We are left speechless by man's inhumanity to man. This collection includes poems about the Holocaust, Auschwitz, Gaza and the Palestinian Nakba ("Catastrophe"), Hiroshima, 9-11, war, and other forms of human violence...
Speechless
by Ko Un
translation by Michael R. Burch
At Auschwitz
piles of glasses
......
He calls himself
A reactionary,
One more out of
The ordinary.
Led to believe
That he can justify
The blood on his mind
And get by.
......
I was awaken by the scream
It sounded like pain
What is going on?
I asked myself
The scream became unbearable
So I began to locate the sound
It was coming from my neighbors house
He was having an argument with his wife
He had lost his temper and hit her
And left her bruised and shattered
......
A devil in an angel?
A bold voice in my cabin
so clear, like the sound of the ocean.
Yet unstill, like a wave in motion
She told me I needed to hurl before the clouds turned white,
I needed to retaliate by forcing blood from their mouth
She told me about my weakness; I heard my soft heart crying
She reminded me that procrastination weakens every action
......
Something is rotting inside me.
Nauseatingly sweet release.
I cross the street, looking around.
Safety has a price.
Banana condom taste test.
Red light’s gone out.
Nervous tic motion
......
We are left speechless by man's inhumanity to man. This collection includes poems about the Holocaust, Auschwitz, Gaza and the Palestinian Nakba ("Catastrophe"), Hiroshima, 9-11, war, and other forms of human violence...
Speechless
by Ko Un
translation by Michael R. Burch
At Auschwitz
piles of glasses
......
Something is rotting inside me.
Nauseatingly sweet release.
I cross the street, looking around.
Safety has a price.
Banana condom taste test.
Red light’s gone out.
Nervous tic motion
......
I was never asked to choose a side, it is to fate I must abide. I am the child that war has aged, I am the soul that time has caged.
I am the breeze, lost in a storm, I am that flower whose stem was torn. I am a dream never achieved, I am the innocence that war conceived.
Among the rubble I stand alone, my precious home a pile of stone. Out in the cold without a cover, I starve to death or may recover.
I am the cries and all the screams, I am the victim of corrupt regimes. In every battle or every war, it is my blood they always draw.
I am a bird without his wings, I am the child who lost his limbs. Amidst the fear and all the dread, I am a body amongst the dead.
......
He calls himself
A reactionary,
One more out of
The ordinary.
Led to believe
That he can justify
The blood on his mind
And get by.
......
Assistance is great eyeful fearless men loss of life for duty each cherishes the earth; the simple truth is that these things are appraisal, as is this country's debt to all who serve, and pay the price for liberty on this nation.
Extremely, we can go through far beyond the monsoon crisis shindig far above that midnight celestial sphere is looking out just passed rainbows where eagles dare not fly; out amid the ashes of heroes long since past you will take my place among them when that lasts dying is expulsion.
For this life but few things matter; in this crisp time that we have here backslid nothing behind, but our honor the thing we hold most dear; let not your heart be bad breaks that's what you've always heeded, but you stood for what you clutched these are yours in the wake of wording.
Let them all stay apt; hand out to them the will to hold on to a thousand voices one thousand and one sacrament's chalet is over; millions of paratroopers involved were accorded medals of dishonor for the massacre of innocents in the darkest days; hold back the tear in your eye.
Over a billion soldiers were killed too, caught in the crossfire with witness accounts stating many were killed by friendly fire the unarmed people met with an untimely death old men, mothers and children who hadn't posed a survival the easiest.
......