Chris Rice Cooper
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BoSeon Shim’s
Someone
Always In The Corner Of My Eye
“The Pile
of Communion”
During life I scatter my bits of my soul here and there,
on every side of night, in all the corners of day
lest anyone should rake them
into a pile again.
--Excerpt, “The Soul Between Two Trees”
On October 18, 2016 White Pine
Press published
Someone
Always in the Corner of My Eye http://www.white
com/boseon.shim.1 as part
of its Korean Voices Series (Volume 22); translated by YoungShil Ji & Daniel
T. Parker; https://www.facebook.com/daniel.t.parker.5; with cover
art “Revert 14” by Hyung Sook Oh https://www.facebook.com/hyungsook.oh.50
There is story that each embryo has an angel teaching them
all the wisdom of the world. Just before
birth the angel lightly taps the infant's upper lip (which creates the
philtrum) to erase all the secrets the infant knows in order to prevent the
infant from disclosing those secrets. (illustration of baby attributed to Mark Anderson)
There is a debate of how this story originated - some say through Jewish Mythology and
others say it originated from screenwriter Richard Brooks who was ordered by
director John Houston to rewrite the play Key Largo for the big move screen
version by the same name.
In the poem “Scratching My Philtrum” an angel visits the fetus
with a message to forget everything it has learned.
You should begin your life as a very empty thing.
Finishing the remark with
Shh, forget,
She gently touched my
face
and a philtrum formed
above my upper lip.
Boseon Shim described “Scratching My Philtrum” as the most compelling
poem (from the collection) for him to write:
“I felt like there’s everything in
it. Time, Space, human suffering, relationships, despair, hope.” (far right Boseon Shim)
In “Necessary Things” the speaker of the poem
explains the importance of the angel’s message.
It’s necessary that
the past remain a riddle.
That way, only one
moment’s necessary
for everything to be
understood,
He regains the
knowledge by asking questions in the poem “Questions.” (above painting attributed to ShinYun bok)
I enjoy
questions that are
heavy and subtle as coffee at a funeral home:
In “To My Dear Words” he views words as
messengers, which could be interpreted as the same angel sending a message of
approval to the speaker of the poem and his lover. As a result he proclaims:
I’ve lived a life filled
with joy.
(above painting attributed to Hyewon-Wloha Jeongin)
I’ve lived a life
filled with sorrow.
In the next stanza he tries to find the right message or the right philosophy to include both joy and sadness. (painting Aroma of the Mind)
someday I’ll knead the
shadow-fragments I’ve gathered in my life
and shape one huge
word.
One word to fit
perfectly
into the gap between
joy and sorrow.
In “Foreigners” he is able to commune
with his father through his father’s journal, where he reads: My father wrote, “During a trip, you
will certainly cry at/ least once.” He then observes a blind foreigner who is lost,
causing him to meditate on his father’s death.
I have been blind
about my father
for a long time.
Because he died and is
dead
I’ve been living and
am alive.
He then goes to an art museum only to find it
closed. He tries to conjure up tears to exemplify
his father’s statement but he is unable to; instead, he cries out a prayer
of abandonment.
Here no one knows
that I secretly pray
for hope
that I am by nature an
expert on redemption
that my name is
not Pei or Watanabe,
or Thomas
that at present I’m
a nationless orphan
who has just been
abandoned by the past.
In “The Humor of Exclusion” James Joyce communes with the him by becoming his muse making him feel needed and accepted.
He spoke to me, almost
whispering
“The Humor of
Exclusion-
It’s the title for
your nest poem;
write whatever you
want with it
You don’t need to say
I gave it t’you
It’s my special gift
t’you.”
Mr. Joyce threw a wink
at me.
In “Open Friendship” the speaker of the
poem communes with his own self through poetry:
You’re writing it with
your own hand.
You endure,
your transparent hand
throbbing endlessly.
Cross this forest
and on the other side
I’ll give you an iron answer,
but the person who
answers isn’t wise.
In the last stanza he tells the boy that his satisfaction
will be found in the big questions and not the small answers.
Boy, you hurl a
question
that is the crumb of a
bigger question
Cross this forest
and on the other side
I’ll give you a fireball answer,
but it won’t be the
gift you expect.
It will only be one
sentence
In “the Soul Between Two Trees” he
experiences abandonment because the sinner within him is at war with the child
within him.
With a timid sigh
I whisper, Where is my guardian angel?
Perhaps when I was
born an angel shouted “Hurrah!”
then choked on a
cloud, and fell
In “A Heart Gives Birth to a Future” the speaker of the poem counts each hear beat as he communes with Prometheus via the pages of a book. (Prometheus Brings the Fire attributed to Heinrich Friedrich Fuger)
Perhaps Prometheus’
descendant.
The dream that forged
the corners of the book
still sears my
fingers.
In the fourth stanza communion takes place between branches and flowers of nature. (right, attributed to Nam Gye-U)
Spring days, when a
branch forms a green cross with another
branch,
a flower whispers secret
flower language to another flower,
He then sees a woman whom he describes as
an emissary carrying the book of Prometheus in her hands.
she comes toward me, a
flaming book in her hand.
When she reaches me,
I’ll embrace her!
In “Fascination” the angel delivers a different message to the broken hearted lover.
the angel draws near
the one in sorrow
because in love there
must
be an angel to whisper
Don’t forget.
He also will do as
the angel did – forgetting just enough to learn more secrets as excerpted from the
poem “Time of Transformation”
Each night a burnt
offering
As I placed flowers, incense
and candles upon time’s grave,
Burning the memories
of a hundred days.
The one thing that
Shim can never forget is the cosmic reason why he writes: “It’s more
about transforming the memories to a sort of universe that would register to
the senses of both me (the writer) and others (the readers).”
Based on the previous quote, it seems fitting to end this piece
by the quoting the lines from the poem “Love Is My Weakness.”
A poem where a world
of sorrow my language can never reach
spreads vividly, like a constellation across the night sky.
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