Pusanweb Writing Contest 2002 - Poetry
 
A Life Spent Running from Blue
  by BWK
December 14, 2002


I swam the East Sea - desperate and nude
to sedate the cry of the blue-faced babe that I was born
- squirming from an umbilical cord grip
- barely breathing - already weathered and worn.

I bathed and lapped at the cool oil sand,
- flopped on the beach of pebbles and glass -
slithered through shadows in alleys named for great men
in a tight t’al - tongue hide gourd mask.

I scratched my salty shoulders until they bled
a hideous navy on the bark of an ivory tree
- apologetically I caked rice like sticky pearls
on the wounds that would rot and seep - to tea.

I buried myself in a heap - under twig limbs
of squint-eyed children - to be trampled quietly
by splintered cadences of paperweight boots.
Once again my claustrophobic hue revealed me.

Finally, I stood - in spitfire flames of crushed mugunghwa buds
to singe and soot my azure face -
The sparks skipped and giggled, poking between my ribs
- leaning in to only lick the berry juice, and nibble, and taste.

I sobbed to quiet their cruel titter. In the haze
the harp-plucking fingers of ghost smoke reached - pulled me up
- up the mountain you have all been - that hovers
seven stone stairs up from ground - held in the red echo of a perfect C.

There - they found me - wrapped me in a cocoon of bodhi leaves and wept.
There, in april, in a moment - unaware - I found Breath.
They smiled - sighed to my peace by the beat of the young san jae gongs.
we celebrated the first anniversary of my blue death.

 

 

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