3rd Excerpt from Seoul Sonnets

With time, with mind
little things swell and
disappear or stay the same,
making infinite time-stamped
copies of themselves in the
infinite number of moments
making up reality – but
I can’t let you know,
because the lie is better,
sweeter than truth
with its funhouse mirror twisted
refractions hateful to the
eye – warped lightwaves
worming through the retina

In the centre of the black hole,
o what dreams may come
when even light
cannot escape, and all is
infinitely dense and just
as frustrating as before, –
Maybe love is nothing more
than the beating of single
hearts in unison longing
to return to the infinite whole…
Rattling, hip-hop pounding
out of the speakers and
we’re heady with red wine
and time outside of time

From the pills we took
or didn’t take, and our
thoughts flying through
the air, texts we send
drunk and don’t remember,
so heavy in the head
and dizzy with lights and
gibberish and cigarettes
to bring us back down—
I tried to spend the night in
silence, but the phone
wouldn’t stop – “struggling
war desperate suicidal”—
why did she send those words

Flashing through the cold ether
after dark on a February night?
Just to
keep me awake
and on the road—
it worked – she got drunk
on warm cranberry juice and
almost cried over her life—
“What am I doing here?”
I could ask
the very same question, with no
answer to satisfy.
What was it?
a flash of something

Cornered my eye in
the confusion, the
sadness at the end
of the night when
the booze is gone
and you forget why
we got together in the
first place. You’re
sleeping – that’s okay –
I’m awake because
you’re sleeping and I
forget what it means
to kill the monster
in dreams;

I sit in envy of your peace,
your tranquil acceptance
of the conflicts
things that
tie us to the world
and promise rebirth;
Are you just tired
of sleeping alone?
I am too – it’s not
a stab, it’s
just about the only
honest thing
I can say at this moment
when no one can hear.

What Love Means (fiction)

[For Mia Pak]


“What does it mean to be in love?”

she asked sipping some sort of angry candy out of a cocktail glass,

“Nobody ever bothered to tell me or show me—My parents just shouted at each other until long after the divorce…”

I shrugged politely and I said I didn’t know – she didn’t want to hear what I had to say, only wanted a dance partner for her cynical little ballet, so I said as little as possible and continued to pay for her drinks, which go by a name too obscene to print.

“I have never met a man who didn’t drop me like a hot rock as soon as he got what he wanted—”

I was beginning to see why. Within five minutes it was glaringly obvious – if you don’t believe in love, then people will stop trying to love you, and if you expect to be treated badly, people will always rise to the occasion.

I wondered where her friends were – I looked around subtly. Usually this would mean that I was preparing to make a move and looking around to make sure that I didn’t get blindsided, but this time it occurred to me that I was hoping someone might take her off my hands. I had lost my mercenary mentality and I was just sad to listen to her. She was whiny and empty-headed, but I didn’t want to be the next page in her album of disappointments.

How could she not see that I was trying not to listen to her?

Is this the trade that she is accustomed to making? She finds a man, he buys her drinks and listens to her sad disaster of a life story and in return she fucks him and then also gets to call him an asshole for never calling again, thus strengthening her convictions and lengthening the rant that she gets to dish out to the next man in line.

“I’m sorry, you must be bored – I’m sure you didn’t sit down here just to listen to me bitch…”

And there was the opening; she may as well have said “Kiss me”, but I couldn’t do it. I told her

“I know how you feel – I really do. I was in a relationship for three years and everything was perfect – I thought it would be forever, but it never is. It was love though. I can’t explain it but I know how it feels. I don’t think the heartbreak ever goes away until you find that love again. That’s why really old couples die like six months apart – There is not enough time to find that love again – no hope, no reason to go on – the body shuts down—”

Then she kissed me, leaning in with sweetness of vodka and pineapple on her tongue. My insides moved – that sort of sinking feeling in the organs when the brain triggers the release of adrenaline and switches from cold logic to something more instinctual, and my lips and tongue started moving on their own, and my mind started to wander.

I thought about the way no two women in the world kiss alike. Every woman’s way of kissing seems to me to be an analogue to her essential self, – with fears, hopes, insecurities, pride, strength, weakness – all revealed in the movement of tongue and lips. A woman who seems crazy will usually erase all doubt by doing something odd and unsettling like sticking her hole tongue straight and tensed into my mouth and gyrating it while running her teeth across it. Some shy women will avoid opening their mouths altogether and try to focus on the tame interplay of lips, which perhaps seems more proper. When a shy woman does relax a bit and lets her mouth open, I’ll gradually work my tongue in gently – but more often than not I’ll have my tongue nearly bitten in half as the shy woman closes her mouth quickly in order to return to the monotonous rhythm of lips.

Some women like to kiss and some don’t. Some fear the intimacy of it, the vulnerability it invites, but some women seek it, knowing that therein lies their power. This woman liked to kiss, and she kissed rhythmically and without hesitation—if we were dancing, her hands would be on my hips – firmly in the lead; she kept her hand on the back of my neck, keeping my head in place, while my hands rested open-palmed and slack on her thighs. She kissed with the confident rhythm of someone who took pride in being a good kisser—she did not need to be told that she was good. She took her hand from my neck

“Not here. Let’s go out back for a minute.”

She took my hand and led me out the side door of the bar into a small alleyway. She grabbed the sides of my shirt where it was open below the collar and pushed me up against the fire escape. She kissed harder this time, almost with an edge of desperation. She was drunker than I had realized.

Though my mind was relatively clear, all thoughts seemed to travel from a haze to reach my conscious mind, seeming to crop up unsummoned from the deep. They floated up slowly and easily, thanks to adrenaline’s ability to seemingly slow down time—It was as though I had time to hold each thought in my hand and turn it over until I understood it. I thought of sunsets in the fall, I thought of the girl I was trying to forget…I thought about how hungry I was – tried to remember when last I had I eaten.

My hand began to travel up her skirt routinely, my earlier misgivings about her having entirely vanished. She gripped me tighter, already beginning to convulse a little bit. My hand went down the front of her nylons and she began to breathe heavily, pulling her mouth away from mine to take in more air. I kissed her neck as she reached down my pants and gripped me purposefully. This went on for what felt like a wonderful eternity, but was more like thirty seconds, and then she pulled away suddenly, with an unplaceable expression on her face, blending anguish, fear and loneliness, and she began to cry.

“What’s wrong?”

I asked – my voice had turned deep and husky.

“I’m sorry…I’m so sorry…”

I smelled her perfume over everything in the cold alley, and my insides did that sinking thing again, but this time it was something different.

“Hey, shh – you don’t need to be sorry, it’s okay –”

I put my arms around her and drew her into me, stroking her hair and whispering to her like to a baby, which is the only thing I know how to comfort. Something had changed. I realized that I now cared about this girl. I didn’t want her to be sad.

She cried, I whispered. I lost track of time as adrenaline subsided and was replaced by something else, making me feel slow and queer all over. The busboy stuck his head out the side door and started hauling out cardboard. She pulled away, makeup streaming down her face and smudged where she had left it on my shirt.

“I’m sorry.”

I felt like a mushy idiot as I hugged her again, then handed her my handkerchief.

“It’s okay.”

We went back into the bar. My friends were gone. Her friends had found a group of guys and were leaving. She asked me to come with her, but I told her a lie to excuse myself. I got her number without even thinking about it – I knew I wouldn’t call her. As she left with her friends I said

“Don’t be sad – Time heals all wounds.”

And I swear that I believed what I told her. Looking into her puffed up eyes that to everyone else would seem destined to repeat the lonely cycle of heartbreak and hollowness, I had faith that soon she wouldn’t need to cry anymore.

I walked out into the night alone, past the prostitutes and street food vendors all looking bored and underworked, and I tried to remember what love felt like, but I could only think of pictures of me smiling and staying up late just to feel her close to me.

14/02/11

Seogwipo, 23/02/11

How long has it been?
I have a heart that I will not give up to the whirlwind,
I will not wrong the reality,
I will not meet the Buddha on the road and let him live,
I will stab the Buddha through the heart and stop the horrible dreams,
I will love furiously until the sun burns out,
and -------, you're not too old, I would have married you
and we could have been swept away lost and bound to the easeful whirlwind,
hold me again because I can't wait until the next life.

Genuine Dew

XXV –

April I’m staring into the sawed-off shotgun barrel 7:30 am Tuesday no answers celibate hole in the sky,

lips dry face dry heart strung out on the line starched stiff as a board – only thinking of you, the womb, – of wonder the traps the hooks the web where you found me

cutting up prose

in uneven rows cascading rows – the rose – that morphs into multiple mazes the anagogic liminal metaphysical storm drain lay down laughing soused too sad to see that the wind is the rain’s accomplice,

April, save me, tell me you hear me you see me in your dreams too – it has to mean something – you look upon me and I know you,

soft red – pale hair – green eyes, innocence of Candide smiling auguries of strange but possible worlds,

always more fantasy than fiction – all stories begin “who am I?”,

The problem: these thoughts go nowhere – Tuesday ends and I haven’t left bed – shaking to thoughts of – April –

Every room a womb – a tomb a shrine to the merciless divine mother – April –

Worlds tumble into order as prayers rise and make it so,

so comes love marriage honour redemption mansion on the hill or bumming down deserted highways of Lethe to Elysium Omaha,

– still in the Bastille – bed in Toronto – cold for the sake of cold warmed by dreams of April …

2nd Excerpt from Seoul Sonnets

It’s too late, it seems
to chase you down now;
they had you on the wheel
long before we met, –
but too early for this:
슬퍼하다 – too early
to feel grief so deep,
so literary – but I was
taught that time—time avails
not, so here is the senseless
lament of stinging behind the
eye, and explosion of colour
when the flash of light
smashes against the retina.

Do I forgive you? I do –
I did before we began, knew
there was nothing else
to do – knew it was
the errand wholly of
a fool, though sometimes
in fairytales, the fool
breaks through, so when
you ask for forgiveness,
I smile so deeply as to feel
pain, and say “yes! yes!
I do!” How could I
grudge, embittered
against one as pure as you?

Why do we chase foolish
challenges, and roam
through vampire streets
for belt notches? Why
do we stray off the path
into the bracken?
Service wrote a poem
about us and I won’t quote
but you know
which one – I beg
the question: can you
find your way by only
staying on the road, or
are we forced by spirits

To wander off from the
easy path? The gift is love,
at least, that is what I
have read in between the
lines of discarded fliers and
subway ads bearing images
of surgical beauty that
whisper “누가 당신
사랑?” Why
do they laugh? Why do
I think of the jeering faces
of the girls in 2nd grade,
and why would I think
anything has changed?

The gift is love, but the giver
is going broke slowly, calling
up on the mainline for more,
for truckloads – because
by Sunday we all feel unloved
and lost in a spacy
exhaustion loop and
we can’t shop our way out
and prayer seems hollow, but
still worth a try – worth
the sweat of turning the
page in search of
a line to change your life by –
a lie to forget by.

Itaewon Girls

Ways to use a vegetable knife

1. Skin a potato

2. make a Jackson Pollock on the floor

3. A long slice down the middle of the mystery

4. Brandish it

5. don’t just suffer silently

6. Make a long ritual out of loneliness

7. try to chop flies

8. etch your feelings in the drywall

9. Live highs and lows like a thirteen-year old girl

10. lose what little sense you had

11. be a lighting rod

12. Find out what is harder than steel

13. carve tally charts of nights alone

14. get high and swing it, watch the swish through the air

13. kill a blackbird

15. when you can’t perform anymore

16. dig a hole for your treasures

17. Step into the skin of a monster

18. ecce homo

19. get old (there’s nothing left to do)

20. Watch palliation as it gets so tedious that you want to spray blood on the walls

21. Hate what you have to love

22. clang it against stone for the thousand hypocrite lecteurs this flesh is heir to

23. Feel sterile next to pollen in the breeze

Snow WHO?

Excerpt from Seoul Sonnets

Can’t go with you,
through the water,
flame and confusion.
We can’t have everything
we want all the time,
or we can’t want
everything we see, or
we must close our eyes
to the beauty of the
world to stop ourselves
from collecting each
thing that shines on
our hearts’ fancies—
that stumbles out of

Shadows into the
light. Is it you
that makes me close
my eyes to all
other beauties, or
does something else
bridle me with blinders
in the whizzing
disco lights of the
noraebang – just strobe
lights of lonely whistling
if you’re far away.
If there is a way out,
let’s take it, pack and run

Away from the repetitive
grind of eating and sleeping
getting boozed up and
begging for care and
understanding at 2am
with yr heart bleeding thru
yr sleeve and tears welling
up and wondering if
Buddha and Lao-Tzu ever
felt lonely gliding in
and out of silence, or if
Dante ever felt it was
worth chasing his tail over
Beatrice for a few sonnets

That no one alive can
understand. Shigani yakida
hearts need the medicine of
hours. I want to
I want want want to
I want to be that idea
slowly creeping up inside you
popping up as a
revelation just before
it’s too late and maybe you'll
find something about me
to love, before the scars
start to smart in the humid
air, and a voice tells us

“It’s not too late, it’s
never too late to
follow whatever is left of your
heart” – there’s always
a voice when you need one,
just listen, sit and hum
at creation, the song made out
of rainwater, and the human
problem born of a big bird
no one ever saw again winging
away into the valley forest,
the myth forms and we forget –
we watch kkachi birds
perch on snowy roofs

Through the fifth floor window,
and talk about the
strange circumstances that
brought us to that spot, and
of the women we’re falling for
with full weight of foolishness
like tenth grade boys who
see for the first time and
don’t realize they’ve gone blind –
there in the hallway,
in the quiet, so soon after
Christmas, when we both seem
to be falling in love; we’re
both going blind and stupid,


I asked “How do you do it?”
but the question was about
a different “it” than you realize,
I just wanted you to tell me
that love can be carefully
considered and rational, but
it’s too much to ask of you
to lie to me about the beauty
of what we know is true. –
If your heart won’t bounce
then don’t drop it – stay
curled up in the room of your
solitude - your heart an antique
piano: unused and out of tune.

Alone In Hongdae Saturday Night

Don't usually like to blog about my own life, but every once and a while I write something about myself. I guess this isn't really anything I would rather keep private. One night I was supposed to meet some people in Hongdae, which is the area around Hongik University in Seoul well-known for its clubs and (awesome) nightlife. The woman I was meeting did not answer her phone, so I ended up all dressed up with nowhere to go, so I bought a notebook in a 7-11 and wandered around. This is the minutia of my lost evening:

14/11/10

Group of young teenaged girls fervently discussing a poster advertising cosmetic surgery, specifically modifications to face shape, (square to v-shape) and eyes (small to big). Before/After pictures can't be real.

Ended up in Hongdae with nowhere to be. Eating gelato. Yogurt flavour. Not worth describing.

Mind reels a bit...

Sat down on a bench at Dorimcheon station, next to a knockout (Korean) girl in her Saturday night best. Turns to me and in perfect English begins to describe an arguemtn with a male friend w/r/t his new girlfriend who is cramping their friendship's style. She was intoxicated. In my usual fashion, I responded as if this was all terribly ordinary, as if hot women used me as Dear Abby on a reg. basis. Gave her the best advice that I could. Noticed that her smartphone's scr. was smashed. Suspect it was not accidental. She and her friend passed out on the train within seconds of us all getting on it and I had to wake them at Sindorim, the very next station, so they could transfer.

Everyone goes crazy on Saturday nights and nothing is unusual anymore. I could do worse with my Saturday night than people-watch.

Couple next to me: Young man with REALLY bad mustache, jeans, blazer, checked dress shit, -- bowtie FC'sS--...Worst bowtie I have ever laid eyes on...Girl is out of easy view. Profile reveals nothing worth describing, but here it is anyway: Late 20s, bangs, black overcoat. Man is TOO much though...wow.

Can't finish this ice cream.

Sober in Hongdae is unreal; won't make a habit of it.

Ambulance trying to get through drunken crowd. Unreal.

Korea seems to be a country where postmodernism never happened. I kinda like that.
I think the couple sitting next to me were just sitting there and never ate anything.

Left the gelato place and lit a smoke just to look busy. Drums playing.

--1:04 am--

Drinking a nice cup of tea in Starbucks, same one where I got accosted on Halloween by a socially retarded American werewolf after the zombie parade. I am sitting at the exact table as that night. Wandering a lone in a party district has its charm, to be be sure, but I am reasonably ready to fuck off and go home. Sure enough, Starbucks just closed and kicked me out.

Caught a cab. Do cab drivers think of the voice of the GPS as company? It's very calm and soothing.

Don't like writing about what I really see. Makes me sound like an asshole.

I regret being a grammar nazi in the past because these types of oddities make me re-imagine my language down at the most basic level. Words like "your", "the" and "of" seem filled with so much more potential.

More Konglish coming soon!

Top 10 Breakup Songs of All Time

Here is my completely unsolicited list of my top ten breakup songs of all time. This is a surprisingly competitive category. Tell me what I forgot in the comments, or make your own. I love breakup songs and I would love to hear your favourites!

Heartbreak is a really unpleasant experience at times, but it is also educational and helps you mature. That said, I don't think human beings could ever get through it alone. Family, friends, and even kind strangers can be invaluable as you struggle to regain your faith in the human race, but unfortunately, most of the letting go, moving on and soul searching has to be done on your own. You are never truly alone, however, if you have likeminded strangers. Artists can cut right to the core of what you are feelings and practically explain the whole ugly mess to you. So when your heart is smashed, come back to this list.

in ascending order:

10. Miss Ghost -- Don Henley

Easily one of the most interesting songs on this list, it is pretty lyrically complex. My take on this song is that it is Don Henley's personal rewrite of The Raven by Edgar Allen Poe. Instead of the ghost of a dead lover, however, the ghost is a memory of a woman he was drinking to forget. The song's combination of electric organ, totally tight drums and guitar riffing and ghostly backing vocals with Henley's typical scratchy delivery make this a haunting psychic journey. My father had a very different interpretation of the song's meaning, interestingly enough. I usually win literary criticism arguments with Dad, but he had a compelling argument that the character Miss Ghost is liquor, and that this song is Don Henley wrestling with his alcoholic past. Best line to support Dad's claim also happens to be the best line of the song: "I cursed the weakness of the flesh, this breath and bone, and that brute reptilian brain".

9. Bloody Motherfucking Asshole -- Martha Wainwright

This song has to be one of Martha's most famous ones, with a title that just insists that you press play. Though the title is gimmicky, the song is actually a very impassioned and pained folk-protest style song, except that instead of being directed at Nixon or Thatcher and their acolytes, it's aimed squarely at one particular jerkoff. There is a strong argument to be made that this is not a breakup song at all, but rather addressed to her distant and emotionally messed up father, Loudon Wainwright. In that case, it may be just a song about her daddy issues, which is really interesting in its own right. For a listener though, it is REALLY easy to yelp along with Martha and direct the words at the ex. So cathartic! Best line: "I've been poked and stoked, it's all smoke, there's no more fire..."

8. Your Cheatin' Heart -- Hank Willams

First one from the master of the broken heart. A really upbeat track that just happens to feature one of the most wrenching lyrics I have ever heard. Hank's pain is so naked and plain that if he were singing in Swahili, I would still know what he was singing about. Only a broken heart can hurt like that. He reportedly wrote it in a taxi, telling the driver to keep driving around as the words came to him, not long before he died. Slide guitar, snare drum, upright bass and fiddle...so simple that it's impossible to explain. It's hard to choose a best line because Hank Williams's lyrics defy quotation a lot of the time. If I read you the lyric it would be good, but in Hank's heartbroken twang it becomes something otherworldly, but here's a favourite: "When tears come down like falling rain, you'll toss around and call my name".

7. One Man Guy -- (cover) Rufus Wainwright

I think it's interesting that the three Wainwrights made the list. This song, sung by Rufus and written by his father, Loudon, is clearly about the time after the divorce that split Wainwright from his wife, Kate McGarrigle, Rufus and Martha's mother. On one hand, it seems as though the singer is finding solace and comfort in his ability to be alone, but there is an irony to this song that makes it impossible to believe what the singer says. It could just as easily be a lament as a manifesto. Maybe being alone doesn't have to be so lonely, but first you have to face the fact that you are alone. Best line: "Sure it's kind of lonely, yeah it sort of sick; being your own one and only is a dirty, selfish trick."

6. Love In Vain Blues -- Robert Johnson

A very simple song detailing a man's walk to the train station with his woman, who is presumably leaving. Just Johnson and his deft blues guitar--really vintage. Three verses of singing and one of half-hearted moaning--and the simplest, most frustrating feeling: The feeling of giving your love to someone only to get none back. The short and tidy construction of the songs reminds the listener how the world goes on about him even though he remains heartbroken. All your broken heart gets is a short blues. Best line: "The train left the station with two lights on behind. The blue light was my blues and the red light was my mind".

5. Heartbreak Warfare -- John Mayer

Does anyone know which of John Mayers dozen celebrity girlfriends this song is about? If it is Jessica Simpson, I will be both amused and disappointed. The lyric is great though--it's so apropos and simple. In an interesting juxtaposition, Mayer alternates between the banal but stinging unpleasantness of post-breakup conversations and images of WW2 style battlefields: "Drop his name, push it in and twist the knife again / Clouds of sulphur in the air, bombs are falling everywhere". This song strikes me as being really true. Sometimes the hardest part about breaking up is not the pain of it, but having to pretend you don't care about someone you still really love. It really seems twisted that you have to go from knowing someone really really intimately to pretending that you don't give a shit. I would imagine John Mayer is NOT really very good at staying friends with someone after a breakup. Best line: "Red wine and Ambien; you're talking shit again" (+10 points if it's about Jessica Simpson).

4. Goodbye Blue Monday -- Jeremy Fisher

Arguably one of the saddest songs on this list, I would definitely rate this one as the most poetic. I could write a whole essay on this song, and I am starting to think that someday soon I will. Fisher writes a beautiful mix of the common and the cosmic. I might even consider this as a visionary type text in some respects. He definitely shifts from the literal to the metaphoric and even anagogic levels in his lyric; he really just seems to go wherever the feelings take him. The song feels like it has a three-act structure. He starts on what seems to be a familiar street, with his surroundings flicking on the memories of a lost love, and the language turns religious, recalling Dante and Beatrice (might be a stretch, haha). The next verse takes him to the sky and outer space chasing the memory of his lost love, who has taken the form of a "red balloon". The final verse, which is really a bridge, is direct and literal, breaking down the poetic barriers. The lead-in the final chorus is the tragically literal and all too common ending to modern romances, and also the best line: "You fell in love with your ambition--white noise lies on the television. A dime a dozen, one in a million, I guess my vote couldn't change your decision--Goodbye".

3. You Win Again -- Hank Williams

Clocking in at 2:36, this is the shortest song on the list, and I have played it on a loop at times when feeling heartbroken. More mournful and openly sad than the earlier entry by Mr. Williams, this one is also more vulnerable, admitting defeat to the ex. It is a depressing feeling to be the one dumped, or to find out that your ex has moved on faster than you. Williams is turning that around, however, and pointing out how this insensitive woman kicked his heart around and took advantage of their disparity of feelings. Sometimes love does feel like a competition, and it is no fun to be the loser. The best line of this song may be the best line of the list, because this is what love does--it makes us blind and hopelessly stupid: "This heart of mine could never see what everybody knew but me".

2. Fuck You -- Ceelo Green

Also released as a cleaned-up version, "Forget You", which I also love. I play that version when I am arranging desks in my classroom and want to dance a little bit. Basically one of the catchiest songs I have ever heard, and its mix of regret, lingering feelings and anger is SO relatable. It's an anthem because it mixes an amazing hook with feelings that EVERYBODY has felt or will someday feel. I personally think that wanting to say "fuck you" to your ex's new boy/girl is the most normal thing in the universe, and blasting this song in the car is a lot better than getting sloshed at a party where you both show up and saying some really regrettable things. It's really hard to feel blue about your breakup while this song is playing--it just lifts you up. Moving from morose self-pity to bitter spitefulness is a really important step in getting over somebody, in my unprofessional opinion haha. Best line: "I tried to tell my mama and she told me 'this is one for your dad". <---That shit stings.

1. Heartless -- Kanye West

This was, is, and likely will forever be my go-to breakup anthem. Naturally, I hope I don't need a go-to breakup anthem anytime soon, or ever, but it is good to be prepared. This song, like "Fuck You" is right on the cusp between morose self-pity and bitter spite. This is a really shitty way to feel, but I REALLY believe what Kanye is saying. While there is a little bit more self-mocking humour in "Fuck You", I truly believe that to Kanye, this is "the coldest story ever told". At the same time, it has an upbeat track and a really nice flow from Kanye, so you can dance and groove out your anger and hurt feelings--not a bad idea at all, in my opinion. Best line: "You say you got a new friend? Well, I got homies...but in the end it's still so lonely".

Here's to healed hearts and a Happy New Year full of love!