I was walking to work yesterday, and lo and behold, the long-lived vacant lot I go past every day was under construction. I was compelled to attempt a poem, which quickly got out of hand. I began with some metrical ambition, but I abandoned it soon enough – it’s really become just some florid prose with line-breaks, I suppose.
(Poem #22 on new numbering scheme)
An Elegy for the Vacant Lot on the Corner of Gobong-ro and Jungang-ro in Ilsan November 2015 i. While mud danced beneath the bulldozer's blades Like a partly remembered stanza by Vicente Huidobro, Or Wallace Stevens, and workmen yelled, I recalled when I had first come to Ilsan, There had been a real estate office in that empty space, I think, where garish decor extolled The virtues of Seoul's burgeoning exurban New Cities, and Yet pyrrhically represented only lowrise ambition, And by shoddy construction presented A forgettable counterexample to upward mobility, so To see that tiny deserted square of land Retaken by the hungry machines, I felt a lamentation rise up inside me, Like the regret one feels upon Realizing that someone, who was once a friend But is no longer a friend, has died. ii. Happy weeds, for many months, for many moons, Flourished in that vacant lot I walk past As I go to work in the afternoons Past the corner of Gobong-ro at Jungang-ro, Providing, for any attentive passers-by, Compelling lessons in ecological succession, as First grass loomed large like summer cornfields, and then woody shrubs appeared while unhappy Men crept out of sight among them late at night to vomit During long, festive weekends, and finally Trees grew tall like warriors amid the city's litter And the buses recklessly zoomed past Like ants bearing leaves for their queen. iii. So, seeing that, I felt sadness, But then in that instant, some rain began, Pulling down yellow and brown leaves from The remaining trees, Arriving gradually but as a comfort Like an old Depeche Mode song, Suggesting a generous ephemerality Of the sort that autumn always brings.
Here is a picture of the lot, bulldozers a-buzzing, from across the street.
What I’m listening to right now.
Depeche Mode, “Nothing.”
Lyrics.
“Nothing”
Sitting target
Sitting waiting
Anticipating
Nothing
Nothing
Life
Is full of surprises
It advertises
Nothing
Nothing
What am I trying to do
What am I trying to say
I’m not trying to tell you anything
You didn’t know
When you woke up today
Sitting target
Sitting praying
God is saying
Nothing
Nothing
Always
Knows the prospects
Learn to expect
Nothing
Nothing
[daily log: walking, 6km]