SEOUL, Korea — October 20
(Photo by Maciej Gryzbowski)
If there's one thing I want to do this week, it's find my inner poetry hat. Not that I haven't been searching. For months all I can find is this one:
(Before)
Nice hat, sure. But I've worn it so much it's crusty. Salt-stained. Every time I put it on it's only a matter of seconds before my scalp starts to itch.
I keep looking at myself in the photo above, then the one of Sung Kee below:
(Photo by Maciej Gryzbowski)
No doubt about it: finding your inner poetry hat can make all the difference.
While cleaning my desk, I find this stack:
One
discovery leads to another
Now I’ve got a bunch of hats
But which is
right for me?
Sometimes
it’s not a matter of looking outside
Be still,
and upon your head your hat may materialize
You know it might have been there all along
Sung Kee Revisited
LG: You look
slimmed down!
SM: Actually, I
gained weight.
Thanks for the food!
LG: My pleasure. There's steak ones too. Try a steak one.
Bianca: We ordered pizza.
Hamdan: You like tomatoes?
LG: Have some of the salad.
SM: I don't have a fork.
Bianca: Here, put dressing on it.
Hamdan: Dressing? No! Better without it.
Bianca: Are you kidding? This dressing is so good!
LG: What’s your
average day like?
SM: Wake up at
six, eat, and clean. Then have lunch, and go downstairs and check all the wires
and connections on the communication units, cause I specialize in radio. Then
clean.
Maciej: It's heavy, isn't it?
SM: Yeah–
Konrad: Like 20 kilos–
LG: What about
after dinner?
SM: Study my
radio stuff, and clean. We do a lot of cleaning.
Hamdan: H-Here?
SM: Yeah–I know.
LG: What
happened to your finger?
SM: It … got
broken.
LG: Do you have
any free time?
SM: Yes.
LG: What do you
do?
SM: I don't know, at my rank I
can’t even read books.
Maciej: Are you able to watch TV?
SM: There’s TV,
but I’m not allowed to watch it. I’ll be able to watch it when I move up in
rank… about five or six months.
LG: So what can
you do on your free time?
SM: I can sit
and stare at the wall. Up straight. In one month I’ll be allowed to actually
lean back against the wall while I sit.
It’s funny.
During school, I had all this reading to do, and I didn’t do much of it. Now,
I’m not allowed to have books, and all I want to do is read.
LG: Are you
allowed to write?
SM: Yes.
LG: Have you
written any poems?
SM: I did. I
wrote some. But they kept getting shorter and shorter, until they just stopped.
Konrad: You
could write one-word poems.
LG: Can you
write letters?
SM: Yes.
LG: I want you
to send me a poem every week.
SM: Oh-kay.
Two years.
You’re supposed to come out of here changed—a stronger person. But I don’t
think I want to be that person.
Hamdan: Seven minutes left.
LG: When’s the
next time you can have visitors?
SM: In a month.
All: We’ll come
see you then!
(Left to right, back row: Bianca's boyfriend (sorry, forgot his name!), Bianca, Konrad, Maciej, Loren. Front row: Hamdan, Sung Kee. Photo by Maciej Gryzbowski )
Caps for Sale
But which is right for me?
(Prizes will be awarded to those who can identify the most authors of the following lines)
1. Kobe University Poetry Hat:
2. Green Trucker Poetry Hat:
"I schal telle hit as-tit, as I in toun herde,/with tongue,/As hit is stad and stoken/In stori stif and stronge,/With lel letters loken,/In londe so hatz ben longe."
3. Cowboy Poetry Hat:
"Just what is cowboy poetry/I've many times been asked,/Why might a cowboy start to write/And will that writing last"
4. Brazilian Poetry Hat:
". . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . ! . .
. . ! . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . !"
5. Desert Storm Poetry Hat:
"In the Desert of the heart,/Let the healing start;/In the prison of his days,/Teach the free man to praise."
6. Black Gold Poetry Hat:
"Kill my style/and you break Pavlowa's legs,/and you blind Ty Cobb's batting eye."
7. Poetry Skullcap:
"It is a tree of life to those who take hold of it/and all those who hold on to it are happy"
8. Basque Poetry Hat:
"The moon is bright, but not as bright as the sun."
9. Charger Poetry Hat:
The armies of those I love engirth me, and I engirth them;/They will not let me off till I go with them, respond to them,/And discorrupt them, and charge them full with the charge of the Soul."
10. Modified Poetry Fez:
"Last night, your lost memories crept into my heart/as spring arrives secretly into a barren garden/as a cool morning breeze blows slowly in a desert/as a sick person feels well, for no reason."
11. Nordic Poetry Hat:
"It is still beautiful to hear the heart beat/but often the shadow seems more real than the body."
12. Roger Federer Poetry Hat:
"What had you been thinking about/the face studiously bloodied/heaven blotted region/I go on loving you like water but/there is a terrible breath in the way all of this/You were not elected president, yet won the race"
13. Ian Thorpe Poetry Hat:
"An Indian pony crosses the plains/whispering Sanskrit prayers to a crater of fleas./Honeysuckle says: I thought I could swim."
14. Totem Animal Poetry Hat:
"And they whirled and they twirled and they tangoed/Singin and jingin the jango/Floatin like the heavens above/It looks like muskrat love"
15. Micky D's Poetry Hat:
"I'm thinking, how amazing it is/to live in this country, how easy/it is to be filled."
