Kim - Commons

COMMONS NEW CALIFORNIA POETRY For, by Carol Snow Enola Gay, by Mark Levine Selected Poems, by Fanny Howe Sleeping with the Dictionary, by Harryette Mullen Commons, by Myung Mi Kim The Guns and Flags Project, by Geoffrey G. OBrien COMMONS Myung Mi Kim University of California Press Berkeley Los Angeles London University of California Press Berkeley and Los Angeles, California University of California Press, Ltd. London, England 2002 by The Regents of the University of California Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Kim, Myung Mi, 1957 Commmons / Myung Mi Kim. p. cm.(New California Poetry ; 5) ISBN 978-0-520-23144-3 (pbk. paper) 1. paper) 1.

Korean AmericansPoetry. 2. Immigrants Poetry. 3. KoreaPoetry. Title. II. Series. Series.

PS3561.I414 C66 2002 811'54 dc21 2001048053 CIP Manufactured in the United States of America 14 13 12 11 10 09 08 07 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 The paper used in this publication meets the
minimum requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992
(R 1997) (Permanence of Paper). CONTENTS

Some of these poems first appeared in Chain, Conjunctions,
Five Fingers Review, non, positions: east asia cultures critique,
and Proliferations. In what way names were applied to things. Filtration. Not every word that has been applied, still exists. Airborn. Airborn.

Here, this speck and this speck you missed. Numbers in cell division. Spheres of debt. The paradigms stitchery of unrelated points. What escapes like so much cotton batting. The building, rather, in flames.

Does flight happen in an order. Dates to impugn and divulge. The laws were written on twelve tablets of bronze which were fastened to the rostra. Trembling hold. Manner of variation and shift. Vacillation hung by tactile and auditory cues.

Those which are of foreign origin. Those which are of forgotten sources. Place and body. Time and action. The snow falls. A falling snow.

A fallen snow. A red balloon and a blackwinged bird at semblance of crossing in a pittance of sky. Chroniclers enter texts and trade. Was to children dying before their mothers. Accounts and recounting. A nations defense.

Names of things made by human hands. Making famine where abundance lies. Mapping needles. Minerals and gems. Furs and lumber. Alterations through the loss or transposition of even a single syllable.

The next day is astronomical distance and a gnarled hand pulling up wild onion. Placed on a large flat rock and covered by a series of smaller stones. Edicts of building for private persons. Remaining principalities long ago divided off. Under that place which is called the earth wall. Around which extends a savage, trackless waste, infested with wild beasts.

Near city walls. Shapes of battle helmets. Instruments for giving precision to ideas of size, distance, direction, and location. A projection of the possible state. Lay bare and make appear. The gates are wickedfresh.

With shields. For war and fields. This hill was previously calledit is recorded that on this hillWhen the rickshaw stopped, it was three oclock. The heavy chains were taken off and they walked to the place of execution. One boys shoe fell off, and he reached down to put it back on, taking a long time to do it. Fierce dogs have come over the sea.

Cutworms in tomato beds. Roots of a tree close to the property line have gone out under the neighbors cornfield. Wherever kin of word is. Partnership of words is one of many members. Glyphs to alphabets. In which words have indications of time.

They had to eat as much as they could in a hurry. Baskets woven by bloodlet fingers. Venom verifies. Minuscule pebbles embedded in domestic crops. With the soot covered rice potstood and sat, stood and sat, several times. Meals offered up from yet more pinecones burning.

A second class of words in which comparisons are made. The pond after rain, a lily. Watershed and water level. Coinciding glint of scales and scrapers. Conjectural poles. Speaking and placing the speaking.

To speak from the place of the word is to speak forth. Such noise in the ditchesthe mills and farms. Standing in proximitythink and love. See, meet, face. Incidence of generation. Walls of wattles, straw, and mud.

A laundering stone and stones for the floor. Gently, gently level the ground. This is the leveling of the ground.

. 318 The transition from the stability and absoluteness of the worlds contents to their dissolution into motions and relations. siphon Sign scarcity, the greetinghave you eaten today? Signal of peonies singing given to bullfrogs Give ear to the quarrels of the marketplace When the wheel (A) was turned, the gate (B) was raised, thus allowing water to flow from (C) to (D), giving clearance for the ship to pass beneath lever . girt Host and parasite Implicated armed band Where would one live A custom of wrapping the head in willow branches Hours whose length varied with seasons Hours held by mechanical clock An abstract metric to gauge daily time Compendium to dispersals of currency Farm and factory, bank and municipality travel . athwart What would identify the speakers of the idiom Woodness and continual waking Raging stretching and casting Now chanting now weeping The medicine is that the head be shaved, washed in lukewarm vinegar The forehead anointed with the juice of lettuce or of poppy If the woodness lasts three days without sleep, there is no hope of recovery war-torn turbulent homeland All that we see could also be otherwise All that we can describe could also be otherwise The thing seen is the thing seen together with the whole space Wakeful works under weeds (wed) Tell a poor play Money and mourning met Sun and sorrow am sent For fade and flame Between March and April when spray begin to spring As apples two of dread Ourselves mowen so Wild drakes make whom them bind False nerve on hours red Reeds which lie in fold So harms hinges bore To be at this thinking trod Pray of love, one full keen Why are many buildings necessary with so small a farm area? The heat of the midday sun is obvious, but the pressure of populations on the inadequate areas of flat land has to be inferred. athwart What would identify the speakers of the idiom Woodness and continual waking Raging stretching and casting Now chanting now weeping The medicine is that the head be shaved, washed in lukewarm vinegar The forehead anointed with the juice of lettuce or of poppy If the woodness lasts three days without sleep, there is no hope of recovery war-torn turbulent homeland All that we see could also be otherwise All that we can describe could also be otherwise The thing seen is the thing seen together with the whole space Wakeful works under weeds (wed) Tell a poor play Money and mourning met Sun and sorrow am sent For fade and flame Between March and April when spray begin to spring As apples two of dread Ourselves mowen so Wild drakes make whom them bind False nerve on hours red Reeds which lie in fold So harms hinges bore To be at this thinking trod Pray of love, one full keen Why are many buildings necessary with so small a farm area? The heat of the midday sun is obvious, but the pressure of populations on the inadequate areas of flat land has to be inferred.

For the flock, a brief flash announces possible food

mite	a copper coin of very small value