may updates: changming

yesterday, i had the honour of being invited to read my poetry at Lunch Poems at simon fraser university (downtown campus). today i have just replied, choosing september 17 to attend the event, right before i plan to go back to china for a tour to jiuzhaigou and for a short stay with my mom in jinzhou. i look forward to all that. ( the reading date has been changed to december 17 instead)

this month, i have had 23 poetry acceptances thus far (including wasafiri, voice isareal, mediterranean poetry), but got only 12 last month. the month in which i got most acceptances was november 2013, when my poetry was accepted by 29 journals/anthologies. in other words, since 2009, i have had my poetry accepted by 12 to 29 different literary publications. this sounds good, but i make 300 or so poetry subs every month. my acceptance rate is roughly 4-5%, as in the case of most other submitters.

the problem is, my eyes hurt too much and too long whenever i stay with my computer for more than half an hour. if it continues, i may have to minimize my time with Poetry Pacific or any other publication endeavours, and even reduce my time for writing/typing.

in recent months, i have been writing and posting my mini-essays on 'happiness' at my english blogsite, and on 'chinese culture' at my chinese blogsite.

once i have been published by more than 1,000 different literary publications, i will begin either to learn traditional chinese painting and/or to write my long overdue novels, hopefully in a couple of years. i have always avoided writing novels, because mine will be 'purely literary' rather than commercial fiction. i am fully aware that whatever i write never has any 'market value,' nor do i really care about whether i have any readers or make any money. - i write; therefore, i am.

changming yuan: towards happiness -16

while most people have to work, most working people have to spend about one thirds of their living time on their work. this very simple fact points to the working station as a major external source of happiness or unhappiness to every working person.

the relationship between one's working station and one's sense of happiness may involve more human and non-human elements, and can be more complicated than one can see in individual cases; that is to say, it is difficult, if  not entirely impossible, to make any valid generalizations about it here. nevertheless, we can divide all jobs into three large categories in terms of its significance to the working person:

1/ political jobs - those offering people a way to realize their personal ideals/duties/talents/interests, such as those performed by politicians, soldiers(?), artists, musicians, writers, singers, actors, athletes, etc;
2/ economic jobs - those providing people with a means of making money or a living, such as those done by assemblers, salesmen, dishwashers, waiters, garbage collectors, welders, etc;
3/ ecopolitical jobs - those giving people both a means of making a living and a way to realize their personal ideals/talents/interests, such as those engaged by teachers, programmers, businessmen, technicians, engineers, drivers, cooks, doctors, handymen, etc.

needless to say, this division of jobs is relative: whether it is a 'political,' 'economic' or 'ecopolitical' job an individual does depends upon how the individual 'looks at' the job. a political job can be an economic or ecopolitical one to a particular individual with a particular job mentality, or the other way around.

also, in general, a  political job may prove to be more of a happifier than an ecopolitical one, which in turn may turn out more of a happifier than an economical one, although such comparison can be meaningless in a given individual case.

at the working station, one has to deal with different human relationships on a daily basis (between oneself and one's superiors, colleagues, inferiors, customers), try every way to improve one's career situation (job security and development opportunities), and meet all kinds of (physical, intellectual and even emotional) challenges. while most of these elements/situations can be dehappifiers to varying degrees, they are basically uncontrollable even if they may sometimes be manipulable to a certain extent.

depending upon what significance the job has to us, or how much job satisfaction we can get from it, our job/work can be as much a happifier as a dehappifier to each of us. this means that whether we are happy (about our job) or not has little to do with our job itself; rather, it is most closely related to our own psychology.

changming yuan: towards happiness -15

the sociopolitical reality we live in offers us the macro human environment, which can, but may not necessarily, be a major dehappifier. indeed, there could be as many happy people in a politically depressing society like north korea as in a socially turbulent one like syria; similarly, there could be as many unhappy people in a highly democratic society like the unite states as in a particularly tolerant one like canada.

in theory as in practice, the macro human environment could be a major dehappifier, but only to those individuals who are suffering, psychologically or physiologically, as a direct and immediate result of the working of such environmental factors. naturally, if you are tortured in an unruled prison because you have done something to overthrow the chinese government, you may not be truly happy even if you are a great revolutionary or freedom fighter like Mandela, nor would you feel pleasant if your family is killed during a bombardment imposed by a passing unmanned airplane in a war zone. otherwise, you might still be able to maintain a positive state of mind.

so, our macro human environment could turn out to be irrelevant for many, if not most of, those trying to pursue happiness.

by-thoughts:

since the vast majority of us could do little to control our macro human environment, it would be helpful if we just ignore the sociopolitical reality as a major dehappifier. 

true happiness can be gained only from the inner reality, rather than from the outer environment.   

changming: academic achievement in chinese

while browsing randomly last night, i was happy to find one of my academic essays titled 'a comparison of english and chinese rhetorics,' which i wrote and published in chinese 25 years ago (before moving to canada as an international student), was selected for inclusion in comparative studies of the english and chinese languages: a collection of essays, 《英汉对比研究论文集》 杨自俭 李瑞华编 (http://cacsec.com/xsyj/xscg/159.html). released on 22 december 2013, this book is obviously influential within the chinese academic circle, especially since it is one of the most significant achievements made by 中国英汉语比较研究会（China Association for Comparative Studies of English and Chinese，or CACSEC）. among all the journal essays and monographs i published while still in china, i think this essay is my most important contribution to the chinese academic world.
----------------------

also, i found that two of my chinese poems were included in the publication of singaporean association of writers (http://singaporewriters.org.sg/document/80-04.pdf).

高梁

一簇簇幼小的蜜蜂
聚集在一株株甘蔗枝头
忙着吸吮大地母亲的糖分
或为雨天储藏阳光

远在晚夏的田野之外
高高列队于黄昏之上
仿佛要迎接新月的检阅
像红红的芦苇
含着红红的种子


孤寂

孤独本无色
闭起双眼
单调如灰的
钝锯，将你的心灵
割得寸断

孤独本无形
手舞足蹈
沉静如岩的
负担，压得你双肩
一触即垮

孤独本无味
是你自己的思絮
陈如死水
把人生的不快
泡得腐烂

as if to give me a little happy surprise, they never informed me of their acceptance in either of the two cases.

changming yuan: towards happiness -14

there are as many happifiers as de-happifiers in the human reality. among all dehappifiers, the following 6 are probably the most significant ones, which can be divided into two groups in terms of sources::

i. personal dehappifiers:
1/ physical health;
2/ personality;
3/ thought pattern;

ii. environmental dehappifiers:
1/ family;
2/ job;
3/ sociopolitical reallity.

equally noteworthy is the dialectic relationship between happifiers and dehappifiers: just as happifiers can turn into dehappifiers, dehappifiers can turn the other way around.  or, one might as well say that each happifier is one and the same as the dehappifier at the same time. while the personal elements, especially the psychological/ideological ones, may function as the intrinsic causes of such dialectic change if any, the environmental elements can also play an important role in this process although they are extrinsic causes. what is the most decisive in this inter-relationship is perhaps the way we can control such interchange.
---------------------

by-thoughts::

every human life is a living process in which happifiers and dehappifiers work randomly and constantly with or against one another. 

whether one is happy or not depends heavily on how one manages the work of happifiers and dehappifiers. 

once we can actively and effectively manage the work of happifiers and dehappifiers 'to our advantage,' we will be able to live a happy life.

changming yuan: towards happiness -13

what i call 'psychological interactors' are those that can happify people by satisfying their emotional, intellectual and/or spiritual needs. most common among such happifiers are the following:

1/ emotional interactors: love, respect, friendship, fellowship, etc;
2/  intellectual interactors: knowledge (information), etc;
3/ spiritual interactors: fame, power, faith/religion, music, artworks (like movies, paintings, literature, sculpture,and architecture), etc.

these happifiers may be human or non-human beings, tangible or intangible merchandise, social or non-social activities, but they have several important characteristics in common:

1/ every one of them is uniquely human-related or, in other words, has no value/significance to any other other kind of animal - 'power' might be the only exception, but it should be recognized as a physiological need or biological instinct rather than a psychological agent in the case of an animal;
2/ they are all capable of giving a human individual a sense of satisfaction or fulfilment;
3/ the extent to which they can happify people is usually determined by the way how the human individual and the psychological interactor interact or are related with each other.

to some people, certain psychological ineractors mentioned above may prove to be much more important than others. that is to say, not every human individual needs all the psychological interactors to attain happiness in living reality, although such full fulfilment is undoubtedly desirable. partly because they are psychological agents that can contribute most directly to one's state of mind, partly because they can offer most people a sense of satisfaction which is identical with the sense of happiness itself,  these interactors are the most significant happifiers. to most people, true happiness can be gained and maintained only in relation to certain psychological interactors, or at the psychological level.

by-thoughts::

since happiness is by definition a desirable psychological condition, it can and should be obtained only through the agency of psychological interactors.

some people can be 'happy' even though they have few or minimum physiological stimuli, physical objects, and/or psychological interactors; however, their 'happiness' might be more innate or character-related than something obtained in living reality. if that is the case, this kind of happiness is meaningless to most people, although it deserves study.

if we need to understand happiness better, it is obviously not only helpful but simply necessary to pay special attention to what affects our sense of happiness. 

-----------------------

by-notes::

the very process of reflecting upon the issue of happiness and articulating my thinkings about it is a happifying one to me -  i am happy partly because i have my own definition of and findings about happiness itself.

for me, this process is a dynamic one, as it might be full of change. 

changming yuan: towards happiness -12

the second category of happifiers includes all physical material, such as cars, houses, clothes, jewellry, furniture, electronics, and etc., etc. these happifiers have several fundamental features:

1/ most, if not all, of them are actually commercial products;
2/ such physical happifiers can be purchased with money (or exchanged with anything, including one's own body as in the case of most 'concubines' in contemporary china, that has an equal commercial value);
3/ these happifiers can both provide people with physical comfort and satisfy their psychological needs at the same time although to a different extent.

given these features, physical material may contribute most significantly to most people's sense of happiness or make most people feel happy. otherwise, most people all over the world would not have been trying so hard to make or get enough money in their daily lives. for them, money is so important that it can not only make the mare to go, but also enable them to 'buy' happiness itself.

nevertheless, physical material should not be confused with psychological satisfaction, just as money cannot buy everyone true happiness. this becomes self-evident upon the following two hard facts:

1/ many people are happy although they have neither 'enough' money nor much physical material;
2/ many people are unhappy although they have plenty of money or much physical material.

keeping this in mind, one realizes that one can pursue happiness in many different ways.


by-thoughts::

- 'happiness' is a unique human construct. (presumably, animals do not feel 'happy', although they may feel 'good' when their physical needs are satisfied.) that is to say,  its content and meaning may have most to do with the way we define ourselves as humans. 

- 'happiness' stands for a relative 'value'. there is no universal or absolute definition of the term; in other words, my definition of it as 'a positive psychological condition' is no more than a working one. 

- to a given individual, the true meaning of 'happpiness' may well lie in the dynamic integration of a variety of elements working side by side and to varying degrees. 

by-notes::

- i am aware that there may well have been tremendous discourse on the topic of happiness, especially in the past decade, but i am determined to articulate my own intuitive realizations about happiness before paying any close attention to it. for me, this articulating process serves to put a meaningful end to my spiritual journal towards happiness.

- after some casual browsing, i got an impression that most discourse on 'happiness' is more of an 'inspirational' speech act than of a legitimate science in its own right, or more of a 'bookish' course material (for such as 'positive psychology') than of a pragmatic approach, or more of a fast food than of a nutritious recipe.

allen qing yuan: may updates

Hello all,

Recently, I have celebrated my birthday as a full-fledged adult. Throughout this year, I have had various achievements like having my brand, Above The Movement Clothing, featured in UBC's Commerce Undergraduate Society's newspaper Cavalier and in a local fashion blog called "Vancity Tribe."

More importantly, I am happy that my poetry has been the most viewed these past few months in the 2013 winter issue of Poetry Pacific (2.4). I am grateful for those who take the time to read my work regardless of whether or not it is likeable. I highly value acknowledgement.

Personally, this year has been all about maintaining a positive mindset and an insatiable hunger for success. I believe that one of the worst things a person can do is to be complacent. One thing I keep in the back of my head is that the human mind makes everything possible; the moment we conceive an idea is the moment when we are able to realize a possibility and make it reality. That said, I hope everyone believes in themselves and their abilities to succeed no matter what their ventures are in.

Have a great summer and please keep supporting Poetry Pacific.

Cheers,
Allen

changming yuan: towards happiness -11

among the three major categories of happifiers, those belonging to physiological stimuli can readily give people a sense of happiness. indeed, you will feel immediately comfortable, positively excited ,or more-or-less happy whenever you eat, drink, sing, dance, listen to music, watch a movie, play a game, perform sports or make love with your sweetheart. as these physical activities stimulate your one or more of your five senses, you get a sensation of happiness.

what should immediately be noted here is that this sensation is not happiness itself; rather, it is a sensual pleasurable experience. for one thing, this sensual experience is only a 'temporal' sensation, not a 'perpetual' condition according our definition of happiness. although it may contribute much to your sense of happiness, or serve to endorse it, sensual experience is never sustainable - you may be stimulated by these stimuli constantly but never continuously as we mentioned earlier. furthermore, a pleasurable experience is a physiological experience instead of a psychological one. it is true that our psychological experience must have a physiological foundation - it is unthinkable to have a psychological experience without use of any physical sense; however, physiological experience is not psychological experience; therefore, pleasurable sensations are not happiness per se.

there are another two important considerations. on the one hand, every human is an intelligent creature that, unlike all other animals, has a highly developed mind. this being so, all humans have more desires that just immediate physical needs. as Maslow has made it clear, we humans have different levels of needs to be satisfied. without such satisfaction, we cannot become really happy. on the other hand,  we humans are all social beings; as a result, our feeling may often be conditioned by the way we look at others, or at ourselves in relation to others, or simply the other way around.

in a word, pleasurable sensations are theoretically not happiness per se, nor can we feel really happy simply because our basic physical needs are met, or because we get enough physiological stimuli.

by-thoughts::

in practice, many (especially 'poor') people do feel 'happy' as long as they have a place to live, where they do not have to worry about food or clothing every day. does this fact mean that their feeling of 'happiness' is different from that of others who are much more educated and enjoy a much higher standard of living?

can 'happiness' be divided into different kinds?

is our sense of happiness adjustable in theory as well as in pracitice? 

is there any special psychological agent functioning to adjuster our sense of happiness?

[archived]: Dark Poems by Changming Yuan ©

First Potluck by Robot Families

What a rich and grand dinner party here:

Look, this jug of wine, brewed with the

Human perms and blood, is brought

By the Vines; this huge plate of tongues

Of the sexiest women, is presented 

By the Crows; this is a bowl of fried penises

Of teenage boys, looking like wishbones

Of young eagles. There are also well-baked 

Nipples of virgins; barbecued buttocks of

Kings and emperors; steamed brains of

Nobel prizewinners; pickled hearts of poets

And painters; prepared respectively by

Mr Hog, Ms Cucumber, Dr Rice, etc

Yeah, they are all homemade dishes; none

Of them is a GMO, nor stem-grown or cloned

 At the Estuary

As if the whole continent is having a diarrhea

Trying to excrete all the filth from within its body

This flattened asshole throws out huge volumes of

Animal tears and sweat, riding on swift currents

Of human blood, run off from both banks; surging

On the surface are endless waves of monstrous concepts

And constructs, followed by rafts of skulls and skeletons

Every grain of sand containing a stained soul; there are

No fishes swimming by, except rotten human corpses

Eyes swollen like dead octopuses, ebbs turning and

Swirling around to suck in every cry from above the dark sky

As the most newly-invented gods try to jump out of the flow

From time to time, as if to call for help before entering the ocean

Chip

It all began with this chip

A chip broken off a digitalized bone

See? This brown stuff clustered

Around its rim is not rust

Nor is it thick human blood

Newly dried up; rather

It is red spirits, so condensed

They need a longer time

To shake themselves off

And fly into the air, not unlike

All the evils and devils

Locked inside the Pandora’s Box

Evening Walk

Each time I take a stroll after supper

I am haunted by the idea why night falls down

Far thicker and faster

On my neighborhood than elsewhere

In particular, I often see the fanciest house trembling

Like a tortured monster, as darkness shot

Out of its chimney, greenish blood gushing out

From its pipes, giant shapes charging

Towards the windows like bloated moths, smelling

Of fresh human corpses, myriads of muted voices

Screaming so hard as to thrust open the entire roof

Every time I would keep myself farther away from the

Residence, in case it might drag me into the black fire

That backfires from inside. The house belongs to

A new governor, just elected, a passer-by once told me

Quit It Tonight, Jesus

Come on, jesus

I know you are always busy

Writing your program for

All the lives in the universe

Admit it that you

Simply hate

This code monkey

Business of yours; why

Not quit it tonight, but

Let each fate write its own

Why not come out of your little castle

Walled with biblical pages?

Bored as you are, jesus

Why not just quit it tonight?

American Free Speech: ‘Kill Everyone in China’

During ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live! aired on 29 October 2013, a 6-year-old boy  proposed to ‘kill everyone in China’; in reply to the wide protest against such verbal violence, the White House recently declared: “the principle of protected free speech is an important part of who we are as a nation."

Apparently, it is not the tiny guy

But his big parents

Who would very much like

To kill everyone in China

No, it is not even his parents

But his teachers, the picture

Books he reads, the movies he watches

The computer games he plays, and

The media bombs he hears constantly

That encourages him to do so

On the other hand, it is not the yellow-skinned

Yellow-hearted Chinese really

But anyone that has a hue different from a wasp

That may turn out more civilized, less hypocritical

Or as innocent as the little angel sitting at the ABC’s

Round Table that Uncle Sam and his dogs of war

Aim to kill, destroy, wipe out from the earth

Just to get rid of any debts they owe

To you and me

House Renovating

Our neighbor actually has a much newer house

But they have never stopped renovating it

For the past four years; always so noisy

Even in the depth of dead night.

More strangely, they hire no one

But do everything by themselves

Their materials looking extra-ordinary, for

They are made of human flesh and hair

Their paint smelling of human blood

Their exterior walls dotted with bloated eyes

Of human infants. No one knows

What kind of house they are trying to have

The Moment My Soul Becomes an Electron

I find myself lost in a space of dark densities, where

The sun wind keeps blowing hard in all directions

Travelling as fast as light with other fellow electrons

I recognize few of them as my former acquaintances

Before swarming into antennas, sensors, end users

We all slough off our clothes made of digital codes

As we fill in every blank with our shapeless bodies

The whole world trespass into a parallel universe

While resurrecting at every switch turned on

Father’s Soliloquy: For YCM

The other night, before the cock crowed, or

The crow cocked out of darkness, a yellowish

Shape stalked in vision, as in blank verse

‘Mark me,’ it says, sounding almost exactly

Like my late father. ‘Lend thy very serious

Hearing to what I shall unfold.’ Suddenly alerted

I got up among figures, between dream and sleep

‘When you were a teenager, I hated you so much

For looking at me always with your eye whites

Giving me an ugly face each time I talked to you

So much so that I cursed you numerous times in

My dream for being such an unworthy son; I often

Doubted if you were my own flesh until you grew

Into a normal loving adult, making me feel guilty

All my life; also, I was suspicious of your mom

Betraying me, not only in heart but also in body

I almost caught her making love with some guy

On our own bed - -You still remember that small

Apartment we used to live in? Among all my dadly

Secrets, these two I want to reveal to you first

Next time, I will tell you more about the limbo

Between hell and heaven, with the lightest word

Which might harrow up thy spirit, burn up thy

Blood…’ now the cock crows, and I must vanish

Shakespeare’s Definition of Man Recalled

Thou subtle, perjur’d, false, disloyal man!
Thou art like a toad; ugly and venemous.
Thou art a flesh-monger, a fool and a coward.
A most notable coward, an infinite and endless liar, an hourly promise breaker, the owner of no one good quality.
Thy tongue outvenoms all the worms of Nile.

You scullion! You rampallian! You fustilarian!
Go, prick thy face, and over-red thy fear, Thou lily-liver’d boy.
Thou clay-brained guts, thou knotty-pated fool, thou whoreson obscene greasy tallow-catch!
You starvelling, you eel-skin, you dried neat’s-tongue, you bull’s-pizzle, you stock-fish–O for breath to utter what is like thee!-you tailor’s-yard, you sheath, you bow-case, you vile standing tuck!

There’s no more faith in thee than in a stewed prune.
Thou poisonous bunch-back’d toad!
Thou art unfit for any place but hell.
Thou are pigeon-liver’d and lack gall.
Your virginity breeds mites, much like a cheese.
Thine face is not worth sunburning.
Your brain is as dry as the remainder biscuit after voyage.
You are as a candle, the better burnt out.
Thy sin’s not accidental, but a trade.

A most notable coward, an infinite and endless liar, an hourly promise breaker, the owner of no one good quality.

Moving

As I flopped about, not unlike a foolish fish

Thrown into a coffin, I noticed my western neighbor

Begin to move his belongings out of his dwelling

With masks and costumes of foreign gods as well

As native ghosts all left in a nightmarish mess

Then, behind my dilapidated garage, I heard

The old skeletal couple giggling secretly, saying

How delicious the grey matter they had just

Sucked from the brains of newborns, and how

Too salty some celebrities’ semen and menstruation

Wondering why everyone seemed to be moving now

I found my eastern neighbor jump wildly, busy setting fire

On their new monster house, apparently to burn or

Destroy all the aliens, robots, hygenas, wolves of war

They had been keeping as pets, which often ran astray

In the dead heart of a stormy night, I have no idea

About where I can locate my soul for some rest

Yard Sale

A whole box of human hearts, each

Still beating fresh like skinned toads

Two rows of shiny skeletons of unknown gods

All fingers longer than legs, toes bigger than skulls

Three sets of knives, blades extremely blunt

With evil spirits and devilish impulses

Four giant alarm clocks, making thunderous noises

Waking up all dead from as many directions

Five bottles of wine filled with soaked souls

As colouful as the rainbow above the styx

Can I just have the reddist heart please?

Sure, it’s free

You Need Night

Yes, you do need night

When darkness engulfs half

Of the world, and makes you pause

For you need a stable universe of time

To reflect on light that guides you

Through the unseen, as through your thoughts

Surely, in this black and heavy stillness

You can see the brilliant colours

Above the entire season, you may even dream

Here you can dissolve into a big whole

Like yin and yang, to nail your souls into

Each other’s flesh, to gain strength

Yes, you simply need night

For you need this unique reality of our world

To pause, to recover, to discover

Nuwa’s Dilemma: An Other Mega-Narrative

Back from her 3 day celestial tour

(each second amounting to a century on earth)

Nuwa was abhorred to find

How the human world she had created was evolving:

While the human kind had grown

Rampantly in numbers

And in numbers only

It kept degrading inside

Into grotesque beasts

Lower than deformed insects

Seeing how well the World of Gods

And the World of Dead were both doing

Nuwa began to feel

Confused, confounded:

Of all her equally whimsical creations

Why the World of Humans alone

Was developing so loathsomely?

From that moment on she has been hesitating:

Should she destroy the entire human world

And recreate the race, or just let them go

Their own way and destroy themselves?

Epilogue: A Parallel Poem

            Just as both God and Devil are man’s incarnation, so are Heaven and Hell both man’s construction. 

I

From the front yard of a melodious morning

From the busy road of a sweet Saturday

From the moist corner of a heavy march

From the back lane of pale winter

We have come, here and now, all gathering

In big crowds gathering in big crowds

Gathering in ever-bigger crowds gathering

For the boat to cross the wide wild waters

Before the fairy ferry is fated to fall

Under our feet too heavy with earthy mud

II

You may well hate Charon
But you cannot help feeling envious:
That business of carrying the diseased
Across the River Styx is ever so prosperous
The only monopoly in the entire universe
That has a market share
Larger than the market itself

Daydreaming, on this side
Of the river, how you might wish
To be an entrepreneur like him
A success American dreamer

III

Flying between sea and sky

Between day and night

Amid heavenly or oceanic blue

I lost all my references

To any timed space

Or a localized time

Except the non-stop snorting

Of a stranger neighbor

Then, beyond the snorts rising here

And more looming there

I see tigers, lions, leopards

And other kinds of hunger-throated predators

Darting out of every passenger’s heart

Running amuck around us

As if released from a huge cage

As if in a dreamland                   

On the Recycling Day

One neighbor took out a blue box

Full of cat skulls and dog legs

Rather than glass or plastic bottles

Another carries out a yellow bag

Containing human bones, mostly children’s

Instead of magazines or paper products

A third pushed out a green bin

Filled with failed evils and devils

Where there should be leaves and twigs

Behind every house in a neighboring back alley

The garbage truck is placing a big time bomb

Self-ABuse

The man chops off his own head

And tries to barbecue it with human hair

In the slaughtering square

The woman cuts open her own chest

Takes out her heart and uses it

Like a gas pump

To add all her blood to the fire

While the volcano is vomiting violently

Its lava smashing onto every creature

Running around wildly

At Fraser River Park: Off-Leash Dogs Welcome

One dog is chasing a crazy vampire

Another jumping high to catch a flying heart

A third licking at the wound of a deformed cat

While two are dancing with ghosts as if in a quartet

Three biting at their owner’s shoulders

Four howling loudly towards the bleeding sun

Five sniffing around baby limbs scattered along a ditch

Six listening attentively to the roars of an unseen volcano

Seven shaking a dragon’s saliva violently off their bodies

As more are driving humans and hyenas alike

Into the river, a river full of dog shit

Programming

With a single mouse click

The programmer vanishes 

Into the plasma waves

Of the screen, with another key-hit

The computer flies away

Into the depth of the cyberspace

Like the legendary yellow crane

I was the one sitting there

In the coffin-like attic, trying

To program the destinies of

Both man and god

Morning Mists

Unable to endure the constant burning in hell

The suffering souls finally find their ways

Out of the topsoil, trying

To rise together

With the summer sun

Yet they are dispersed

By its very first rays

Into the darkest moment of last night

Where the ghosts of the newly dead, the invisible

Linger on, staring at one another

No one knows how many of them

Were still holding their authentic

Human shapes, how many of them

Became deformed, agonizing

Between pools of stinking blood

And piles of rotten flesh

Rioting

As giant ants march ahead in nightly arrays

Demonstrating against the ruling humans

Along the main street of every major city

Hordes of hordes of vampires flood in, screaming

Aloud, riding on hyenas and

Octopuses, waving skeletons

In their hairy hands, whipping at old werewolves

Or all-eyed aliens standing by

With their blood-dripping tails

Gathering behind the masses are ghosts and spirits

Of all the dead, victims of fatal diseases

Murders, rapes, tortures, wars, starvation, plagues

Led by deformed devils and demons

As if in an uprising, to seek revenge

On every living victor in the human shape

Some smashing walls and fences, others

Barbecuing human hearts like inflated frogs

Still others biting at each other’s soul around black fires

All in a universal storm of ashes and blood

Up above in the sky is a red dragon flying by

We Are All Being Watched

Hanging above the horizon

Or rather, below the thin borderline

Between light and darkness

Are billions of human skulls

Like so many lanterns, stars

Simply too far to be noticed 

Each emitting no more light

Nor any more darkness

Nor any vision held there

But each is full of holes

Like so many eyes, minds

That used to contain thought  

They are all looking down upon us

Speechless, as if observing

An Other Revolution

Having been oppressed

Compressed

Or depressed

For too long under the ground, and

To add insult to injury

Having been trodden

Trampled underfoot

By humans and other animals

Simply for too many times

The dead will rise at last, shooting up

From volcanoes, climbing ashore

From ponds, lakes, rivers, seas, jumping out

From every crack and crevice on the surface, charging down

From ridges, hills, mountains

In numbers overwhelmingly greater than

The few creatures still moving on the earth

City Nightscape

for now, they have all stopped

pretending to be more than chimpanzees

struggling ferociously for power, sex, fame or money

lying seemingly still on each padded shelf 

under the roof of hardened darkness

is a bleeding devil

tightly enclosed within a decent

human shape, as if in a vast morgue

high above them is squatting a bloated serpent

with a body of billion eyes all viciously open

to watch for so many tiny dragons

chasing and collecting the deformed soul

trying desperately to escape

form every fleshy casket

12:12 PM 12 December

Do not worry

Do not panic, pal

Right before the milky way collides

With andromeda galaxy

They will surely return here

In time, to collect all the valuables

Of this unique planet, (quite like old Adam)

Such as Shakespeare’s folios

Picasso or Qi Baishi’s paintings 

Each Nobel Prize winner’s eggs or perms

Every American president’s signatures

As well as your great poem or patent 

And other worthiest human artifacts

Tangible or otherwise, transporting them

Into another universe, where They will surely

Create and recreate an other intelligent race, raising them

Teaching them how to appreciate Earthlings’ fame and power, where

They will surely be created like Jesuses, Allahs or Buddhas

What I am trying to say, Pal, is just rest assured

At an Autumn Auction

This pair of human hands used to belong to

Neither da Vinci, nor Mozart, nor Napoleon

Nor Newton, nor Van Gogh, nor Thomas Edison

Nor Shakespeare, nor Doug Henning, of course nor Li Bai 

Look, the blood is still dripping!

But it once warmed the heart of a frozen crow

Opened the door to a stranger starving to death

Added a handful of soil to a withering rose

Waved to a breeze blowing from nowhere

Wouldn’t it be a big fool to buy these hands?

Most important, the hands carry with them authentic spirits

Inherited from gods though still unknown to us, and the owner

Has cut them off to donate to an honorable human cause

Our initial price is set at ten hundred thousand

200, 200? 300, 300? 350, 350? 400,400?

Expanding  

A fragile front page

Of last year’s newspaper

Falling down from nowhere

Begins to drift around

As if to cover the entire city

With its faded words

Some broken into small

Fragmented lights, some burned

With frantic ambitions, others glistening

Like the stars beyond the horizon

Where the headlines run parallel

To the midnight, leaving the content of

The same old story, yes, the same

Old story partly saved

Partly crashed

Somewhere within the web

Still expanding 

Morning Mists

Unable to endure constant burning

The suffering souls finally find their ways

Out of the topsoil, trying

To rise together

With the summer sun

Yet they are all shot

With its very first needles

Into the darkest moment of last night

Where the ghosts of the newly dead, the invisible

Linger on, staring at one another

No one knows how many of them

Were still holding their authentic

Human shapes, how many of them

Became deformed, agonizing

Between pools of stinking blood

And piles of rotten flesh

Pseudo-Science: 4 Fengshui Haikus

– If in the center of your heart you build a dream home, you will settle your soul permanently to receive all the positive breath.

South:

Feathered with good fortune

The Red Phoenix spreads yang wide

Over summer fields

North:

Deep in wintry sleep

The Black Tortoise holds cold days

Long in the chang breath

West:

Wild and Disruptive

The White Tiger wrap autumn

All in the sha breath

East:

Soaring high above

The Gold Dragon blows down

The sheng breath of spring

Up-Rising

Unable to endure constant burning

The suffering souls finally find their ways

Out of the topsoil, trying

To rise together

With the summer sun

Yet they are all shot

With its very first needles

Into the darkest moment of last night

Where the ghosts of the newly dead, the invisible

Linger on, staring at one another

No one knows how many of them

Were still holding their authentic

Human shapes, how many of them

Became deformed, agonizing

Between pools of stinking blood

And piles of rotten flesh

Green Ghosts

No doubt, they never knew when, how
Or why they were doomed
The previous generation of earthlings
Have long disappeared, tracelessly
Except for some thinning memories
Hidden in earth's heart, or drifting
In a corner of an unknown world

But we are different: we make
Metals and plastics besides books
To survive the judgment day
Land collapses, ice ages, nuclear wars
Or alien strikes, although they may eventually
Weather away with the sun

Then will come a monstrous ant
Followed by swarms of tree spirits
On the second day, the ant gives them all shapes
On the third, the spirits begin their earthy lives
On the fourth, the ant flies into the outer space
To prevent evil from returning to earth

On the land used to be tree stumps
Debris of all man-made products
There are now only trees growing
Growing silently in the moonlight
Above deeply buried human souls

All Installed on a Mother Board

There is a time
When engineers
Will make chips out of people’s spirits
As a hobby

Someone I used to know returns from then

I have seen her recently

But she knows me no more
Even after I told her who I am

“The spirits are installed onto various
Motherboards,” she explained

“They are all transparent
Kept in the same big glass safe.
But no one knows how to open it from within

Or whose spirits are whose.”

Friday: 8 December 2012

above a bushy valley

i rose, without a body

under a sky shining blue

with moonlight, all muted

it is definitely not my imagination, rather

it is my consciousness gathering together

at a transparent, shapeless spot of time, gliding

like a bird along the bank covered with reeds

drifting around until it entered, invisibly of course

a three-storied house walled with dark glass

almost half planted in a big pit, where i met

a group of children, playing hide-and-seek with them

then i retreated through the back window like a smoke

flowing into the air, vanishing into another universe

a vision neither wakeful  nor dreamy

is this ultimate meditation?

Science Story: A Parallel Poem

I kayaked out of the bay on a Saturday evening

And was sucked there into a blue twirling ring

When I was nailed firm at the centre of a light stream

A pink snow falls though I wish to rise like the steam

My consciousness dissolves into heavenly waters

And I become present everywhere in the universe

I travelled afar to collect all my selves and assemble them together

And here I return to this moment, finding my old self a total stranger

At the Intersection

A huge cross paved hard with cement

They can never carry it away

From the heart of their city

Though all traffic lights remain green

Black

coal, ebony, charcoal

crow, graphite, lactrodectus

chinese hair, african skin …

what do they all have

in common? - they are not

a color; rather, they are an absence of light

which becomes weaker and weaker

as stars keep moving farther and father

away from us, all compressed into darkness

filled with light

within their nightly shapes

they are quiet, but cool

and profound

Metonymy

            (A little tip for all crowns.)

give me the floor

lend me your ears

donkeys and elephants:

as a pen for the press

is much mightier than a sword

from waterloo, it’s high time now not

to spill out all your life in Hollywood

and march towards the white house

on the red carpet

by the sweat of your brow

while the kettle is still boiling

Private Talk: for Yuan Hongqi

Show yourself, Dad, I know your spirit is

Around, always trying like a true angel to protect

Me; let it be like those days when I was still

A teenager, but I will tell you all you wanted

To know about my feeling; for instance, I don’t

Like you to force me to recite Chairman Mao’s

Quotations, and I hope you would put Jin Yong

Rather than Karl Marx under my young pillow

Yes, let it be as if we were both younger, healthier

Suffering from no ischemia, our family curse

But having plenty of blood flowing behind our

Yellowish chests; let it be that we have no secrets

As father and son, and work together to help

Our offspring survive and succeed in this degrading

World, so full of snakes, snares and snobs

Praying: Hallowed Be Your Name

All the gods created already

Or yet to be created soon

Powerful or powerless

I demand you! All the

Spirits and spectres

Drifting around here in both

Yin and yang worlds

Visible or invisible

I demand you – stars so numerous

In the entire universe as

The cells in my whole body

I demand you all, all of you

To join me in this foreign tongue

To pray, if ever praying is meaningful

For all animals in the human shape

What If…

God is nobody but a little lucky survivor of

The last generation of earthlings, or a lost

Envoy dispatched by another civilization; man

Is actually a chimpanzee in frame, a hog

In tissue, and a frog in heart; the whole

Universe is no larger than a concept being

Formed in the brain of a mouse, whereas money

Is no other than a null number, fame a fading

Name, power a petty tower, and love a lust

In glove; indeed, what if there is a parallel

World where your other self is stalking you like

Your shadow, where you can become a god

In your own right; most important of all

What if you are it; what if now is then?