The Last Note
Wolran Kim
Narrative Writing (Feb 05, 2010)
Autumn's sacred fire runs rapidly in the dark, night after night. So in the morning the maple tree at the right side of my front yard was burning brilliantly little by little. From the crown of the head to the shoulder joint, from the shoulder to the waist, hand marks are shaking in autumn tints. The time when a package small as a red leaf has come by parcel post is the same time as that maple tree that already burned ten times every season, red from the waist down. The time when I took it out, the small package from the mail box, red leaves touched it. It's been two years already; every month and every season come the literary magazine or poetical works of colleague poets from Seoul and Los Angeles. But the package was an exorbitant size for a collection of poems that has only a sticker written with my address.
The day is just waiting to answer a letter from God. I walk to the mail box my fiction-life elaborated habitually and momentary in the twinkling of an eye. I can not go to past, future, or other places because the time and space are covered by glass walls so there is the smell of blue ocean, birds flying long ways to we who are quite disgusted with routine work and every word from mysterious places.
I came to the kitchen through the garage thinking someday I want to publish a miniature collection of short verses. After I unpacked the disproportionately small package covered with mud yellow packing paper, I saw the yellowish green box with the writing CHANCE, CHANEL, EAU FRAICHE. And I saw fine characters handwritten on falling scratch paper just like a falling leaf outside window. I picked it up.
The Tide
I was carrying traveling perfume bottle as small as a pinkie
How often I am traveling
Spray one or two drops on the mystery place every day
There will be leftover even after an entire life time
One morning while traveling in Korea
I was going to spray by following my blood beat behind my earlobe, on the wrist
The cork lid was crooked in the tiny velvet sack
All flew away not even one drop left
Where have they gone
Not even flowers, not even butterflies
untied their wings on whose blood beats
tons of perfumed sweet odor
I grasped as soon as I read the title and first word, "Tide and Pinkie." It was one of my poems. I have a hatred for my poems often after I am finished. That was my poetry work: no cohesion, just like loose vomiting and diarrhea. I still am not comfortable with somebody reading my secret mind even though they are open to the public on an internet literary homepage. I was thrown into confusion and wanted me stolen diary returned to.
In early autumn I went to Korea. One day when I took out my mini perfume bottle from my purse in the taxi I was shocked. It was empty. The cork lid was crooked because it wasn't the swivel kind and my purse hit something. It was okay without spraying perfume between Korean people who eat the same kimchi(stinky garlic smell) every day, but it was grotesque to me because the flown fragrance ran away wearing a mask of my past tide. Moreover they turned themselves into the last twenty years after I crossed the Pacific Ocean, so I was absent minded until the taxi stopped at the subway station. The perfume that I could use over twenty years flew away and became essence my past twenty years boiled down. Open in front of my eyes!
Perfume is nothing but an ardent desire of being impressed by day old hope. What was it, the soul alchemists desired so badly, to confine to such a little bottle. The perfume's origin is deodorized burning animals when they offer a sacrifice to a deity at a sanctified temple in the ancient times. Those rituals were the most respectful behavior any human being could do since burning incense acts as a sacrificial rite. Deodorization of practical use for the purpose of exterminating an offensive odor turned into a precious valuable itself.
Cleopatra spread fragrance in the room to lure Octavianusea and Antonius; she applied Kyaphi from roses, crocus and violets on her hands and Aegyptium from almond, nectar, cinnamon, orange flower, henna on her feet. Shakespeare described the sailing ship Cleopatra boarded to meet Antonius. "It was a situation almost even wind suffered from lovesickness as result of too much perfume." It is ironic that perfume, which makes humans more aesthetically pleasing contains ingredients made from animal's offensive odor secernent; the musk from roe-buck hypogastric genital gland, the castor from a beaver's vent.
Emperor Nero who brings roses perfume into vogue, burned roses $160,000 the value of nowadays money for one night party. 200 lb. of roses light as feathers, makes 1 oz. of perfume so the perfume downfall to be synonymous with depravity and luxury to aristocracy. Patrick Suskind committed the consecutive murder incidents through a protagonist who is the genius perfume manufacturer to confine women's scent in his novel [Perfume]. Human's desire that is in possession and cherish of beauty feel nausea just like the floor of fish stores in the 18th century. It is the human's mercilessness sorrow that has limitations of faculty.
Lethal fragrance control dominates even the soul. There is not only one or two offensive odors that I want to hide through sailing immigration chaos. Is that the fish smell of the navel cord just like fish's viscera that dye market chopping board red with a penny? Is that raw flesh and blood who downfall into slave of life that mortgage soul? Is that the smell of urine deformity bacterium born after contact with good and evil?
In this house, there are so many different kinds of colorful candles. There are big ones, small ones, slim ones, thick ones, round ones, square ones, even star shaped ones. My husband has a candle party after every meal. The rainbow candles stand in a row and melted wax runs down a candlestick with an incense pouch. Every time he passes by to open and shut the windows, the yellow flame keeps going down, and sheds tears of rage.
Starting to burn exhaustively distinguishing between good and bad fragrances. The candles active carbon dig into the Kimchi's molecules and the aromatic scents cover the garlic components with charcoal powder. The smell of Korean have to flickering air last become sooty with a tag of a repulsive smell that must be rid of in this house. When he lights green candle he may remember the scene he urinated at American uncle's back yard right next day he came to America. When he light red candle he may remember American uncle ran to the back yard after he's shocked when he had seen that through the window and his uncle struk him across the back with a leather belt. He may remember the wiggling scar on his back just like a red snake. When he lights a round candle seems like a ball; he may remember a blond kid's round and blue eyes, making fun of him, chasing the ball, yelling, "You stink! It's funny that the yellow race is the same breed as garlic."
I'm sleeping every night, hearing spray perfume spray to the left of his underwear lying about on the bed that he's wearing the next day, like a mist "Pisik Pisik." He used to send perfumed letters to me. Those smells were something different from my father's, he was extravagant with them, so I was enthusiastically translating his letters, intoxicated with the excessive perfume. Those familiar scents only sympathize vague with me who dragging heavy immigration bags cherishing the joys and sorrows of immigrants having a scorched before nobody knows that I had been smelled last six months almost until paralyzed my olfactory sense in front of the English dictionary.
The Korean food and American food thoroughly separated in three refrigerators and attached sign "Don't Touch!" when Americans visit our house. All of his clothes can come in back to closet after exposed to a biting wind on the bedroom deck even the coldest period of snowy winter. At the Korean market I even miss my dear old food a lot and intend to eat them but I often put it down back after pick up raw fish because it is too big to handle him rage just like a fish whose lost water about the fish smell with flaring muzzle became wiser.
It is the end the solid stuff of nostalgia excrete through the gullet after chewed well between molars and satisfied a tongue. But it is better to remove all traces. Tonight too, well trained hazy candle flames separating the Korean food and American food in the air and nomadic people's shadow like floral leaves dancing to the flames inside dark windows. The full moon that returned from opposite side of globe sitting on the blue witness stand writing our alibi about gaspingly destruction of evidence work secretly.
Pascal said that "Human's misfortunes beginning with avoiding their territory and matter of concern." Occasionally, no frequently I want to flying away with great flaps of wings just like fragrance wearing soul. A boundless unknown ocean that I want to cross through just like I'd been crossed Pacific Ocean is waving front of my eyes. The Last Note has a unique fragrance itself pass through the Top Note and Middle Note that I spray perfume very first. The Last Note is the highlight to determine the quality of the perfume. My Last Note is just starting over, midlife crisis, nowadays I'm beyond my capacity from hunger of the body that unavoidably vanish like smoke even without left last handful of emit fragrance just like jasmine that loose the fragrance after the sun sets.
Gabrielle Chanel said. "I'm touched with pity for women who openly tell their perfume's brand-names. The fragrance must talk itself. The fragrance whispering in secret." I perfumed Chanel a drop. The smell of lotus pond starting to encroach my body. My sloppy life that will disappear like perfume, burns vigorously like autumn maples of the front yard when I receive poetic fragrance from an anonymous reader. Don't I perfume my soul when I attempt to escape from my territory before I leave the front door? The soul perfume sealed up with the color of my eyes when love captivates me momentarily and the steam of my breath when happiness possessed a magical power of me momentarily.
Wolran Kim
Narrative Writing (Feb 05, 2010)
Autumn's sacred fire runs rapidly in the dark, night after night. So in the morning the maple tree at the right side of my front yard was burning brilliantly little by little. From the crown of the head to the shoulder joint, from the shoulder to the waist, hand marks are shaking in autumn tints. The time when a package small as a red leaf has come by parcel post is the same time as that maple tree that already burned ten times every season, red from the waist down. The time when I took it out, the small package from the mail box, red leaves touched it. It's been two years already; every month and every season come the literary magazine or poetical works of colleague poets from Seoul and Los Angeles. But the package was an exorbitant size for a collection of poems that has only a sticker written with my address.
The day is just waiting to answer a letter from God. I walk to the mail box my fiction-life elaborated habitually and momentary in the twinkling of an eye. I can not go to past, future, or other places because the time and space are covered by glass walls so there is the smell of blue ocean, birds flying long ways to we who are quite disgusted with routine work and every word from mysterious places.
I came to the kitchen through the garage thinking someday I want to publish a miniature collection of short verses. After I unpacked the disproportionately small package covered with mud yellow packing paper, I saw the yellowish green box with the writing CHANCE, CHANEL, EAU FRAICHE. And I saw fine characters handwritten on falling scratch paper just like a falling leaf outside window. I picked it up.
The Tide
I was carrying traveling perfume bottle as small as a pinkie
How often I am traveling
Spray one or two drops on the mystery place every day
There will be leftover even after an entire life time
One morning while traveling in Korea
I was going to spray by following my blood beat behind my earlobe, on the wrist
The cork lid was crooked in the tiny velvet sack
All flew away not even one drop left
Where have they gone
Not even flowers, not even butterflies
untied their wings on whose blood beats
tons of perfumed sweet odor
I grasped as soon as I read the title and first word, "Tide and Pinkie." It was one of my poems. I have a hatred for my poems often after I am finished. That was my poetry work: no cohesion, just like loose vomiting and diarrhea. I still am not comfortable with somebody reading my secret mind even though they are open to the public on an internet literary homepage. I was thrown into confusion and wanted me stolen diary returned to.
In early autumn I went to Korea. One day when I took out my mini perfume bottle from my purse in the taxi I was shocked. It was empty. The cork lid was crooked because it wasn't the swivel kind and my purse hit something. It was okay without spraying perfume between Korean people who eat the same kimchi(stinky garlic smell) every day, but it was grotesque to me because the flown fragrance ran away wearing a mask of my past tide. Moreover they turned themselves into the last twenty years after I crossed the Pacific Ocean, so I was absent minded until the taxi stopped at the subway station. The perfume that I could use over twenty years flew away and became essence my past twenty years boiled down. Open in front of my eyes!
Perfume is nothing but an ardent desire of being impressed by day old hope. What was it, the soul alchemists desired so badly, to confine to such a little bottle. The perfume's origin is deodorized burning animals when they offer a sacrifice to a deity at a sanctified temple in the ancient times. Those rituals were the most respectful behavior any human being could do since burning incense acts as a sacrificial rite. Deodorization of practical use for the purpose of exterminating an offensive odor turned into a precious valuable itself.
Cleopatra spread fragrance in the room to lure Octavianusea and Antonius; she applied Kyaphi from roses, crocus and violets on her hands and Aegyptium from almond, nectar, cinnamon, orange flower, henna on her feet. Shakespeare described the sailing ship Cleopatra boarded to meet Antonius. "It was a situation almost even wind suffered from lovesickness as result of too much perfume." It is ironic that perfume, which makes humans more aesthetically pleasing contains ingredients made from animal's offensive odor secernent; the musk from roe-buck hypogastric genital gland, the castor from a beaver's vent.
Emperor Nero who brings roses perfume into vogue, burned roses $160,000 the value of nowadays money for one night party. 200 lb. of roses light as feathers, makes 1 oz. of perfume so the perfume downfall to be synonymous with depravity and luxury to aristocracy. Patrick Suskind committed the consecutive murder incidents through a protagonist who is the genius perfume manufacturer to confine women's scent in his novel [Perfume]. Human's desire that is in possession and cherish of beauty feel nausea just like the floor of fish stores in the 18th century. It is the human's mercilessness sorrow that has limitations of faculty.
Lethal fragrance control dominates even the soul. There is not only one or two offensive odors that I want to hide through sailing immigration chaos. Is that the fish smell of the navel cord just like fish's viscera that dye market chopping board red with a penny? Is that raw flesh and blood who downfall into slave of life that mortgage soul? Is that the smell of urine deformity bacterium born after contact with good and evil?
In this house, there are so many different kinds of colorful candles. There are big ones, small ones, slim ones, thick ones, round ones, square ones, even star shaped ones. My husband has a candle party after every meal. The rainbow candles stand in a row and melted wax runs down a candlestick with an incense pouch. Every time he passes by to open and shut the windows, the yellow flame keeps going down, and sheds tears of rage.
Starting to burn exhaustively distinguishing between good and bad fragrances. The candles active carbon dig into the Kimchi's molecules and the aromatic scents cover the garlic components with charcoal powder. The smell of Korean have to flickering air last become sooty with a tag of a repulsive smell that must be rid of in this house. When he lights green candle he may remember the scene he urinated at American uncle's back yard right next day he came to America. When he light red candle he may remember American uncle ran to the back yard after he's shocked when he had seen that through the window and his uncle struk him across the back with a leather belt. He may remember the wiggling scar on his back just like a red snake. When he lights a round candle seems like a ball; he may remember a blond kid's round and blue eyes, making fun of him, chasing the ball, yelling, "You stink! It's funny that the yellow race is the same breed as garlic."
I'm sleeping every night, hearing spray perfume spray to the left of his underwear lying about on the bed that he's wearing the next day, like a mist "Pisik Pisik." He used to send perfumed letters to me. Those smells were something different from my father's, he was extravagant with them, so I was enthusiastically translating his letters, intoxicated with the excessive perfume. Those familiar scents only sympathize vague with me who dragging heavy immigration bags cherishing the joys and sorrows of immigrants having a scorched before nobody knows that I had been smelled last six months almost until paralyzed my olfactory sense in front of the English dictionary.
The Korean food and American food thoroughly separated in three refrigerators and attached sign "Don't Touch!" when Americans visit our house. All of his clothes can come in back to closet after exposed to a biting wind on the bedroom deck even the coldest period of snowy winter. At the Korean market I even miss my dear old food a lot and intend to eat them but I often put it down back after pick up raw fish because it is too big to handle him rage just like a fish whose lost water about the fish smell with flaring muzzle became wiser.
It is the end the solid stuff of nostalgia excrete through the gullet after chewed well between molars and satisfied a tongue. But it is better to remove all traces. Tonight too, well trained hazy candle flames separating the Korean food and American food in the air and nomadic people's shadow like floral leaves dancing to the flames inside dark windows. The full moon that returned from opposite side of globe sitting on the blue witness stand writing our alibi about gaspingly destruction of evidence work secretly.
Pascal said that "Human's misfortunes beginning with avoiding their territory and matter of concern." Occasionally, no frequently I want to flying away with great flaps of wings just like fragrance wearing soul. A boundless unknown ocean that I want to cross through just like I'd been crossed Pacific Ocean is waving front of my eyes. The Last Note has a unique fragrance itself pass through the Top Note and Middle Note that I spray perfume very first. The Last Note is the highlight to determine the quality of the perfume. My Last Note is just starting over, midlife crisis, nowadays I'm beyond my capacity from hunger of the body that unavoidably vanish like smoke even without left last handful of emit fragrance just like jasmine that loose the fragrance after the sun sets.
Gabrielle Chanel said. "I'm touched with pity for women who openly tell their perfume's brand-names. The fragrance must talk itself. The fragrance whispering in secret." I perfumed Chanel a drop. The smell of lotus pond starting to encroach my body. My sloppy life that will disappear like perfume, burns vigorously like autumn maples of the front yard when I receive poetic fragrance from an anonymous reader. Don't I perfume my soul when I attempt to escape from my territory before I leave the front door? The soul perfume sealed up with the color of my eyes when love captivates me momentarily and the steam of my breath when happiness possessed a magical power of me momentarily.