Grapes of Turpan By Song Jae Hak
Translated by Rodney E. Tyson & Hong Eun-Taek
The Quarterly Review: Poetry & Criticism, 5(1), p. 245. Spring 2002.
But I am the one who left here
A day measured by the time spent boiling mutton
A brusque camel that puts its own footprints upon my words
I hated the decayed pupils of the grapes that always watched over me
I hated the two rows of sycamore trees along the street
That seemed like a mind divided into two forks
In view of a naked mountain in flames without one tree or one blade of grass
It was not only the peripheral nerves that the pain ran after
When grapes divided my body into such sweet tongue and bitterness,
I also lay flat like the bottom of a tongue
And measured the down of the Uighur language
I followed drops of blood mixed with grape juice for some distance
And black sunlight or black earth whispered
It was not that I hated this place
A low voice that said to leave and come back
The Quarterly Review: Poetry & Criticism | Curriculum Vitae