Poems

Mr. Lee, Hee Kuk is a Korean poet. He was born in Seoul, South Korea. He is a pharmacist and Adjunct Professor at the College of Pharmacy, The Catholic University of Korea. He is a member of the Executive Board of PEN Korean Center of PEN International. He is the president of the Ieodo Literature Association and vice president of the Korean Association of World Literature. He has published five poetry books and has won four literature awards.


Faded Time

A few books I opened without thinking,
In the yellowed corners,
Forty years old time is sitting

Through several moves
and packing and unpacking,
Within the piles of books that followed me,
Preserved are the times of my youth

One day, reading through the night
Dostoevsky and Hermann Hesse
Rilke and Baudelaire
Park In-hwan's ‘horse and lady’, and Virginia Woolf

Like pen marks underlined,
Slowly fading scents of that day

In the books of that day
That quenched my thirst for tomorrow
Lies my forty years.



A Calculated Farewell

Only a frail body remains in the lash of the wind.

Willingly offering itself,
A tree steadfastly endures the chill of time,
Not fearing the whip.

The law of trees where fruit hangs from new branches,
And shedding leaves only brings forth more shoots,
Trees compete forward by shedding leaves.

After burning the final hue for the sake of new leaves,
Leaves fall, simply surrendering to the breeze,
Departing the path without regrets.

As I grow older, am I more entangled in attachments?
Unable to follow the laws of nature,
Is it resistance to a life that fades too quickly?

Though knowing emptiness brings lightness,
I still tightly grasp onto greater regrets than my heart can bear.



December

The dry creak of bone pain

Silent cry
An unfulfilled cold chest

To prevent hard times,
They used to tear flesh and feed you
Still the same now
You, who dislike the past are wiping away even the traces of remaining time

Like green leaves without moisture
The sound of cracking Oh, they stand up with the sound like a cane

With a hunched body,
they only apologize Just because they are parents
They are praying for you

December is preparing to leave somewhere.



Fall asleep covered in moonlight

The boat fell asleep holding on to a rope.
That wooden ship
After the storm that came a few days ago went far out to sea,
The wooden ship is in a deep sleep.
The fisherman's forearm that raised even the cries of birds
Even the strong arms of a fisherman are anchored somewhere
A predator stirring in the water
A school of small fish being chased
By now, they too must have been hiding and sleeping among some seaweed.

Even the waves that grew after drinking the milk of the sea
I'm resting now

The moonlight gently sways as if stroking your back
No one can touch this silence

This deep sleep was left behind by the storm.



Evening in the park

A waste tire half-stuck on one side of the playground
The semi-circle of tires is listening to the sound of evening coming, but
Tire, a tied body, has no way to run.
On the leaves of the surrounding cherry trees
The sunlight collects the fingerprints that were taken individually
Crossing the western ridge,
Across the empty playground where the children have returned
Footprints in the evening are clear
lying waste tire
Memories set like a sunset and ran like an animal.
The wave pattern is blurry.

Stories are piled up behind the trees at the end of the day.
Time to fasten your collar
Waste tires with discharged speed
Can it burn the darkness tonight and run through this city?

While the wind starts,
Beyond today's border
The evening’s family gathers in droves.