The Party Was Over

Ⅰ
Already
At Thirty, The Party Was Over
Monster
At the Fruit Stand
Song of March
Old
The Aftertaste is not bitter
My 50s
Novel, Postscript

Ⅱ
To the Pigs
In Sun-woon Temple
11 o’clock Sunday Morning
In the Subway 4
In the Subway 5
In the Subway: Yellow October
Seoul, June 2008

Ⅲ
Weather Forecasts
On My Way to the Department Store
Dreams of Four Seasons
At Home All Day
The Easiest Path
Under the Name of Woman
Irony
Folding Towels
About Myself

Acknowledgments
Notes
The Author
The Translators

"I’m now old and sick.
I don’t even have the strength to get up, but
They ask me for a pearl,
A pearl just one last time…"
- from "To The Pigs"

At Thirty, The Party Was Over

Of course I know, that I liked
the revolutionist rather than the revolution,
the bar rather than the drinks.
And when I was lonely,
I've enjoyed the sweet hum of a love song
rather than an "O Comrades!" anthems.
But does it matter now?

The party is over.
The liquor's gone,
and though people left one by one,
finally even he;
after paying their dues,
and finding their shoes.

I know, in the back of my mind
that
there will be somebody here, alone,
cleaning up the table,
remembering everything with her bitter tears,
that
she will finish the unfinished song that he had started.

Yes, maybe, I know
that
she will set up the table and call them
back
before the sunrise.
She will light the stage once more
with all preparations done.

But does it matter now?