[archived]: Poems by Changming Yuan - © 2009

A New Recipe She Invents after
Thirty years of Marriage
(for Leo Dangle)

‘yummy, it tastes so good!’ he exclaimed.

‘really?’ she asked.

‘where did you learn the recipe?
These steamed fish chips are really delicious
With all this shredded green onion and fresh ginger.’

‘well, this is the third time I cooked
it this way. Do you really mean
you like the dish?’

‘of cuz! Why would I want to lie
about the food YOU cook?’

‘well, this is the only thing
i am never sure about you.’

‘are you?!’
How Long Have I Been Living?

Today is exactly like yesterday
This year like last one
And this whole decade like the last as well
If only I lived differently each tomorrow
How many more years would I
Have lived before I stop counting my days?


Spell

The moment he wrote down the word ‘crow,’
It beat its wings and flapped up from the paper

The moment he punched the word ‘rose,’
Bees began to bump against the screen

The moment he spells the word ‘fire,’
His soul no longer trembles in cold

So to preserve the power of writing
He has frozen his heart fresh
The Fish in the Glass Jug

You keep jumping above the water
Just to escape from this doorless prison

You do not know there is everything
But water outside this transparent wall


Scything

I often deplore my sons and nephews never felt
The pleasure of scything
There is no telling
Just how many hearts have been uplifted by this simple exercise

The warm wheat like golden flowers cut down, carpeting
The sunlight-framed fields
A plump land of ears listening to the songs of autumn

How neatly the ripeness lies around
The blade cut all the harvest right into the heart
Ignorant the wise e boys who
Have no idea of this stupid but sensational movement

Dragon Drawing
even though born blind, each of them declares his version to be the most faithful representation of the real original loong, drakon, draco or drake…

The Original Chinese Model
Paws like a tiger’s
Claws like an eagle’s
Scales like a carp’s
Belly like a frog’s
Neck like an iguana’s
Horns like a deer’s
Head like a camel’s
Ears like a bull’s
Eyes like a hare’s

The Western Image
Huge, scaly, horned, talon-footed, bat-winged, lizard/dinosaur-bodied and fire-breathing
     
A New Species
Paws and claws like those of something between a tiger and a talon
Scales like those of something between a carp and a lizard
Body like that of something between a frog and a dinosaur
Neck like that of something between an iguana and a python
Horns like those of something between a deer and a bull
Head like that of something between a camel and a hippo
Wings like those of a huge bat and …


Winds

There are winds to lead and winds to avoid
There are winds to sweep like a million unseen brooms
Winds to break every head on the bare land
Winds to caress or flirt with the tenderest spring petals
Winds to uproot century old oak or willow trees
Winds like heavy sighs of history blowing out every light
Winds of leaves, flowers, rains, snows, sand and dust
Winds that whisper, winds that whistle like screaming monsters
Winds that you can never walk against, pushing buildings and cities

Winds that swirl around and make the whole world dizzy
Winds that drive waves upon beaches like stampeding horses
Winds that send roofs, beds and pigs up above dark clouds
There are winds that blow all golden sunshine into white winter
Winds that strike human hearts like bells ringing fiercely
Winds that never stop waving, wallowing and warring
Even if you long for just one damned moment of peace


Those Gliding Geese

Little clouds of fossilized sunshine
Now flying mute
And leaving behind their shadows
All the songs of the morning

Until they are shot down
Like flute dots

The last calls they make
Their only songs


First Day of Death

I wonder
If it will really snow
As broadcast seven days ago
I wonder
If the potted azalea beside my fireplace
Is starting to wither at this moment
I wonder
If I will run into some old friends
I made in history books, and
I wonder how my sons
Are wondering
Where my soul is wandering


Self-Record
on A. K. Ramanujan’s ‘Self-Portrait’

you sound so similar to everyone
but yourself, and seldom speak to a non-human being
to conform with the law
of acoustics
the voice of a street guy
pitch so familiar
yet reluctant to echo
from soul to soul


Like a Lamp
on Grace Nichols’s ‘Like a Beacon’

in Vancouver west
from time to time
you just cannot help yelling, yearning
for your father’s humming
you fumble into musical halls
in pursuit of tunes
soft/hard utterances

you need this feeling

you need this contact
with origin
guiding your heart
like a lamp
along a forlorn road


Reminding

when I am scheduled to die I shall stop dreaming and play
with a brown bear that lolls and wallows in a stream
and I shall climb onto a tall pine tree in the zoo
and roar loudly like the lion king towards the rolling autumn sky
I shall sit and help myself to a pile of fatty foods
With my mouth wide open and make all the eating noises I can
Jaywalking, trespassing and even running a little red light

You can give up your names and masks
And throw away all your clothes and manners
And stop caring about whatever others say or do to you

But we worry about our bills and savings
And concern ourselves with what is going on
Within sight or beyond our living rooms

Perhaps you can put a bit of everything on rehearsal now
And refuse to do whatever you would rather not want to
Since you are scheduled to die shortly, anyway


The Beginning

When I was one
I found my bun

When I was ten
I found my pen

When I was twenty
I found my Wendy

When I was thirty
I found the air dirty

When I was forty
I found life naughty

When I am fifty and sixty and seventy and eighty
How much more findings I will make and feel hasty?


My Dad

My dad has shrunk quite a bit
And begun to look up at me now
But I do not look down upon him, partly
Because he used to be much taller
Two Ultimate Truths

When the whole cosmos collapses into chaos again
All life or non-life forms will be destroyed into void
Except the few lines you have composed for time

When all the cells of your body stop functioning
Every dollar you have accumulated will begin to work
To recall them to life without your ever knowing it


Love Lines

1. You are the only man/woman in my entire world
2. If only I could have a chance to die for you
3. Finally, I have had someone to smile at or cry to for anything or nothing at all
4. Were I to die tomorrow, I would have nothing to regret about
5. Thank your parents for having not only given birth to but also brought you up
6. I am most grateful to God for giving you to me
7. You fit me like the key to the lock
8. No, I dare not marry you; the very idea blasphemes your noble body
9. You are simply so so very clean


Past vs Present

You’d better stop throwing
Your pasts
Into
This mirror embedded within the future

Or you will get your selfhood hurt by
The broken
Glasses
That you can never put back into a whole


Autumn Rain

The drizzle has finally stopped
All the wet has swarmed into raindrops
And fallen flat on the ground
Except this one that continues traveling along
Lingering
Soon it will slip out the twig’s desperate hold
Like a gold coin between a dying miser’s fingers

The last leaf of a naked tree
The last dew of a forgotten season


The Short Cut

He leaves the path into dawn
Well knowing where it ends
He will cross a small stream
And stop his pursuit of a hotel

At the border of the brightest moment
He will put aside all his loads
He will stand up to set off
And as he moves, he will search

He will chew grass roots
And drink the dew he gathers
Before darkness sets in he will sit
Himself down to rest and begin to dream


Senses Un-serviced

Sexuality

Mommy, mommy, the boy said
Am I not a girl
Yes, you are, honey
So I proved it to them
How did you do that
I showed them my badge
For the girl’s club

Ownership

Item by item
The little boy
Put goods
In his mother’s shopping cart
Overwhelmingly bigger
Than his concept of money
When the whole world
Is nobody else’s but his alone

Value

Sitting among
Fisher prices
Like a little Buddha
The infant is lost
In its meditation
Over an empty bottle
All too plain
To be a toy


Do Clouds Stop for You

Do clouds stop for you
You don’t em
You say ‘move’

Say
‘now’
‘then’

I fallen
With your raindrops
You with my sweat

Your shadows pressing
Below you
Dryly


Euthanasia

Blood withers
My body is a pickle
I am bathing it

Yes I am cold-boiling
His stem, veins and leaves
Deeply soaked in my self-assertions

How he absorbed my spirits
From the quasi paradoxes
Of his senses

Till I stuffed
The whole vegetable
With my salty whims

Swollen like an apple
Bare as a twig
His fantasies hydrated

To revive him
Fresh from the brink
I demand to die


If Omitted

Had yesterday lasted a month longer
Were the earth flattened today, or
Should the mind become separated
From the body tomorrow…


Tremors

Again, the tremors
Have you ever felt em?
I often do

You say
It must be an earthquake
Or the palpitations of your own heart

But you know neither is true

Was it the house foundation
Shaking
As a heavy metal monster
Running past invisibly?


Incomplete Imperatives

While the sun is sleeping
While the hope is being prolonged
While the winter is not really arriving yet
While the egg remains hatched
While the vapor stays in the air
While the grass grows
While the fish swims in the water
While the house stands firm
While the cherry tree blossoms
While the iron is still hot


Home: A Logo Poem

HO
USE G.love


Householders

The first few years
After they moved to their new house
They keep it fresh and shiny
With the new original paint
Resistant to oil, water, even graffiti

Then, time and time again
With care, patience and precision
One sands and smoothes the walls
As the other fills in all the empty crevices
Both with similes, metaphors or paradoxes

When the fence became rotten outside
And holes and cracks crawling around
above the fireplace, in kitchen corners
And more stuffs accumulated in forgotten closets
They tire of repairing and even painting
Yeah, others have either changed their houses
Or moved away
Even before they paid off their mortgages
Only they hoped to renovate theirs
With the little savings they have

It used to be their dream house
Only too costly to rebuild


Allen in Wonderland

Qucheng
Homerburgh
Dantefield
Shakespeareston
Goethestadt
Pushkingrad
Baudelaireville
Nerudastad
Frostdale
Tagorerboro


Epiphany

Truth :: beauty

Beauty :: truth

The two zoom simultaneously
At the very first ray tickling the mind of
The sleeper


Onion

With so many masks
Each getting fresher
Finer
And closer
To your heart

Your masks are your body
Your body is your face
Is your face your mask
Or your life itself?

You have never been a forbidden fruit
Not even to Eve


Cuckoo

alas! you sensitive secretive songster
knowing every secret spirit of the forest
and all the spirit’s secrets in the mists
you keep calling and singing blindly
until your throat becomes all blood-blocked

you never care, nor are you aware
how many ears have heard your sounds
how many eyes will see your figure proper
except some casual hikers going astray
or a couple of local firewood gatherers

you just keep singing and calling blindly
you singular solitary singing species


In the English Bay

the waves surging towards the seashore
not unlike my spirits

the seashore embracing the waves
not unlike your arms

a fish trying to jump above the water
like what is not supposed to be unlike


On Osler Street, Vancouver West

somewhere down my neighborhood
as if the sun and moon were melting
all the cherry twigs tinged with spring
like morning glows fallen in the wood

beside the freshly mown lawns I jog
both my steps and breaths in keeping
with every little bare cluster humming
such a sweet tune in the silvery fog

is my residence here but a day dream
or is the day dream my residence here?


Reflections on Earth-Breaking

flesh is
fresh
but spirit is
not secret


The Art of Social Arithmetics

one plus one
always
equals
three

two minus two
often
leaves
one

three times three
seldom
leads to
nine

four divided by four
never
amounts to
one


Mandarins
Although perching in the some grove, the husband and the wife fly in different directions when the trees suddenly fall down. –Chinese Proverb

like common-laws living on land
you’ve never gone through a ceremony
but you share privacy and publicity alike
in the minimal space of time
at the maximum moment of space

after days of months of years
of playing intimately in the water
beside the reeds and duckweeds
you have begun to look like each other
in almost every physical feature


now, as a violent storm rises above the lake
do you feel enough limerence to stay here?


The Birds and the Mountaineer

in their glaring voices
unseen birds are singing
unaware of strangers
approaching step by step
down in the foothills

while the lonely climber
keeps breathing quietly
for fear of awakening
the immortals dozing off
right above his spirits

You, Or

few
of the crew
          will preview
      review
         or inter-view
    the new
         view
   of a dew
            on the yew


9 Nicknames for a Poet

1. shepherd of words
2. juggler of syllables
3. alchemist of ideas
4. collagist of sound patterns
5. singer of imagery
6. prince of a linguistic kingdom
7. addict to wild thinking
8. crow with white wings
9. god of a personal religion


Chasing Something Absent

beyond the shadow
you are the presence
of a shadow
that is
rarely the reality
whenever you are
you are not what is present

where you stand
you join the light
and never
the light disperses
to fill in the moments
when your spirit is absent

few others have the impulses
for standing
but you stand
to chase something absent


Shaving

often am I attempted to rid of
this little mustache of my manhood

so I spread
the foam of self-exposure
above my lip
for cleaning

that was when I took off my mask
to try to look younger

but my Allen said
I was a total stranger
without the mustache


Night of Sky

night of sky in the sea, bursting
with clouds and whales and chrysanthemums

night of sky in my mind –flat
when my meditative spirit stays still
among shapes and sounds, like a lotus-eater

night of sky in the sky, deep night
when my imaginings are starfish finding themselves
swimming closer to the carrel tree, to their nests


Ranting

come on, you guys, I am no longer a kid now
I have the right to vote like you old folks do
and if I really want to, I could always drink too
or play in a casino as you probably know how

but I don’t drink or smoke beyond your sight
nor do I have anything to do with any gangster
let alone snuck out to loud parties at midnight

I know how much green vegetable to eat
I know how often I should wash my hands
I also know how to keep my own room neat

I have never skipped classes in the past year or so
I have never forgot to hand in my home assignments
I have never been detained for any behavior low

I am sorry I cannot promise my marks would be high
I cannot promise I would win the next math contest
I cannot promise to be more outstanding than the rest
but this I promise you: I would give it one heck of try

I can in deep waters keep myself float
I can support myself with a government loan
since I have grown up with dreams of my own
let go of me, just let me row my own boat


The River and the Bridge

over that little meandering river
flowing anonymously from my boyhood
there used to be no bridge

so, we rode a ferry boat in spring
and nake-swam across it in summer
when it became as dry as reeds and straw
we trudged a trail like a small stream
and when it was frozen with sand and gravel
we walked on the thickest ice we could find
although not knowing how to ski
nor did we fear losing our balance
between boyish dreams and the cold winter

since I left my native village long ago
a bridge has been built
and thus has become the only place
and the only way
to get to the other side of the river
Birds at Risk

your songs and calls all recorded
your body well stuffed
your genes being cloned
your species digitalized

now we are living a posthumous life
we have become shadows of ourselves
among so much bustling and hustling
we are dying, birds, dying


collage

several sunsets ago
when I was looking for something
I found a collage
made with foil, crayon and megabites
carefully kept between the pages
of our favoured family book
reminding my little allen
where he an locate
this chip of childhood
when he grows up
and feels like looking back for moment

surely, his collage is very different
from what I used to make
when I was his age
in a nameless village never mapped
surreptitiously, I buried a handful
of soil, seeds and stalks
deep under an unknown tree
hoping someday a big miracle
or a small wonderwork
would somehow be hatched out

I awaited, for many years
before my son was finally begotten


Half Truths about Hotels

1. Earth is the only all-star hotel we can find on our journey to the other world.
2. The most luxurious presidential suite is but another prison house for the privileged.
3. With or without a view, one hotel room is just as shabby a shelter for the soul as another.
4. A heart unoccupied is a hotel for rent, while a house for sale is never a home.
5. Some suites are more desirable simply because they have more doors than walls.
6. Every hotel is a blue cage hung high up in the tree of time.
7. All hotels are God’s rental properties on earth.
8. In the closet of every hotel room hides some luggage packed into the traveler’s heart.
9. The hotel is more attractive than the home to the immigrant because one does not need to worry about mortgage or maintenance.
10. What really accounts for your sojourn in the hotel is the way you check out rather than the way you check in.


The Meditating Mind

Be a bare buoy
    Beneath
        Beside
Between and
Beyond …
the mortgagor

he has plenty of words
with which to build a huge house
yet he has neither wit nor worth
powerful enough to stir the hardened heart
of his ever friendly account manager
who would readily offer generous loans
only to those who can prove
they actually have enough cash
to buy more than ten houses

with his net assets writ in water yet
where can he find a willing creditor?  


China Charms: Tao Yuanming’s Song

In the twilight, amidst a few clusters of wild chrysanthemums, a man in his early thirties is playing a delicate instrument looking like a zither. Chanting, crying and smiling, he is so lost that he seems to have poured all his being into this single song of his. Among his audiences are a couple of humans obviously charmed by his music, for all their spirits appear to be dancing to its rhythm. Amazed by this autumn scene, I approach them and, to my little surprise, I find the singer’s instrument to be nothing more than a solid chunk of wood, with no string at all.

Note: Tao Yuanming (365-427), first and greatest nature poet in the long history of Chinese literature, resigned from his government post and became a peasant simply because he found it unbearable to “bow [to others] for the sake of five dou of rice [for his salary].”


Streamwater

you do not want to stay
at your bursting origin
and become vaporized
within the stagnant pool

you prefer to roll ahead
flowing at will with full freedom
no matter whether it means
you have to exile
or to be exiled
by your dear root source

you often hit rocks
tumble over boulders
or straddle ridges
yet you know it is exactly they
that give you a crystal voice                                


Pippa’s Lament

a newly liberated butterfly
beating her wings against the freshness of flowers
--no eye sees

a speckled-faced village boy
shouting loud at his dirt-free future in his dream
--no ear hears

a thick summer sunbeam
warming a flat stone in the heart of the forest
--no finger feels

a rich and brilliant dish
lying on the big table in an empty monstrous house
--no tongue tastes

a blood-stained sea breeze
blowing afar from an island beyond the horizon
--no nose smells

no one knows god is not in heaven
nor is all well with this worthy world


The Maozhu Grower

Weeding, watering, fertilizing
      Constantly toiling and moiling
That is everything
      He has been doing
Ever since he planted his maozhu
An obscure chinese bamboo breed
      Though it has repeatedly refused
To show to the staring eye
      Any sign of green growth
      For up to five long long years

He never expects to sit someday
            Under its shade slaked deep in summer
      Nor has he ever halted to hope
      After a rainy night his only child might
Shoot out of earth ninety feet tall
Within just a few thick weeks of all


To the Homeless

neither the first fallen
from the overcrowded tree
as spring's sole prophet
nor the last against night
hanging on like a soldier
bayoneting with the whole winter
you are nothing more or less
than an introvert leaf
stalking in summer's shadow

face faded, body forlorn
you are a lonely being, being alone
wandering around in a whirlwind
rolling over the bumpy roof
passing by the wet threshold
or sleeping beside the road sign
you never care when to disappear
or where you have come from
except your dreams frosted
in a forged fog

before the unseeing eyes
betwixt the city's pitiful noises
you seem a sad withered soul
dyed with heavy dusk
waiting to witness
the ever hardening of autumn
but right now who knows
deep in you unwalled heart
you are flirting with the freedom
found only in a permanent house?


Rhapsody of Night Sky

A cosmic mirror
      Smashed into small
And bright dots of light
Most of them become
So stained with time
Until darkness grows
      Thick enough to glue
Earth with heaven
      With debris possessed
Still glistening high above
Among hardening silences


Here at the Seashore

All roads and trails
Have come to a hasty end
All hills and mountains
Have sunk into the bottom
And all trees and flowers
Have retreated themselves
Except a solitary seagull
      Soaring high above
His blue call resonates
      With the foamy song of the sea


Rain and Poetry

outside
it is raining
      raining again
in vancouver

inside
i am trying
      trying again
to write poetry

raining / writing
writing / raining
until somehow
they are related
      within my room
just rented


Grammatical Groundwork

in the overly exploited mine of vocabulary
      he digs deep into the ores hard and shiny

at the heavily guarded garden of syntax
      he keeps pruning his trees dripping with green

among the wildly running crowds of syllables
      he skillfully cowboys his colts cute and lively


The Portrait of a Young Mountain

when I first see you
you are nothing more or less
than a muted mountain
      massive, mighty and monumental
a solid thesis statement
made by mother nature

then you seem to grow
      slimmer or slenderer
than your true shape
as I try to translate
both your body and spirit
      into an antithesis of artwork
with my brushes and palette

to authenticate your whole being
i look at you once again
      and find you no darker or brighter
than what you exactly were:
      a muted mountain

a simple synthesis
of you and me


The Land Paintings at Nasca

long lost on the barren sandy land
few folks have ever seen you as figures
drawn with bare hands of aliens perhaps
or even forgotten gods from another world

nothing but simple run-on sentences
rambling from somewhere to somewhere else
unedited, unmodified and unfootnoted
just light lines scratched on brown ground
like an ancient labyrinth suddenly flattened
framed with all metaphoric possibilities

too vague and sketchy to make any sense
for the lazy and myopic minds of men
casually walking in your blind spots
unless they can see you from high above
where they might wonder how and why

you have too few viewers privileged
to make you a familiar human scene


During their Dialogues

Behind the words they exchange
Hides a wild snow-covered animal

It seems like a sleek but wounded panther
Squatting under the thick bushes of syllables

Stop and listen with their cagey minds
They can smell its bleeding sighs

But neither of them has seen its true face
As it occasionally appears and disappears


The Jug of Life

fragile
never full
this cup of life
its taste changed completely
with only one droplet of dreamwater

staring at it square
holding it tight against light
not a single drop spilt
but all the colors missed
      along my way here
rich and brilliant


In the Library

amidst the stony silences
      so dense and heavy
even time seems
to have dozed off
i hold my sneeze
      until a stranger neighbor
happens to drop
      onto the unfootnoted floor
a thick book of human history (?)
filled with echoless voices


Passing by God’s Residence

beyond the fence with barbed wire
i saw the windows all like portholes
half closed for blind bats or flying moths
while the only door is widely open
for any creature larger than a cat

i smelt a loud light from the kitchen
appealing to both my sense and soul
when a heavenly voice called loudly:
come on in, i will give you
whatever you have desired
yet as i approached the huge house
i could not help wondering:
how can my human body manages
to crawl through the door designed for dogs?


Chimney

as more fireplaces begin to burn
electricity instead of wood
fewer chimneys are left over
as throats to be cleared
allowing us to cough out
all stained stuffs such as
      black hatred
      foul words
      poisonous curses
      and evil plans
on a lightless night
weaved with winter winds

our houses becoming tidier
the air seems much clearer
but our climate is getting
warmer and warmer
as we keep installing
more modern conveniences
in the rooms of our minds


Two Street Trees

so very close
you grow together
your green arms
      branching almost into
each other’s hearts
      both beside the fast lane
      among tied silences
but like two stubborn rails
never interlinking
no matter how far
you have traveled along
your mouthless trunks
      always remain separate
although in between
      there is no wall
no fence for defense
not even a yellow leaf


Double Conquering

just like the unknown birds
whose little flapping wings
stroke into blue beating
our forefathers’ featherless minds
fluttering high and afar
until we have started to conquer
the crystal worlds in the outer space

can we hope to do the same
to our inner space ever forbidden
with the unmeaning manifestation
of nature, such as another creature
or perhaps some nameless plant?                                      


To the Unknown Musician at A Subway Station

at this serene spot of dark time
right at the corner of the eye
of all the pell-mell
the sound and fury
of a busy crazy city
you remain courageously composed
totally lost in the ecstasy
of your own voiceless song
for the compartmentalized drama of life
rolling on the railway of human inertia

no passengers know who you are
few even bother to stop and tell
if you are playing a chopin or yanni
or one of your improvisations
nor do you care who your audiences are
(if there are any at all)
or if anyone has the right ears
or the right mind
for the melody of your whole being

but among the tens of thousands
of nameless and faceless passers-by
I for one feel your fingers
playing with so much power
on the strings of my heart
my soul begins to cry
with deeply felt joy and wonder
as you are turning
(although without intention)
one of my life’s dullest episodes
into a most poetic moment


Seven Haiku

1/ the spider
let my net be set
to catch all the innocent
with my printed curse

2/ the silkworm
a small white walled cell
your cocoon jails your own soul
lined with brocade

3/ fallen leaves
still, blown by no breeze
tree spirits fall like scorched snowflakes
stopping fright for life

4/ distances
tender shines the night
the moon looks foul and foolish
when dreams come too close

5/ nostalgia
at the vague foreground
you try to find fine figures
in a vast landscape

6/ on the stage
one single actor
can never put on a play
or a tragedy

7/ recollections
all pasts swept in winds
withered and fallen from trees
once green and shiny


now

between the morning glow
of tomorrow
and the sunset clouds
of yesterday
is all my present life
full of shining dreams
weaved with hard darkness


the internet

with the debris
of babel
they have now built
an unseen network
of bridges and highways
between and beyond themselves
to reach each other
through the one
and same e-tongue
instead
the mountain of language

in your shiny shadow
the hi-fi recorder
of lined time
I can never discern
your true face
miraculously morphosis
as if in a colossal kaleidoscope
but when your shout
in a yellowish voice
in can clearly see
your echoes roll
form soul to soul


Siamese stanzas: three sunbeams

the first
beam the 3rd
penetra beam
ting the another resonates
hymen beam with the
of dawn has kept crystal
emitted welding timeline
photons colored purity
seeking minds of one
the egg together single
of earth with the musical
machine tone


eight untitled haiku

this drop of red wine
tries hard to return as grapes
to that rambling vine

each one of us strives
to own a patch of blue sky
though barely breakable

sea waves surge forwards
leaving hopes and dreams behind
but can’t come ashore

  lotus roots long cut
but still connected through thoughts
invisible flower smell
     
that snowman we piled
has melted into sunlight
before summer comes

 like monkeys in zoos
they humans enjoy picking
lice in each other’s hearts

in the wild wife world
men burn forest fires
before they shrink thin

 in husband cosmos
women spins black holes sucking
both lights and colours


the message in the bottle

beside the backyard
of his heart’s home
runs a river never roars
into which he keeps
throwing bottles with messages
one after another
like someone whose hobby
is to compose poems
and submit them with sases
to magazines or magazettes
although he receives few letters
that happen to be handwritten
he enjoys looking constantly
beyond the waters of sea
in his hope to get some replies
long after his dwelling disappears


memory

seemingly fresh
seemingly full
this cup of coffee
slightly sweetened
with a tasty lump of time

drink it too eagerly
your might get your lips burned
sip it too slowly
you could completely lose its flavor
watch it too closely
you would find only a dark reflection
deformed strangely


epiphyllum

never can you hope
to become a comet
streaking across the starry sky
as it burns its super spirits
to enlighten millions
of thunderstruck minds

but you can try
to be an epiphyllum
with broad leaves
adding all your beauty
just to one tender night

you know it is the life in moments
rather than the moments in life
that really count


amateur chef

for the feast of life
each of us
is trying to prepare
with our hands and hearts
a special course
although without a ready recipe


true love

fed with magnetic foods
sensational even to its soul
our love has grown lightwinged
like a little lovely lark
that will return at sunset
to our house of heart
where it can settle softly
with the door of its cage
always remaining open


the man in the poem

every time the man in the poem suffers
from an intense attach of loneliness
in his own cozily unloving home
his soul feels doubly tempted
to flap its invisible wings
into grey and silver beating
out of his mortgaged heart

yet every time the man in the poem awakens
from his stupor to reassume his daily obligations
he swallows down his urge to reach out
for his soulmate crouching afar
under a big shady tree without a name

every time the man in the poem
takes up his pen, phone or mouse
all his nerve endings become galvanized
not because he does not have the right address
but because he wants to keep his hope alive


sawing

in this thick forest
of green growth
every tree trunk
is being sawed
with a long and burning blade
full of sharp-toothed sawyer
call obligation
the rock vs the diamond

under the forked footsteps
of numerous mountain climbers
the rock is shining with smile

deep in an undiscovered mine
the diamond feels sad and sullen
about its light being buried