rusting connectivity

Okay, in what probably won’t become an intermittent series on Google Translate’s limitations, but who knows:

Text = “쇠사슬 (Ahhhh, These Chains!)” by 공중도둑 (Mid-Air Thief). Note that the Korean title is simply “Chain,” as in a set of metal links. dic.naver.com indicates that it may also be used figuratively and gives an example that may be rendered in English as being liberated from the chain of Japanese imperialism. *coughs*

지치고 낡은 날, 바닥을 짚어 높아진 하늘 등지며 매마른 눈을 감아
엉킨 쇠사슬 갈수록 속도가 붙어 좁혀진 그늘 위 맴돌며 서서히 조여가

피 묻은 칼 누가 자꾸 휘둘러 아스팔트를 사방에 뱉어내가면서 땔감 모아
힘 빠진 팔 통제 안돼 후들거려 굳어져가는 벽을 치며 서서히 밀려가

Romanized by me:

Jichigo nalgeun nal, badageul jipeo nopajin haneul deungjimyeo maemaleun nuneul gama
eongkin soesaseul galsulog sogdoga buteo jobhyeojin geuneul wi maemdolmyeo

Pi mudeun kal nuga jakku hwidulleo aseupalteuleul sabange baeteonaegamyeonseo ttaelgam moa
him ppajin pal tongje andwae hudeulgeolyeo gudeojyeoganeun byeogeul chimyeo seoseohi millyeoga

Google Translate:

Tired, worn-out day, sky high on the floor, close every dry eye
The tangled chains are getting faster and closer together,

A bloody knife Who keeps swinging and spitting asphalt all over the place,
I can not control my arm without force.

Even without a nuanced grasp of the original words, one may guess that Google has dropped part of the last line.

Collaborative translation into English:—the main collaborator, who wishes not to be cited, said at first, “No one talks like this. Where did you see this? Too much playing with words,” then was nudged into agreeing with the idea that it’s poetic and compressed. The main collaborator understands words with a somewhat outdated semantic range.

Because I am the lesser collaborator who has queried things, checked dictionaries, and translated English to English in order to sharpen the phrasing, I can add only two notes confidently. One is that a preponderance of the Korean words is native Korean, not borrowed from Chinese. Nowadays that’s rare, despite the setting aside of hanja ca. 1980s. Bang a kkwaenggwari for it (a set of musical modes that the main collaborator knows not—wrong socioeconomic background; this video with Korean and English subtitles may add slender context).

The other note: pi is a knife, here in the text; bi is rain. That’s more a note for why the lesser collaborator has reached for kkwaenggwari (often signifying thunder in the samulnori genre, alongside rain, wind, and other weather-related occurrences) as a rusting chain-link, but in parts of Korea, dialectal pronunciation makes bi and pi hard to distinguish, just as they are in English with its different phonemic/phonetic distinctions. Rain’s evoked by “Chain”‘s instrumentation, and—of course—it would bring rust….

Tired, worn out day. Pushing/bracing oneself against the floor makes the sky higher, and one turns around, closing one’s dried eyes.
Metal chain is tangled. As one goes on, it intensifies [i.e. tangling worsens]; narrower shadow circles around from above, tightens slowly.

Whoever it is [i.e. someone] is swinging around a bloodied knife, continually. In all four directions asphalt is spewed out. Collect driftwood.
Strength is exhausted; can’t control trembling arms. As a hardening wall is hit slowly, it recedes/ebbs.