The Executioner and Other Poems

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Executioner 사형수

 

Wherever people are gathered

there are gunshots to be heard.

 

Today, as the crowd looks on

a man is executed.

 

‘You are not to feel any sympathy!

Even when he’s dead, we must kill him again!’

 

The loudspeakers’ words are interrupted. 

Bang! Bang! 

The rest of the message is delivered.

 

Why is it that today 

the crowd is silent? 

 

His crime: to steal a bag of rice.

His sentence: ninety bullets in his heart. 

His occupation: farmer. 

 

 

The Journey Is Hard But We Go Forth With Laughter!

 

This country brings us to tears.

That’s why we live by a slogan:

     ‘Go forth with laughter!’

 

Not any old laughter

but Official Laughter.

We must laugh to a slogan.

Forget about happiness

     Live by the slogan!

 

The laughter of love!

The laughter of loyalty!

The laughter of faith!

     So what if I starve?

     So what if I die?

 

Today, I drank only saliva. Yet I

go forth with laughter!

 

Jong-il turns his face from us.

He lives for victory.

He flashes gold when he laughs but

     our laughter is ugly.

 

Still, we must respect our superiors. We must

go forth with laughter!

 

We flash the yellow of stains as we laugh.

We are bastards when we laugh.

     Ha Ha Ha

 

How will they close my eyelids?

How will they keep my mouth shut?

I will be laughing so hard!

     Ha Ha Ha

 

 

For Us, Life

 

Every morning

when I wake

I shake my brother

to and fro – his lungs are weak.

 

I know that Chul next door

went off to sleep for good.

 

Whenever mother is late

I tune my ears

to the lightest breeze.

I hold my breath

to count the hours.

 

I know that our water-lady

cut her own life short.

 

I know there are many paths in life

but just one choice for us:

to carry on.

 

 

I Am Selling My Daughter for 100 Won

 

She was desolate.

‘I Am Selling My Daughter for 100 Won.’

With that placard on her neck

with her daughter by her side

the woman standing in the market place –

 

she was mute.

People looked at the daughter being sold

and the mother who was selling.

The people cast their curses at them

but keeping her eyes downcast

 

she was tearless.

Even when the daughter

wrapped herself

in her mother’s skirt

shouting, screaming

that her mother was dying

the woman kept her lips

tight and trembled –

she did not know how to be grateful.

‘I’m not buying the daughter

I want to buy the mother.’

That soldier came by

with a 100 won note in his hand.

The woman who ran off with the money,

 

she was a mother.

With the money

she got for her daughter

she bought a loaf of bread

and put a chunk of bread 

in her daughter’s mouth 

as they said goodbye.

‘Forgive me,’ she cried.

She was desolate.

 

 

The Dreaming Child

 

What could he have seen

in his dreams

that he ran out into the night?

 

What could he have seen

in his dreams

that he did not fear the gunshot?

 

What could he have seen

in his dreams

that he held it so tight as he died?

 

The dreaming child, dying,

would not let go of

a sweet corn cob.

 

Note: In the autumn, after a year’s toil, the soldiers came to guard the crop. Anyone who stole corn was deemed reactionary and executed on the spot.

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