SAM SUNGMIN LEE
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SOME OF MY POEMS FROM 2020

Egg
 
An oval coffin
with a thin housing
Not buried but prisoned
in the cold next to its siblings
The golden goo is drowning until
it meets death once more. You carry
this thing like a newborn but then you
bash it on the sharp edge of the
benchtop. It shatters like glass.
The unborn hits the pan
The sound of it frying
is Its ghost crying.
Lost Stranger
 
Your name is nothing but a mystery to me.
I can only imagine your voice –
            Gentle like the spring breeze.
How are you today? Where are you at the moment?
            I can see you sitting by the window in your room
            With the morning sun shining through,
            You take a sip of your black tea with a dash of milk.
 
It was a Friday afternoon with most chairs free.
There I sat in the library, writing.
There you were across the room, studying.
Your nose – shaped like a Roman sculpture.
Sweet – the pear green coloured shirt you wore.
Is green your favourite colour?
Sitting in front of the blue wall, you appeared to me like a painting.
You looked around eight times            I caught your deep eyes at times.
I had one hand on my chin            You rested your hands on your cheeks.
Once, I smiled            You smiled back.
Your pure smile swept away all my worries and fears for a second.
I should have stood up to walk over
Or run down the stairs when I saw you leaving.
 
If it’s fate, perhaps I’ll see you again.
In a parallel universe, we could be friends or something more.
            I close my eyes to imagine us walking the beach together
            Until the sun sets and we have to eat dinner.
            Do you enjoy seafood with white wine?
If reincarnation exists, maybe I heard your voice in my previous life.
If predestination is true, maybe your name would be Destiny.
But for now, I call you a lost opportunity,
Saying goodbye and forgetting more about your face every day.
​Pantoum of the Loud Gun
 
Words fired with no remorse.
O shooting someone with a gun.
Bloody bullets can be removed
Yet scars will forever stain.
 
O shooting someone with a gun.
A release offering a glimpse of relief
Yet scars will forever stain.
The sense of regret soon nears.
 
A release offering a glimpse of relief.
Mumbles of hope in search of closure.
The sense of regret soon hits.
Words that aimlessly missed the heart.
 
Mumbles of hope in search of closure.
Choices made years ago still lingering.
Words that aimlessly missed the heart.
Few that could have been held within.
 
Choices made years ago still lingering.
Bloody bullets can be removed.
Few that could have been held within.
Words fired with no remorse.
​The Forsaking
 
Friends outnumber family through the years,
Myriad conversations and fights with both;
Family, unlike friends, forever share your tears.
Unmet reconciliations materialise like your fears
Although blood makes brotherhoods keep troth,
Friends outnumber family through the years.
Different ages grinding each other’s gears,
Fortunate to be saved by the blood oath.
Family, unlike friends, forever share your tears.
In the end, tiredness creeps into all ears,
Faces that stay are the same over your growth.
Friends outnumber family through the years.
Family, unlike friends, forever share your tears.
The Tolerant Chair
 
Your buttocks are on my face.
I feel you, breathless.
I hear you chew the lettuce.
 
My four legs are sore holding your body up.
Sit on the floor; you never even ask me wassup.
 
At least I’m not my oval mouthed white cousin.
With no consent, bareness sits on his skin.
He cries out loud to clean his stomach.
 
There are many of us.
 
I have been curious, why put faith in us?
It’s hilarious that they never second guess.
How do you know our legs will withstand your weight
                                                        And not break when you sit?
 
My legs are thinner than yours…
 
Unlike how you treat your kind,
Our colours and shapes are irrelevant.
You trust that our legs won’t break and let you down.
How do we make you so blind?
No prejudgement from you on any of us is evident.
Could you give the same to your kind and rid every frown?
​A Toilet Paper Story
 
In the year 2020,
Some things weren’t plenty.
 
These topped your shopping cart
And vanished from the shelf overnight.
You may have to go to another mart
To hunt this road of pure crystal white.
 
It smells and looks innocent greatly,
But you treat it like a rotter:
You pull its tongue endlessly
And then drown it underwater.
 
You once fought to find this treasure
Yet with no fleeting thought, you dump it.
Did you buy it for good measure
Or is 2020 just full of shit?
​The End
 
How old are you at this moment?
.
.
.
And now you’re older.
 
Every thought, every word
Means pulling away
From the fountain of youth.
 
Lose everyone to age
            Till your only friend
                        Is growing loneliness.
 
Dying, we all are –
Each breath, each second
Means gradually creeping into the abyss.
 
Will it be any different to how it was before birth?
            Impotent to think, feel and remember anything from then.
                        Conscienceless, empty and missing…
 
We’ll be at The End and learn for ourselves
            .
            .
            .
         Soon
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