검은

xxii

gold has left my skin

indented by an arrogated band

formed of figurative pressure

staking its presence and only

now under a slow wincing strength

through the body’s tissue yields to it

evening out in a natural reflex

outside is the ground’s natural order

autumn’s crops endeavor from soil

the sun over a fawn meadow

gradually the sky’s turmeric heat leaves

withdrawing roots of shadow

the tawny vest of netted curtain’s

moving in tinted degrees from your navel

to the saturated river-basin of your groin

the rising start of your frame I recall

and your calling breath

to see you then your still and soil-fetching limbs

with their tuber strength

and bronzed potato glaze

fletched with a black mole

like ones

we pulled and ate after the hard clay

of summer broke

검은

xxi

let’s start with pink

or blue or pastel shades of white

you know color has a function

a camouflaging maintenance

but your ink’s brute analogue is not in color

a brush-head runs over the

correlated paper with frank lines about

the ligament and history of your bone

or weak muscle tied to age

and fragile meditations

in your wrist the pressure of a heel

earthing your histrionic pulse

ink is flavored and mirked with the milk

from your red paps

that breathe on lips

the brush with its black bane

of wolf and weasel and racoon hair

검은

xx

I bend in a bauble

the floor stretched in distance to the ceiling

every inch of perspicuity whorled into miniscule detail

light coming in fractions off its silver surface

in the grove of sparing trees outside nothing

green by shades growing into flat solidity

only the plant memory of light or sugar-flares left

the day dissolving with its facts

cold mud in your nails thawing

the engine-drone of a process in train

the glinting siren’s tubular sound muted

in the photograph I hand over your eyes have

caught the red action of the camera

your cardigan is

Snoopy with a Christmas wreath

and your eyes like his

say there’s nothing adamantly in store in life

I look at other photographs as a frank survey

of your happy mind

검은

xix

black has no gradient of mirror

it controls the heat

mundanely organised

a temple of itself

you wore its style

the prophetic assimilation it offered

in cloistered varnish in nail polish

articulated in fine lingerie

the suave beacon of your dress had it

the wiry and transformative organs of sex

jungled in its monochromatic mesh

now the delicate

pressure its heat brings wholesale into

the resurrected sound of its order

is annihilating

every orgasm of synthetic light

검은

xviii

seven floors up the distance grows

the city plugged to a grid

its source and energy of life

the sky above a beveled cloud

black and arid the strong point

of no star visible

or no bastardized constellations

an unearthed hunger in the air

the rain brought

cars and the diminutive motion of people

can be traced on roads

the vacant mention of day is closing

the night is also corroding warm

and sober relations

the axis of each window’s light

on and off but mostly on or mostly off

the full synaptic reality outside

blinking unanimously

검은

xvii

animals barely in their skins are born blind

in the clinging nature of the dark they cry

already possessing a formless need for light

already unspeakably aware the black and

entangled newness of their nerves is unnatural

so love exists before it begins and

you said this was fate the incidental degrees

of suffering that brought you to this bed

where the feral night exuding sweat from

your glands is blind and pungently real

검은

xvi

walking to the apartment

you would later go missing

the sky had been turning melon pink

everything quietened by it

birds eliminating their own

cries buying refuge in the mastic mundane leaves

the black pill of night setting with heavy age

and routine earth heavy with countless undefined revolutions

with its mass going round and the suppurating mornings

nights were unable to heal

any ideals I had once unshaven in the mirror

and the toothbrush standing up to ward off inanity

the voodoo of coffee selling the news

I want you to answer but you don’t and that’s when

I know actual questions have no answers

검은

xv

at 7.45pm a delayed train pulled into the station

on a concealed platform bright-lit and modern

no throttled distinction in the engine halting

the panned stop was smooth and passengers

emerged muted and controlled

on the display map a hair-thin black line

represented the journey that you had taken

following the contours of farmland and forest

routes some as old as the institution of the railway itself as if

the iron of the first-laid tracks had never rusted

but braced the unkept and sacrificial land

hardened themselves into the rood of the land

spiked ties bearing a weary humanity from city to city

in the reflection of its glass

more than on any road

scenic anomalies moving faster by

with every age and the tracks seamlessly part of it

belonging to it inordinately

holding the flanges of a whispering past

the ballast of history

검은

xiv

the kitchen sounded like an old machine in the morning

manual sounds clunking and closing

the almost definite presence of someone managing it

given the irregularity of the metal tempo

and its untempered patience too brittle to last

black black the reply an echo almost

sugar no cream no black black

two syllables was as sweet as the replies ever got

on those brisk mornings of lazy content

검은

xiii

buildings build the sky

long and arching and bold edifices

monuments of blackened strength

girded towards the vacant atmosphere

above and around them

the streets are empty and vented

the color of fruit has died

ashen or with dark green edifying mold

distantly syncopated voices enter streets briefly

and streetlights unfurl their unnatural brightness

lights blink traffic stands

there is an inaudible absence you listen for

I listen for the pulse in your wrist

until I realize it’s cold

a cold narrow deafening pulse

the voices of your gods plunging into water

into a swarming deaf void

and the day’s-end distant alarm

as clean as a lost memory