Long Korean Poems
Long Korean Poems. Below are the most popular long Korean by PoetrySoup Members. You can search for long Korean poems by poem length and keyword.
Hang Over Reflections
Last night a Korean friend from Virginia came for a two week visit He brought with him a 30-year Bottle of Ballentine whiskey. Of course, we must drink it and then we must drink some soju
well this morning I woke up with a hangover
And thought about the contributions to world culture that Koreans have made. The perfect Korean hangover cure
And of course, this morning I am in the middle of taking the cure
The cure consists of
Lots of coffee
Liquid Korean hangover medicine from the local convenience store or drug store
Hangjanggu soup
A walk
Spending some time In the sauna soaking and sweating it out
Then Later following Mark Twain sage advice that the only known cure for hangover is to keep drinking. That is the Korean Hangover cure And it works
I had my first hangover at 16 when I was an exchange student for two weeks at a Navaho boarding school. Went out and got rip roaring drunk with the Indians They gave me an Indian name “Ski dish Digest “which means “Crazy friend” And I have now had Almost 45 years’ worth of experience dealing with hangovers a hangover is god’s punishment for drinkers
Today I wrote down the following hangover poem which I will share, and I would love to hear your Hangover stories please post them below and I will share them
Hangover reflections
Hangover Gods Punishment For drinker
A hangover is god’s punishment for drinkers
Nothing more than that God’s way of punishing the drinker
God’s punishment is severe for the sin of overdrinking
Of course, the only known cure for a hangover is to keep drinking
Very much need of a cure today
Every day one has too much to drink
resolve to quit drinking fill one’s head
Ode to Seaweed
On the way to Seongsan Harbor this morning,
I met an old woman
speaking to a strand of seawood, miyeok,
held in her weathered hands.
Her voice rose and fell like the tide,
her words had the stride of the sea,
a prayer or song, perhaps
even a poem in the dialect
of her grandmothers, spoken so clear
that I could understand
though only knowing some Korean,
as if the ocean taught us language.
The old woman graceful despite her years,
dressed in white cotton and indigo
of the haenyeo, her diving mask
pushed back on her silver hair,
her hands still dripping with seawater.
She knew the whole history of seaweed,
not only of this particular frond,
but also the miyeok my wife would need
tomorrow and tomorrow’s tomorrow,
soup to restore what birth had taken
from her body.
The old woman knew iodine, iron,
she knew volcanic soil beneath
Hallasan that fed the coastal waters,
she knew what tides carried
these ribbons from the deep places
where they danced in the blue-green
current, she knew which mothers
had been nourished back to strength
by this ancient gift from the sea,
she knew the exhaustion in my eyes
of a man three days without sleep,
watching over new life, learning
the weight of being needed.
At first I thought the salt had frosted
her eyebrows white; we stood
face to face in the morning light,
I saw she was ancient as the island
strong in her movements,
carrying salt water in her bones.
She had the bearing of a sea-queen,
someone from old stories
of women who could hold their breath
for minutes, who brought up
treasures from the seafloor.
For one moment,
we shared the final poem of seaweed
while the volcanic island breathed
around us, and then the poem ended,
as all poems do.
She pressed miyeok into my palm—enough
for three bowls.
I bowed to her and whispered prayers for the wind to drift strength to my wife and daughter
across the ocean’s endless conversation.
Every morning
I have gone out for Vietnamese coffee
At a sidewalk café
Down the ally from our AIRBNB
The owner is a pleasant middle age woman
Who for some reason likes us
She smiles at us
Greets us in Vietnamese
She does not understand English
Or Korean
And I wonder why
Why was there
this connection
Between us
It dawned on me
Perhaps in a prior life
She knew an American or two
And I remind her of someone
Or perhaps she is found
Of Korean K drama
And Angela reminds her
Of her favorite K Drama star
Or perhaps it is both
Or another reason entirely
But I moved today
And will miss her
Might go back for a final cup
Of coffee
To say good bye
To my Vietnamese coffee lady
This poem may get into trouble,
The world wants identity double.
Attempting to culture commonality,
The world champions individuality.
Theft of language has become all too common,
Yesterday’s use today identifies one a strawman.
Definitions change, words take on other meaning,
Often toward groups one way leaning.
At our language different groups continually hack.
In the case of *****, African American, now Black.
Or European, White, then Caucasian,
Korean American, Indian, rather than Asian.
Why is it that unmentionable words,
You know them, our dialect’s turds.
The use of people demeaned still proliferates,
While outsiders use carry’s different weights?
Color, religion, disability, sex, and age,
All lines in the sand drawn to disparage.
We should agree that race be set aside,
Bound together in one Human pride?
Our world needs new words and labels,
Not old words containing past fables.
Words that create, unite, and rejoin,
Not words that change on the flip of a coin.
Straight should mean unbent?
Snowflake should be heaven sent.
Gay should be a happy feeling.
Black’s big “B” should begin peeling.
I applaud the generation of Ze.
The neutral meaning of he or she.
A word with definition created anew.
A word defining both me and you.
8/31/2017
when a leader of the pallbearers stands high
on the front of a funeral palanquin recites a dirge
ringing a bell held in his hand
the pallbearers’ response to the dirge
stepping one on forward and two backward
echoes more melancholically in the air then the leader’s
because their response is so monotonous and simple
and in this melancholic air a nil life’s last journey
goes as a lonely soul
i wonder how did the soul on the palanquin live his life
the leaves fall on the pallbearers’ feet by a hillside slope
though there is no wind to sway, the day with no tomorrow
goes with the lonely soul
Note: A Palanquin is a covered litter or box used to carry a person of high rank. Although two or four men with ropes carried the palanquin, the funeral palanquin, Korean traditional, is larger in its size, decorated with flowers and colorful ornaments and covered with an awning and carried by ten or more men. Nonetheless, depending upon the funeral size, the number of carriers increases.
Korean Blues Crown of Sonnets
I have been dealing? with Things Korean
?for almost 40 years now
dealing ?with a once exotic land?
now my second homeland
?first came to Korea?
In the Peace Corps in Korea
I ?went to Korea
to find the woman?
in search of the woman?
who haunted my dreams?
met the woman?
fell in love with the woman
?From Korea
who walked out my dreams?
In an land still exotic
In a land still exotic
?was a very exotic different land?
and even now decades latter
a new land? remains for most Americans?
still a strange land exotic
?but much more known land
?in the US due to K drama, K Pop,
Koreans? have become globally cool
but still exotic?
Many of my fellow Americans'
?may know a few people from Korea?a
and some have served or lived in Korea
?but to most of the us Americans
it remains over there still exotic?
a strange Asian exotic land
A strange Asian Exotic land?
I fell in love that exotic land?a
and now I spend half my time?l
Living Korean time?
half in the U.S. time?
and due to the corona time?
will be here for some time?
and well Korea
?no longer an exotic land?
as I am now just living in Korea?
my thoughts half Korean?
and even dream in Korean?
so be it near the end of my time?
I am back where I began
Writer digest prompt write an exotic poem wrote my first crown of sonnet form too, and it mostly rhymes! go figure
Sarangpabo – Korean Love Fool for You
When I first saw you
In my dreams.
You were the most beautiful woman
In the world to me
And still are.
When you looked at me
With love blazing
From your dark brown
Goo-goo eyes.
sparks flew from heart to heart
(????ishimchomshim)
You hynotized, mesmerized me
Your love mojo working overtime
Turning me into nothing but
A ?? ??Sarang pabo (love fool).
Eight years later
You walked off that bus
Into my life,
Becoming
my wife,
My soul mate.
And yes,
I am still
your ?? ??Sarang pabo.
And will remain under
Your love spell
Until the day I die.
Nine Lives Removed From Royal Dig Nitty ©?ß
(alternately titled: lion eyes hide sharp claws)
Aye attest tubby reincarnated
from one male Russian Blue
species Felis silvestris catus
named Morris if that gives a clue,
and during my fuzzy past
hence, asthma “Cats Cradle”
segued into kitten hood
fur hum lee established
type cats as (tin pan) alley cat,
a rather litter boxed gritty debut
t'wood become (later in life) tabby
quick as greased lightening
snatching in the air,
when tender vittles flew,
technically got fired (acquiring
appropriate nick names)
as fame (like a bushy cat tail) grew
viz perfect back up crooner
for “Cat Stevens”,
or lead singer for
the "Stray Cats" oddly
coupled, featured, and
incorporated with the guru
Horton Hears A Hoo,
yes him Elephant resembling
a humungous mandrake
from the, "Animals"
whose body heat could
easily melt an igloo,
whereby Eskimos accepted charity from
Korean philanthropists named Joo
(founders of Palaces for Pachyderms)
these lumbering creatures possessed
an exemplary photographic memory
(rivaling that of the amazing
deceased idiot savant
Kim Peek) knew
practically every detail
incorporating trunk their lines
(and could track missing link,
when felines shared common ancestor
but,...such petty files would most likely boar
and go way off course, and hence
will shy away being extempore
favoring a deliberate fore
ray padding around basically ignore
ring any rhyme or reason
suddenly ending this persiflage,
and thence to thee bon jour.
By Phan Tan Hai
Sometimes I finish a few lines of poetry,
you read them, hesitate,
look at me with pity,
and say my poems are a bit melodramatic.
What can I do—I confess:
please let me write as naturally as this.
These are hurried words,
written in haste so my heart won’t stop
each time I finish translating another sad news report.
If anything in my poems is beautiful for this world,
I would be mistaken for an angel—
I would be hanged in the streets of Iran,
shot on a corner in Minnesota,
buried under bombs in Gaza,
pushed into minefields on the border of Ukraine.
What can I do—my writing is a bit melodramatic,
because the words must cover the tears
I shed each day after translating the news.
I cry in the room where I sit alone,
with a laptop, a few bookshelves,
and an exercise bike.
Suddenly you push the door open.
You say the peach tree next door has blossomed.
You say the red flowers are beautiful, welcoming spring.
You ask why I’m crying over the keyboard.
You say we’re not in a Korean drama.
You say my poems smell like incense.
You say my poems sound like temple wooden bells.
You say spring is coming—why am I crying.
What can I do—my writing is a bit melodramatic.
In the news I translate, too many people die,
and they have no time to speak,
and they have no time to write,
and their hearts have no time
to beat one last time.
— California, January 28, 2026
I tried that spicy Korean food I wouldn't eat with you
I tried that yoga exercise I refuse to do
I tried that novel you would always read
I tried that ugly shirt you bought for me
I tried everything I wouldn't do with you
I tried anything to get over you
I tried, Lord I tried but no matter what I do
I just can't try hard enough to forget you
I tried to smile but a frown appears
I tried to find new love but it disappears
I tried to delete your name from my phone
I tried to be happy all alone
I tried not to mention your name again
I tried not to be where we had been
I tried not to be in love with you
I tried but I know I still do
I tried everything I wouldn't do with you
I tried anything to get over you
I tried, Lord I tried but no matter what I do
I just can't try hard enough to forget you
I tried, Lord I tried but no matter what I do
I just can't try hard enough to stop loving you