I  Do Not

In today’s sky
Do not find one cloud
Before the withering of winter
Do not arrange these branches that are a mess

One fruit
One leaf
One tip of the branch
Do not lift your wise eyes
Do not be at a loss for words
I do not

In a person’s lie
Do not allow the self to be seen through
Do not be confused by the erupted jealousy or envy
See?
The transmission begins and ends within the picture
The explosion and roar don’t reach here
To here or to where?
The thin laughter is spreading
The world’s axis is going to be out of place
In the flat harmony do not lick your lips

I do not

Blood Relative

Warm arms
The warm arms
Where little hair is growing
The warm arms
Where the hair is a little thick
Caressing my face in the hair
Sliding down to the edge of the eye
The large
Bosomed
Woman
Darling, I’m worrying as your boson is swelling
 It’s like muscle that no matter how much I chew I cannot bite through

A thing
In a place
And at another place
If I rub my cheek to you
Are you inside collecting, and gathering?
Are you dissatisfied?
Are you anxious?

Why did you make this decision without speaking or without giving a moment to me?
Unknowingly you want to feel a sign of relief.
There is no excuse for you gradually ruining the line you drew and said was up to here
Nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing!
I endured within uncertainty

This is how it is!
Enduring
Compared to the wisdom comes sweat and secretion
Enduring physiology that cover generations
While showing your breathing as a Mother
There is, there is, it is there
The large bosomed woman
Cries out

Ekleksographia #1

January  2009

Poems

Kyong Mi Park

Kyong-Mi Park (b. 1956) is a second-generation Korean living and writing in Tokyo. Since publishing her first book of poetry, Soup in 1980, she has continued to publish numerous works of poetry and prose in major Japanese publications . She is noted for her translations of Gertrude Stein: The World is Round (1987) and Geography and Plays, (co-translation, 1992). In addition to other translations such as Over the moon by Mother Goose (1990), and several collections of essays, including The Guardian Spirit in a Garden: Words to Remember (1999) and There Are Always Birds in the Air (2004), recent collections of poetry include That Little One (2003), and The Cat Comes with a Baby Cat in its Mouth ( 2006). Park’s work has been translated into Korean, English, Spanish, Serbian, Italian and Macedonian.  She currently teaches at Wako University and the Yotsuya Art Studium.

Lianna Kushi

Lianna Kushi graduated from Smith College with a B.A. in Japanese Language and Literature in the spring of 2006. She first discovered Park's poetry in a class on the construction of gender in modern Japanese Women's Literature in her second year and went on to write her final senior paper on the Park's poetry which included the translation of four of her poems. Currently she lives in Boston, MA and is working at the Program on U.S.-Japan Relations at Harvard University.