Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Are they the lemmings]

[JongnoGuru]

My favourite poem at the moment is this one:

http://forums.eslcafe.com/korea/viewtopic.php?p=1162489&highlight=#1162489

[merlot]

This Is Just To Say
by William Carlos Williams

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

[gypsyfish]

Teaching English from an Old Composition Book
by Gary Soto


My chalk is no longer than a chip of fingernail,
Chip by which I must explain this Monday
Night the verbs �to get;� �to wear,� �to cut.�
I�m not given much, these tired students,
Knuckle-wrapped from work as roofers,
Sour from scrubbing toilets and pedestal sinks.
I�m given this room with five windows,
A coffee machine, a piano with busted strings,
The music of how we feel as the sun falls,
Exhausted from keeping up.
I stand at
The blackboard. The chalk is worn to a hangnail,
Nearly gone, the dust of some educational bone.
By and by I�m Cantiflas, the comic
Busybody in front. I say, �I get the coffee.�
I pick up a coffee cup and sip.
I click my heels and say, �I wear my shoes.�
I bring an invisible fork to my mouth
And say, �I eat the chicken.�
Suddenly the class is alive�
Each one putting on hats and shoes,
Drinking sodas and beers, cutting flowers
And steaks�a pantomime of sumptuous living.


At break I pass out cookies.
Augustine, the Guatemalan, asks in Spanish,
�Teacher, what is �tally-ho�?�
I look at the word in the composition book.
I raise my face to the bare bulb for a blind answer.
I stutter, then say, �Es como adelante.�
Augustine smiles, then nudges a friend
In the next desk, now smarter by one word.
After the cookies are eaten,
We move ahead to prepositions�
�Under,� �over,� and �between,�
Useful words when la migra opens the doors
Of their idling vans.
At ten to nine, I�m tired of acting,
And they�re tired of their roles.
When class ends, I clap my hands of chalk dust,
And two students applaud, thinking it�s a new verb.
I tell them adelante,
And they pick up their old books.
They smile and, in return, cry, �Tally-ho.�
As they head for the door.

[ardis]

I have so many favorite poems, as an English major and writer of poetry. For the past few years, however, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" has been my favorite. I'm not going to post it because it's too long.

[kimchi story]

[Natalie]

넋
넋이 있느냐 라는 것은,
내가 있느냐 없느냐고 묻는 거나 같다.
산을 보면서 산이 없다고 하겠느냐?
나의 넋이여!
마음껏 발동해 다오.
내몸의 모든 움직임은,
바로 내 넋이 가면이다.
비 오는 날 내가 다소 우울해지면,
그것은 즉 넋이 우울하다는 것이다.
내 넋을 전세계로 해방하여
내 넋을 넓직하게 발동게 하고 싶다.

천상평

[Natalie]

and, in English:

Soul.

Asking if I have a soul
is like asking if I exist or not.
Can you see a hill and say it's not there?
My soul!
Run wild.
My body's movements
are my soul's disguise, that's all.
When I'm dreary on rainy days,
it's my soul that's dreary.
I want my soul to be free worldwide,
able to run all over the place.

Ch'on Sang Pyong

[gypsyfish]

[Zoobot]

speaking of parody here's one of Donne's famous poem "Valediction: Forbidding Mourning"

A VALEDICTION FORBIDDING MOURNING.
by John Donne


AS virtuous men pass mildly away,
And whisper to their souls to go,
Whilst some of their sad friends do say,
"Now his breath goes," and some say, "No."

So let us melt, and make no noise, 5
No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move ;
'Twere profanation of our joys
To tell the laity our love.

Moving of th' earth brings harms and fears ;
Men reckon what it did, and meant ; 10
But trepidation of the spheres,
Though greater far, is innocent.

Dull sublunary lovers' love
�Whose soul is sense�cannot admit
Of absence, 'cause it doth remove 15
The thing which elemented it.

But we by a love so much refined,
That ourselves know not what it is,
Inter-assur�d of the mind,
Care less, eyes, lips and hands to miss. 20

Our two souls therefore, which are one,
Though I must go, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion,
Like gold to aery thinness beat.

If they be two, they are two so 25
As stiff twin compasses are two ;
Thy soul, the fix'd foot, makes no show
To move, but doth, if th' other do.

And though it in the centre sit,
Yet, when the other far doth roam, 30
It leans, and hearkens after it,
And grows erect, as that comes home.

Such wilt thou be to me, who must,
Like th' other foot, obliquely run ;
Thy firmness makes my circle just, 35
And makes me end where I begun.

A Malediction: Forbidding Morning (by Trevor Cunnington)

As you crept slimy, quiet out the door, away,
And hailed a cab outside, house bereft, to go,
In my mind I can hear your wretched friends say
What yeasty breath hath she, yet some say, No;

So let us rend, return to sender, the email joys,
No whimpering nor intervention from above;
Let us throw hissy fits, pots, and pans: all noise!
And gossip shortcomings of each other�s love.

Top-like the world whizzes round; we run from whirlwind fears;
Coriolus vortex of spiteful words and what they meant;
Each echos in tremolo, with many faces of music of the spheres,
Trying to cling to the illusion each, that we are innocent.

Blunt astrological weapon, the moon�s south node of love,
They who believe what they see can�t admit
The chaos behind all, like the air movement behind a dove
And the hurricanes far distant, started by it.

But we, petty bickering and sex aside, so refined
That others see it not and ask what it is,
That drew us together in the first place, mind,
Those sexy ears, lips, and thighs to miss.

Gem in eye, Janus, Hyde two faces which are one,
Though you left Jeckyll behind in bed, yet
This rift multiplies like compression after expansion
Sleep comes not eagerly back, let�s make a bet

On these ones and zeroes; binary code if they were so
Inscrutable leaving out the possibility of two;
Head like a hole, expressionless, malevolent picture show
Wired to our brains so there�s nothing we can do

Once we, in synchronicity�s centre, sit
Where encoded divisions, far and wide, roam.
A rocking chair tipping, returning to it
The upright posture, despite a slot machine at home.

Tilt! This pinball game of goodbye yelled, it must
To me rush in LCD figures on the run;
Your erection lasted long enough, but short by just
The amount of time it took for my orgasm to have begun.

[ddeubel]

[Poemer]

Why We Are Together, Always

Out there it begins again,
between the molecules of our desire
bright green shoots struggle for life,
springing upward into the knowledge
of automobiles and courses of orbit,
things which move by way of imperceptible forces
until one day you look out the second story window
and smell your own ripening against the backdrop,
an elaborate set where the vagabond
thumbs a ride into film noir,
but the only thing the sun wants
has nothing to do with the equality of things,
just to sink slowly into the rearview mirror of that life,
but again the circumstance of the gravitational pull between objects
always sliding before another and another day,
never setting below a certain need that is not need,
a circumstance being such that neither desire
nor radiated light traveling millions of miles
could not land on a random yet specified face in the window
fumbling, fumbling for some shade.

[MCSM]

[Natalie]

[dutchy pink]

Mia Coutro,
Foi Para Ti.

I love this poem, but haven't been able to find it anywhere. I've seen it in a book of Mozambican poetry, and never since. Cearly not a much talked about topic.
The rythme of the sound as well as the content are quite beautiful..
My portuguese is lacking, as well as my memory, but it goes a little something like this....

foi para ti
que desfolio a chuva
......
salta na perfuma da terra
.........
tocque no nada
e para ti
foi tudo

it's something like,

it was for you,
that I unfolded the rain
.....
loosened the smell of the earth
.....
touched upon the nothing
and for you
it was everything


it's much longer and more beautiful..
anyone know this poem?