;
cent mille infortunés que la terre dévore,
qui sanglans, déchirés, et palpitans encore,
enterrés sous leurs toîts, terminent sans secours
dans l' horreur des tourmens leurs lamentables jours.
Aux cris demi formés de leurs voix expirantes,
au spectacle effrayant de leurs cendres fumantes,
direz-vous, ce sont-là les salutaires loix,
d' un être bienfaisant qui fit tout par son choix ?
Direz-vous en voyant ces amas de victimes,
Dieu s' est vangé : leur mort est le prix de leurs
crimes ?
Quels crimes ? Quelle faute ont commis ces enfans
sur le sein maternel écrasés et sanglans ?
Lisbonne qui n' est plus, eut-elle plus de vices
que Londres et que Paris plongés dans les délices ?
Lisbonne est abîmée, et l' on danse à Paris.
Tranquilles raisonneurs, intrépides esprits,
si sur vous votre ville eut été renversée,
on vous entendrait dire en changeant de pensée,
en pleurant vos enfans, et vos femmes, et vous,
le bien fut pour Dieu seul, et le mal fut pour nous.
Quand la terre où je suis, porte sur des abîmes,
ma plainte est innocente, et mes cris légitimes :
je suis environné des cruautés du sort,
des fureurs des mèchans, des piéges de la mort ;
de tous les élemens j' éprouve les atteintes :
compagnons de mes maux, permettez-moi les plaintes.
C' est l' orgueil, dites-vous, l' orgueil séditieux,
qui prétend qu' étant mal, je pouvais être mieux.
Allez, interrogez les rivages du Tage,
fouillez dans les débris de ce sanglant ravage,
demandez aux mourans, dans ce séjour d' effroi,
si c' est l' orgueil qui crie, ô Dieu, secourez-moi.
ô ciel, ayez pitié de l' humaine misére.
tout est bien, dites-vous, et tout est
nécessaire ;
quoi l' univers entier sans ce gouffre infernal,
sans engloutir Lisbonne eut-il été plus mal ?
êtes-vous assurés que la cause éternelle
qui sçait tout, qui fait tout, qui créa tout pour
elle,
ne pouvait nous jetter dans ces tristes climats
sans former des volcans allumés sous nos pas ?
Je désire humblement sans offenser mon maître,
que ce gouffre enflammé de souffre et de salpêtre,
eut pû s' être formé dans le fond des déserts ;
je respecte mon dieu, mais j' aime l' univers.
Quand l' homme ose gémir d' un fléau si terrible,
il n' est point orgueilleux, hélas ! Il est sensible.
Qu' on ne présente plus à mon coeur agité
ces immuables loix de la nécessité ;
cette chaîne des corps, des esprits, et des mondes.
ô rêves de sçavans ! ô chimères profondes !
Si l' éternelle loi qui meut les élémens
fait tomber les rochers sous les efforts des vents,
si les chênes touffus, par la foudre s' embrasent,
ils ne ressentent point le coup qui les écrasent :
mais je vis, mais je sens, mais mon coeur opprimé,
demande le bien être au dieu qui l' a formé ;
des sens qu' il me donna je cherche un libre usage.
D' où vient que l' ouvrier déchire son ouvrage ?
Le vase, on le sçait bien, ne dit point au potier,
pourquoi suis-je si vil, si faible, si grossier ?
Il n' a point la parole, il n' a point la pensée :
cette urne en se formant, qui tombe fracassée,
de la main du potier ne reçut point un coeur,
qui désirât les biens, et sentît son malheur.
Ce malheur, dites-vous, est le bien d' un autre être...
de mon corps tout sanglant mille insectes vont
naître.
Quand la mort met le comble aux maux que j' ai
soufferts,
le beau soulagement d' être mangé des vers !
Tristes calculateurs des miséres humaines,
ne me consolez point, vous aigrissez mes peines ;
et je ne vois en vous que l' effort impuissant,
d' un fier infortuné qui feint d' être content,
je ne suis du grand tout, qu' une faible partie.
Oui, mais les animaux condamnés à la vie,
tous les êtres sentans, nés sous la même loi,
vivent dans la douleur, et meurent comme moi.
Le vautour acharné sur sa timide proie,
de ses membres sanglans se repait avec joie,
tout semble bien pour lui ; mais bientôt à son tour,
une aigle au bec tranchant dévoré le vautour.
L' homme d' un plomb mortel, atteint cette aigle
altiére,
et l' homme aux champs de mars couché sur la
poussiére,
sanglant, percé de coups, sur un tas de mourans,
sert d' aliment affreux, aux oiseaux dévorans.
Ainsi du monde entier, tous les membres gémissent,
nés tous pour les tourmens, l' un par l' autre ils
périssent.
Et vous composerez dans ce cahos fatal,
des malheurs de chaque être, un bonheur général.
Quel bonheur ! ô mortel ! Et faible et misérable,
vous criez tout est bien, d' une voix lamentable :
l' univers vous dément, et votre propre coeur,
cent fois de votre esprit a réfuté l' erreur.
élémens, animaux, humains, tout est en guerre ;
il le faut avouer, le mal est sur la terre ;
son principe secret ne nous est point connu,
d' un être bienfaisant le mal est-il venu ?
Est-ce le noir Tiphon, le barbare Arimane,
dont la loi tyrannique à souffrir nous condamne ?
Mon esprit n' admet point ces monstres odieux,
dont le monde en tremblant fit autrefois des dieux.
Mais comment concevoir, un dieu la bonté même,
un dieu qui nous forma, qui nous chérit, qu' on
aime,
et qui brise à son gré l' ouvrage de ses mains !
ô qui pourra fixer mes esprits incertains !
Mon oeil épouvanté sonde envain ces abîmes,
je vois autour de moi les malheurs et les crimes.
Je me tourne vers vous, célestes vérités,
les ténébres du monde offusquent vos clartés :
un dieu vint consoler notre race affligée,
il visita la terre, et ne l' a point changée.
Un sophiste arrogant, nous dit qu' il ne l' a pû ;
il le pouvoit, dit l' autre, et ne l' a point voulu.
Il le voudra, sans doute, et tandis qu' on raisonne,
des foudres souterrains engloutissent Lisbonne,
et de trente cités dispersent les débris,
des bords sanglans du Tage, à la mer de Cadis.
Ou l' homme est né coupable, et Dieu punit sa race,
ou ce maître absolu de l' être et de l' espace ;
sans courroux, sans pitié, tranquille, indifférent,
de ses premiers décrets suit l' éternel torrent ;
ou la matiére informe à son maître rebelle,
porte en soi des défauts nécessaires comme elle ;
ou bien Dieu nous éprouve, et ce séjour mortel
n' est qu' un passage étroit vers un monde éternel.
Nous essuyons ici des douleurs passagéres ;
le trépas est un bien qui finit nos miséres ;
mais quand nous sortirons de ce passage affreux,
qui de nous prétendra mériter d' être heureux ?
Quelque parti qu' on prenne, on doit frémir, sans
doute,
il n' est rien qu' on connaisse, et rien qu' on ne
redoute.
La nature est muette, on l' interroge envain :
on a besoin d' un dieu qui parle au genre humain ;
il n' appartient qu' à lui d' expliquer son ouvrage,
de consoler le foible, et d' éclairer le sage ;
l' homme au doute, à l' erreur, abandonné sans lui,
cherche envain des roseaux qui lui servent d' appui.
Léibnitz ne m' apprend point par quels noeuds
invisibles,
dans le mieux ordonné des univers possibles,
un désordre éternel, un cahos de malheurs,
mêle à nos vains plaisirs, de réelles douleurs :
ni pourquoi l' innocent, ainsi que le coupable,
subit également ce mal inévitable.
Je ne conçois pas plus, comment tout serait bien :
je suis comme un docteur, hélas ! Je ne sçais rien.
Platon dit qu' autrefois l' homme avoit eû des aîles,
un corps impénétrable aux atteintes mortelles ;
la douleur, le trépas, n' approchaient point de lui,
de cet état brillant, qu' il différe aujourd' hui !
Il rampe, il souffle, il meurt, tout ce qui naît
expire.
De la destruction, la nature est l' empire.
Un faible composé de nerfs et d' ossemens,
ne peut être insensible au choc des élemens ;
ce mêlange de sang, de liqueur, et de poudre,
puisqu' il fut assemblé, fut fait pour se dissoudre ;
et le sentiment prompt de ses nerfs délicats,
fut soumis aux douleurs, ministres du trépas.
C' est-là ce que m' apprend la voix de la nature.
J' abandonne Platon, je rejette épicure ;
Bayle en sçait plus qu' eux tous : je vais le
consulter :
la balance à la main, Bayle enseigne à douter ;
assez sage, assez grand, pour être sans systême,
il les a tous détruit, et se combat lui-même.
L' homme étranger à soi, de l' homme est ignoré,
qui suis-je ? Où suis-je ? Où vais-je ? Et d' où
suis-je tire ?
Atômes tourmentés sur ces amas de boüe,
que la mort engloutit, et dont le sort se joüe ;
mais atômes pensans, atômes dont les yeux,
guidés par la pensée ont mesuré les cieux :
au sein de l' infini, nous élançons notre être,
sans pouvoir un moment nous voir et nous connaître.
Je sçais que dans nos jours consacrés aux douleurs,
par la main du plaisir nous essuyons des pleurs ;
mais le plaisir s' envole et passe comme une ombre,
nos chagrins, nos regrets, nos pertes sont sans
nombre ;
le passé n' est pour nous qu' un triste souvenir,
le présent est affreux s' il n' est point d' avenir ;
si la nuit du tombeau détruit l' être qui pense.
Un jour tout sera bien. Voilà notre espérance.
Tout est bien aujourd' hui. Voilà l' illusion.
Les sages me trompoient, et Dieu seul a raison.
Humble dans mes soupirs, soumis dans ma souffrance,
je n' interroge point la suprême puissance.
Sur un ton moins lugubre on me vit autrefois
chanter des vains plaisirs les séduisantes loix.
Instruit par les douleurs, instruit par la vieillesse,
des malheureux humains déplorant la foiblesse,
mon coeur compatissant gémit sans murmurer,
sans accuser le dieu que je dois implorer.
Que faut-il ! ô mortels ! Mortels il faut souffrir,
se soumettre en silence, adorer, et mourir.

Poem on an Autumn Evening

Someone seems to be dying.
With half-open eyes
that refuse to close,
someone seems to be dying this evening.

In this world's harrowing loneliness,
in the days that have flowed away like water,
calling just one name,
calling piteously,
someone seems to be dying.

Look how the sad gaze of autumn
permeates grass, trees, hills, cliffs,
and indeed the whole world.

This evening
a life, incomparably chaste
must be flowing away someonewhere, like water.

가을 저녁의 시詩

누가 죽어가나보다

차마 다 감을 수 없는 눈

반만 뜬 채

이 저녁

누가 죽어가는가 보다

살을 저미는 이세상 외롬 속에서

물 같이 흘러간 그 나날 속에서

오직 한 사람의 이름을 부르면서

애터지게 부르면서 살아온 

그 누가 죽어가는가 보다.

풀과 나무 그리고 산山과 언덕

온누리 위에 스며 번진

가을의 저 슬픈 눈을 보아라.

정녕코 오늘 저녁은 

비길 수 없이 정한 목숨이 하나

어디로 물 같이 흘러가 버리는가 보다.

The poet, Kim Chun-Soo (김 춘 수), died on the 29th.  He was a well known figure in Korean poetry.  Like many poets, he was known for constantly reinventing himself.  I don't know how much of his work has been translated into English.  All I have is a single volume from the leaving-much-to-be-desired Cornell East Asia Series, translated by Kim Jong-Gil.

One of his most famous poems was inspired by Chagall.  So if you're the type that likes to remember poets in odd places, go the the Chagall exhibition in Seoul and read this:

샤갈의 마을에 내리는 눈

샤갈의 마을에는 3월三月에 눈이 온다.

봄을 바라고 섰는 사나이의 관자놀이에

새로 돋은 정맥靜脈이

바르르 떤다.

바르르 떠는 사나이의 관자놀이에

새로 돋은 정맥靜脈을 어루만지며

눈은 수천수만數千數萬의 날개를 달고

하늘에서 내려와 샤갈의 마을의

지붕과 굴뚝을 덮는다.

3월三月눈이 오면

샤갈의 마을의 쥐똥만한 겨울열매들은

다시 올리브빛으로 물이 들고

밤에 아낙들은

그 해의 제일 아름다운 불을

아궁이에 지핀다.

The Snow Falling on Chagall's Village

Snow falls on Chagall's village, in March.
At the temple of a man looking forward to spring,
a new vein
trembles.
At the trembling of the new vein,
the snow, with thousands of wings,
descends from heaven, covering
the roofs and chimneys of Chagall's village.
When snow falls in March
the winter berries of Chagall's village
revive in olive
and women make
the most beautiful fire of the year
in their ovens.

"Forgive me. This is my favorite sin: despair / whose love I celebrate with wine and prayer"

Praying Drunk

Our Father who art in heaven, I am drunk.
Again. Red wine. For which I offer thanks.
I ought to start with praise, but praise
comes hard to me. I stutter. Did I tell you
about the woman, whom I taught, in bed,
this prayer? It starts with praise; the simple form
keeps things in order. I hear from her sometimes.
Do you? And after love, when I was hungry,
I said, Make me something to eat. She yelled,
Poof! You're a casserole! - and laughed so hard
she fell out of bed. Take care of her.

Next, confession - the dreary part. At night
deer drift from the dark woods and eat my garden.
They're like enormous rats on stilts except,
of course, they're beautiful. But why? What makes
them beautiful? I haven't shot one yet.
I might. When I was twelve I'd ride my bike
out to the dump and shoot the rats. It's hard
to kill your rats, our Father. You have to use
a hollow point and hit them solidly.
A leg is not enough. The rat won't pause.
Yeep! Yeep! it screams, and scrabbles, three-legged, back
into the trash, and I would feel a little bad
to kill something that wants to live
more savagely than I do, even if
it's just a rat. My garden's vanishing.
Perhaps I'll plant more beans, though that
might mean more beautiful and hungry deer.
Who knows?
I'm sorry for the times I've driven
home past a black, enormous, twilight ridge.
Crested with mist it looked like a giant wave
about to break and sweep across the valley,
and in my loneliness and fear I've thought,
O let it come and wash the whole world clean.
Forgive me. This is my favorite sin: despair-
whose love I celebrate with wine and prayer.

Our Father, thank you for all the birds and trees,
that nature stuff. I'm grateful for good health,
food, air, some laughs, and all the other things I've never had to do
without. I have confused myself. I'm glad
there's not a rattrap large enough for deer.
While at the zoo last week, I sat and wept
when I saw one elephant insert his trunk
into another's ass, pull out a lump,
and whip it back and forth impatiently
to free the goodies hidden in the lump.
I could have let it mean most anything,
but I was stunned again at just how little
we ask for in our lives. Don't look! Don't look!
Two young nuns tried to herd their giggling
schoolkids away. Line up, they called, Let's go
and watch the monkeys in the monkey house.
I laughed and got a dirty look. Dear Lord,
we lurch from metaphor to metaphor,
which is -let it be so- a form of praying.

I'm usually asleep by now -the time
for supplication. Requests. As if I'd stayed
up late and called the radio and asked
they play a sentimental song. Embarrassed.
I want a lot of money and a woman.
And, also, I want vanishing cream. You know-
a character like Popeye rubs it on
and disappears. Although you see right through him,
he's there. He chuckles, stumbles into things,
and smoke that's clearly visible escapes
from his invisible pipe. It make me think,
sometimes, of you. What makes me think of me
is the poor jerk who wanders out on air
and then looks down. Below his feet, he sees
eternity, and suddenly his shoes
no longer work on nothingness, and down
he goes. As I fall past, remember me.

 
 - Andrew Hudgins

Farm Kids

    Our neighbor’s slim rag doll of a daughter (not,
      we’re told, of his own getting) breathed out: "You’ve got
      so many cookbooks!" – each eye a startled O
      as it skimmed our kitchen shelves – "And so
      much food!" Later, straight-faced, she said her mother
      lives now with her new boyfriend in another
      county. Hard up for farm jobs, her "Dad" has to drive
      60 miles to the factory, getting up at 5
      AM to leave them where his folks watch after them
      until he gets back home – sometimes 5 PM.

    We go for long walks every evening. If we pass
      their trailer, they all tumble out shouting, "Snodgrass!
      Snodgrass!" The slim, straight-faced one is thought slow
      by her teachers. There’s much she’d do well not to know.
      The cool offspring of our city friends are driven
      to special schools, sports dates, parties, given
      phones, computers, cars, the insatiate stuff
      that will guarantee they can’t ever get enough.
      Our neighbors’ less keen hungers and kinder drives
      make sure they’ll make nothing of their lives but lives.

- W. D.  Snodgrass, APR, May/June 2003

On Decapitation

Other people have said plenty about the killing of Kim Sun Il and beheading in general. But here's the best commentary I've read thusfar.

"There is no capital punishment here for one thing."

"Is there over there?"

"Yes, I saw an execution in France, at Lyons. Schneider took me
over with him to see it."

"What, did they hang the fellow?"

"No, they cut off people's heads in France."

"What did the fellow do? - yell?"

"Oh no - it's the work of an instant. They put a man inside a
frame and a sort of broad knife falls by machinery - they call the
thing a guillotine - it falls with fearful force and weight-the
head springs off so quickly that you can't wink your eye in
between. But all the preparations are so dreadful. When they
announce the sentence, you know, and prepare the criminal and tie
his hands, and cart him off to the scaffold - that's the fearful
part of the business. The people all crowd round - even women -
though they don't at all approve of women looking on."

"No, it's not a thing for women."

"Of course not - of course not! - bah! The criminal was a fine
intelligent fearless man; Le Gros was his name; and I may tell
you - believe it or not, as you like - that when that man stepped
upon the scaffold he cried, he did indeed, - he was as white as a
bit of paper. Isn't it a dreadful idea that he should have cried
- cried! Whoever heard of a grown man crying from fear - not a
child, but a man who never had cried before - a grown man of
forty-five years. Imagine what must have been going on in that
man's mind at such a moment; what dreadful convulsions his whole
spirit must have endured; it is an outrage on the soul that's
what it is. Because it is said 'thou shalt not kill,' is he to be
killed because he murdered some one else? No, it is not right,
it's an impossible theory. I assure you, I saw the sight a month
ago and it's dancing before my eyes to this moment. I dream of
it, often."

The prince had grown animated as he spoke, and a tinge of colour
suffused his pale face, though his way of talking was as quiet as
ever. The servant followed his words with sympathetic interest.
Clearly he was not at all anxious to bring the conversation to an
end. Who knows? Perhaps he too was a man of imagination and with
some capacity for thought.

"Well, at all events it is a good thing that there's no pain when
the poor fellow's head flies off," he remarked.

"Do you know, though," cried the prince warmly, "you made that
remark now, and everyone says the same thing, and the machine is
designed with the purpose of avoiding pain, this guillotine I
mean; but a thought came into my head then: what if it be a bad
plan after all? You may laugh at my idea, perhaps - but I could
not help its occurring to me all the same. Now with the rack and
tortures and so on - you suffer terrible pain of course; but then
your torture is bodily pain only (although no doubt you have
plenty of that) until you die. But here I should imagine the most
terrible part of the whole punishment is, not the bodily pain at
all - but the certain knowledge that in an hour, - then in ten
minutes, then in half a minute, then now - this very instant- your
soul must quit your body and that you will no longer be a man--
and that this is certain, certain! That's the point - the
certainty of it. Just that instant when you place your head on
the block and hear the iron grate over your head - then - that
quarter of a second is the most awful of all.

"This is not my own fantastical opinion - many people have thought
the same; but I feel it so deeply that I'll tell you what I
think. I believe that to execute a man for murder is to punish
him immeasurably more dreadfully than is equivalent to his crime.
A murder by sentence is far more dreadful than a murder committed
by a criminal. The man who is attacked by robbers at night, in a
dark wood, or anywhere, undoubtedly hopes and hopes that he may
yet escape until the very moment of his death. There are plenty
of instances of a man running away, or imploring for mercy - at
all events hoping on in some degree - even after his throat was
cut. But in the case of an execution, that last hope - having
which it is so immeasurably less dreadful to die, - is taken away
from the wretch and certainty substituted in its place! There is
his sentence, and with it that terrible certainty that he cannot
possibly escape death - which, I consider, must be the most
dreadful anguish in the world. You may place a soldier before a
cannon's mouth in battle, and fire upon him - and he will still
hope. But read to that same soldier his death-sentence, and he
will either go mad or burst into tears. Who dares to say that any
man can suffer this without going mad? No, no! it is an abuse, a
shame, it is unnecessary - why should such a thing exist?
Doubtless there may be men who have been sentenced, who have
suffered this mental anguish for a while and then have been
reprieved; perhaps such men may have been able to relate their
feelings afterwards. Our Lord Christ spoke of this anguish and
dread. No! no! no! No man should be treated so, no man, no man!"

- The Idiot, Fyodor Dostoevsky

...what I wish to make of my life

The Moon in the Well

A monk grew enamored of the moon in a well,
So he drew moonlit water to pour in a jar.
When he came back to the temple, he found,
As he tilted the jar, the moon was gone.

- Yi Kyu-Bo

A Song of Taedong River

Lovers bidding farewell break willow branches,
Though the broken bows cannot hold the leaving.
Mixed with tears lovely girls have shed,
The fog-laden stream glitters sadly in the setting sun.

- Im Je

Recluse Life

Living alone in leisure where no one comes to visit,
I rejoice only at the moon shining on my solitary hut.
Do not ask, friend, what I wish to make of my life:
An endless wave of fog spreads far over mountain peaks.

- Kim Koeng-P'il

Translated by Lee Sung-Il, The Moonlit Pond

Squirt Gun

The orange see-through plastic makes
the gun at first appear red-hot.
But water in the grip is cool
and sloshes when you raise to aim.
The trigger slides the cylinder
and shoots a needle clear as light
across the porch to break as mist.
The gun is fun because it shoots
clear piss. You point and pee on leaves,
on ants, on flowers yards away.
You spray the sun and make rainbows
that melt away in instant rain.
You sprinkle dust along a step
and scare the cat again and hit
a June bug like a Messerschmidt.
And when the gun is almost dry
you place the barrel between your lips
and close your eyes and fire a sip.

- Robert Morgan, The Atlantic Monthly

Milk

In the life of Moses, in Hebrew folklore, there is a remarkable passage. Moses finds a shepherd in the desert. He spends the day with the shepherd and helps him milk his ewes, and at the end of the day he sees that the shepherd puts the best milk he has in a wooden bowl, which he places on a flat stone some distance away. So Moses asks him what it is for, and the shepherd replies, “This is God’s milk.” Moses is puzzled and asks him what he means. The shepherd says, “I always take the best milk I possess, and I bring it as an offering to God.” Moses, who is far more sophisticated than the shepherd with his naïve faith, asks, “And does God drink it?” “Yes,” replies the shepherd, “He does.” Then Moses feel compelled to enlighten the poor shepherd and he explains that God, being pure spirit, does not drink milk. Yet the shepherd is sure that He does, and so they have a short argument, which ends with Moses telling the shepherd to hide behind the bushes to find out whether in fact God does come to drink the milk. Moses then goes out to pray in the desert. The shepherd hides, the night comes, and in the moonlight the shepherd sees a little fox that comes trotting from the desert, looks right, looks left, and heads straight towards the milk, which he laps up, and he disappears into the desert again. The next morning Moses finds the shepherd quite depressed and downcast. “What’s the matter?” he asks. The shepherd says, “You were right, God is pure spirit and doesn’t want my milk.” Moses is surprised. He says, “You should be happy. You know more about God than you did before.” “Yes, I do,” says the shepherd, “but the only thing I could do to express my love for Him has been taken away from me.” Moses sees the point. He retires into the desert and prays. In the night in a vision, God speaks to him and says, “Moses, you were wrong. It is true that I am pure spirit. Nevertheless I always accepted with gratitude the milk which the shepherd offered me, as the expression of his love, but since, being pure spirit, I do not need the milk, I shared it with this little fox, who is very fond of milk.”

- Begining to Pray, Met. Anthony Bloom of Sourozh (of Blessed Memory)

...the delicate inner skin of the wallet...

...These are the measure for measure
Hanging retributions against the disenfranchised:
Those who are Guilty of Passion....

Or Cleanliness shall be hung by the pubic hair;
They shall be hung by the pierced thighs, Those
Who are Guilty of Standing Erect; by the eyes

Those who have Seen Things Clearly; by the nose
Those who Smell the Death of the Rat in the Wall;
Those Convicted of Worthiness shall be hoisted

By the reputation; Those Convicted of Intelligence
By the delicate inner skin of the wallet; by the tongue
Those who Know Poverty, Hunger, Color, or Charm;

By the ears Those who Learn the Direction
Of the Class Dialectic; by the genitals Those
Refused Credit; by the breasts Those Discovered

Suckling More of Their Own Kind; by the DNA,
Those who COmbine Unfitness with Survival;
By the Phrenes, the Ones who are Poor and Disbelieve;

By the Thumbs, the Ones who are Poor and Believe.

- T. R. Hummer, "Walt Whitman in Hell", Walt Whitman in Hell

"...the mind is the half-life of punishment"

Two Angels Torturing a Soul

Deny nothing. Say yes to the whole of the earth.
Concede us the aura of starlight in alleyways
Where nightsticks come down. The burnished leather belts
Are heavy with metal: bright steel and blue-black steel,

Handcuffs, badges, whistles, Smith & Wessons.
Spill everything. Grant it the simple dignity of a name.
On the assembly lines of the surgical arenas
They are holding nothing back. In the confessional booths

Of the CAT scan, they are revealing all they know.
Forget your justifications. What is memory to you?
Truths are projected in cobalt. There is laying on of hands.
You imagine your story as the quick sapphire skin

A blue racer looped and left in Möbius coils under the gate,
Immaculate in the clarity of this life’s illumination?
You ought to have seen the mind is the half-life of punishment,
Its cancerous image. You ought to have understood fluorescent light

Splintering off the chromium rails of a hospital bed
Is no alibis for the holy. On the sidewalk in front of a café,
In the museum parking lot, in the ghetto at the end
Of the medulla oblongata, God sets his net to drag his enemies in,

His rope which means protection. Deliver him three times
The life in the body, his perverse awareness.
You ought to have known the son-of-a-bitch was after you.
You are what he dreams when he dreams of heaven.

- T. R. Hummer, Walt Whitman in Hell.