Flame, Glass and Ink are Poems, essays, and reading notes by Stefania Joori Suh

Tag: arts

  • On the Nancy’s Steps

    Photo Credit: Londonist
    Source: https://londonist.com/london/history/where-are-nancy-s-steps-and-why-do-they-lie-to-us

    There are stairs called “Nancy’s Steps”
    at the London Bridge on the Thames
    where Nancy used to walk up and down
    from her den to the world, back to the den
    to live a life God cared less with neglect
    with nothing more than her untainted heart
    flowing milk of kindness and compassion
    into the neverending faith of humanity alone
    Even if it betrayed her and bullied her in tatters;
    She pitied an orphaned boy named Oliver
    And protected himself from the world under
    Until the blindfolded Goddess Fortuna span
    The Wheel of Fortune to the fateful turn
    To which all her wishes were forefeited
    As her already wretched body was battered
    With the compass of the wheel bludgeoned
    Her life with the heart cherished with love;
    With the blows upon her still young head
    all her hopes for the beauty of life shattered
    and her tears rolling down her cold cheeks
    turned into liquid drops of pearls and crystals,
    and then, with a cry of the heart, she departed.
    or thought she, for she knew not what happened
    from dusk till dawn, wandering and waiting
    on the fateful steps, asking if you’d seen the boy.

  • the broken vase

    The Broekn Vase by 1929, Dunedin, by Alfred O’Keeffe

    Why do they always do it

    knowing it will be hurting

    regretting it happened then

    And doing it all over again?

    It could’ve been all better,

    if you should’ve been kinder

    It would’ve been untouched

    The vase already cracked;

    You may not see the cracks

    Insignificant it may seem

    But you will see the drops

    of water smear from within,

    And the flowers will soon

    be gone in despair forever.

  • Shape of Love

    “View From the Cliff at Pourville Bright Weather” by Claude Monet

    What is a shape of love?

    Have you seen a shape of love?

    If you have, tell me about it. 

    Does it look like a heart?

    -Pumping the red streams

    Gushing the river into veins

    Thumping, pounding,

    Speeding fast forward

    The reason of the mind

    Covered with dessicated

    Leaves of the dreams

    Where joy once danced

    Frolicking, humming 

    Like a beautiful butterfly

    In derilious delight. –

    Is this what you have seen

    The shape of love?

  • Prompt 31

    What principles define how you live?

    Ask any acclaimed mountaineers, such as Edmund Hillary and Reinhold Messner, why and how they climbed up the highest mountain in the world, Mount Everest. Their answers were simple: there was a mountain to climb, and they had to move forward. Likewise, here are my life’s three guides: imagination, creativity, and hope that accompany me in this life’s journey.

    I am a figure of paradoxes, contrasting light with dark, ideal and worldly, bright and melancholy. I see myself trapped in the Labyrinth of Crete, where the Minotaur lurks in the corner of the maze, waiting to ambush, yearning to eat me. (It is more poetic than being lost in a level of the dreadful Backrooms, as it were.) Normal is not default, and insecurity constantly stalks me like a haunting revenant, resisting departing this world that it longs to remain for an unfinished business. And yet, there is always this impalpable, mysterious sense of what-if flickering in its iridescent halo from a distance. So, I follow the light, walk forward, and never look back because moving forward keeps me alive. Didn’t Stephen Hawking also collaborate with it by saying that it is possible for humans to travel to the future but impossible to return to the past?

    Creativity is essential because it gives a sense of existence, of what it means to be a human. Viktor E. Frankl said three values shape a meaningful life, which are creative value, experiential value, and attitudinal value. I enjoy appreciating the artistic works of others and learning to accept who I am. But I am also delighted in creating my own creations, however good or bad they may be. Writing is such a means of expression by which I can express myself. It is fearful of disappearing like a speck of the world, and I am not nothing.

    I can imagine myself one day arriving as an acclaimed memoirist, diarist, or essayist. Novels are not my forte because I can’t write things I pretend to be or know. That is why I prefer reading nonfiction, and I like to think that I can write it well.

    Thus are my principles – or, more fittingly, my guides – in life. I am a Dante who imagines, a Virgil who creates, and a Beatrice who hopes through life’s journey.

  • To Beloved

    Dear Toro and Camille,

    The words I am writing in this letter to you are the voice from my words, and I am addressing your soul’s heart to heart. I know you may not understand the complexities of human language, but my heart and soul are the basics of the words, and I know you will understand what I am trying to say anyway…

    Camille

    I am so sorry that I can’t provide you with the ideal environment for both of you, my sweet darlings, in my present situation. You know that I can’t let you out of our little bedroom whenever you want to go to the living room where the mother stays. She doesn’t like you to be around because she is jealous of my love for you. But she refuses to know that she loves me, not because she never does and has always been unkind to her only daughter. She is not evil but an ill person inside and outside due to her unspoken history of mental illness. I know it, but it’s a taboo that her family wouldn’t disclose. I know this because I am very keen on psychology based on human behaviors. I think you have already sensed it with your supernatural feline senses. What a fate!

    Toro

    When I utter a cry of fate, my soul cries at my fate of being unable to give you the necessary environment to thrive as happy cats. Of course, I always bring you to the doctor when you show symptoms of bodily discomfort, however slight they may be. But when I see my brother’s and cousin’s cats happily and freely roaming around their lovely homes, my heart breaks, and my soul cries inwardly and outwardly. How much I love you guys so much! Toro, you have been with me in every moment of my darkness and occasional lightness. You are always with me when life is unkind to me with the cold shoulders and icy glances. How comforting to stroke your cushy furs through my fingers lying next to me! You are my faithful companion. And Camille, since you came to me, your sweet purrs and meows have consoled my wretched soul. You are such a sweet soul. To people who believe animals have no souls, I defy to see their eyes straightly and speak to them softly that you love them! They know they are loved, and I know my darlings realize it! They know I am sad and happy. They are my only friends in this cold world.

    So, I am asking you to hold on to hope that someday we will live in a lovely home where you can freely and happily roam around, run around all the rooms and floors, cajoling and frolicking to your content and being yourselves. Therefore, I wonder if you want me to accept Brother Joe’s proposal to move to Korea and live in his luxurious apartment with a spacious loft for you and me to live comfortably. What do you think? You think it’s okay?

    Doubt that the stars fall from the sky. Doubt that the sea is blue.
    Doubt night becomes day. But never doubt I love you.

    All my love,
    Stephanie

  • Words

    The soul in exile
    it seems as it were,
    keeps no friends or foes
    but a myriad of words
    weaved into a tapestry
    of stories live to tell
    with a spark of spirit
    at the thrilled touch
    thrust in passion’s flame
    aroused from the buried
    detritus of memories bygone
    and the fire that has gone
    ablaze with the delirium
    of delight in the magic
    of the words she has found
    keeps burning the dark
    reigning in her glass castle.