Meeting Benches World art in all forms

WHEN A BRANCH CROSSES OVER THE WALL When a drooping willow branch crossed over the wall, it may not have been her work alone. If the distant root, whose face she hadn’t seen even once, and the flowers and leaves–who had put their flesh together and washed their hands of each other, hadn’t supported her as one body, the branch …

BETWEEN FRIENDS Beautiful is silent together, even better is to laugh together, under the silk cloth of the sky, down into the moss, bent over a book, laughing loud and friendly between friends, and find out the whiteness of the teeth. If I have succeeded, we remain silent. If I failed, we laugh about, and we do still worse, worse …

LETTER TO A FRIEND Let me tell you about these sheep. In many ways they are like the ocean creatures you know so well: in the benevolence of the creator, they bear children, each has a face of a lad or an old man. These days they are on the hills, a tight flock, a warm flock, with a thin …

A Paradise in miniature, is a place hard to forget. One of the most beautiful Greek islands, with only 4 square kilometers of surface. It is a quiet island, no traffic, but with many beautiful beaches (and an elegant nightlife for those who do not sleep). The inhabitants have always lived by fishing, but they do their best to refurbish …

CATFISH IN THE WOODS My dog suddenly runs off, slipping the leash startled by a wild beast. Without blowing a conch, the giant fish-god tosses and turns, in the deep ocean bed, heaving his bloated belly in his millenary sleep. The mischievous catfish plays dirty tricks, belching out muddy billows over homes, rice paddies boats, cars, nuclear plants, guzzling them …

FREDERICK CHILDE HASSAM 1/4 – Of the many ways to express the visual art he knew those of oil and tempera paintings, watercolors and pastels, but he was also an engraver, designer and illustrator. His career, however, began with an illustrator and watercolor painter. He will also go to Paris to follow courses in painting and drawing of human figures, …

EAR Pretending to hear, nothing her earlobe, is sleeping, all the world is far away now. It does not reach       as far as her ear, a thin fairy of pleasure, parched like a honey bee, on the woman’s earlobe       sometimes, completely stops hearing sounds. Suddenly captured by a thick lip, she squirms in a sea of torture, of cruel teeth, …

A CARVED WOODEN CHAIR Not a trace of sky, earth, or ax. They have no effect on it anymore. All the faults were smoothed out and polished, now it looks like a timeless flower. Someone separated it from many other wooden chairs. It sits alone, like the quietest heart that yields to fate too often: lonely, powerless, being sanded down …

THE SNOWY NIGHT Oh, my lover who had pure eyes; oh, the silver scales that occupied your eyes. Tonight snow falls. Oh, my poor lover who wrapped my neck with a white towel and washed my face, a sacred quiet descends upon the lonely planet. I close my eyes to remember the time your hands washed my face. (Moon Tae-jun)

THE POEM MAN On this side of eternity, alone, hope, the sun freedom all trace, tomorrow’s poem-being on this side of eternity, alone, sun, saliva, knowledge and unchanging memory of love, all trace tomorrow’s poem-man. On this side of eternity, every second alone, sun, saliva, knowledge and immutable memory of love. All trace confident as they are the backbone freedom, …

FLY ABOVE No true seeker asks guidance from a lost. A wise questions not a madman’s wanderlust! Science is like a mine, your mind is the miner. It takes you to the jewels, finer and finer! For exquisite stones, the rocks are to shove. For real knowledge you must fly above! (Parvin Etesami) http://www.amazon.com/Once-Dewdrop-Etesami-Bibliotheca-Literature/dp/1568590164

YOUR SHOULDERS Your shoulders are sheltering proud rocks. In their slant crawl, the lightly shower of my locks! Your shoulders are the atrium to a majestic tower. At its gate, dance the cheerful chain of my hair! Your shoulders glow, under the golden storm of sunshine, beneath the silver rain of sweat. Your shoulder are to my supplicant eyes a …

EMPTY GARDEN Your pillow howls, I howl. You’re gone, so is your black hair, were you here I’d rest my head on your shoulder. I know your heart beating fast, your pasted-on wings racing with birds, once again you’ve burnt down my lushest forest, left me bereft of you, your absence a knife cuttıng velvet, bloodless. Your pillow weeps, I …

AN EARLY WINTER LETTER Lovely leaves have all been shed, from the mountain ahead of me. Longing for the empty mountain, white snow might fall upon the river. Before the snow falls, I would love to see you. (Kim Yong-taek) http://www.amazon.co.uk/Insaeng-Kim-Yong-taek-sanmunjip/dp/8985599402