Classic Poem

MIRROR 1

While I dread looking into the mirror
I show up there frequently.
Looking

for an ashtray, I go to the bookshelf and back
ah, I'm going back and forth to the bookshelf, I think.
When my body grazes against the corner of the bookshelf
ah, I'm still over here, I think
a certain mass filled mostly with water, I think:
now and then I've thought about the dead, but
it's either this guy Ch'ae Kwangsok, who ended every sentence with " Fuck, "
drunk in front of the shredded chickens at the Kubanp'o Chicken House
or it's my mentor Kim Hyon, who sang Yu Simch'o's " Hey, Love, " so softly.
Why is life the only space where their voices float up to me?
Their voices, their expressions, their personalities, are they only illusions?
My face uptilted so I can shave the stubble under my chin:
this hollow shell of mine lathered up all snowy white,
this shell, this isn't anything!