changming yuan: towards happiness -20

the very most significant influence on how happy or how unhappy we may become is our world outlook or thought pattern. facing exactly the same situation, one can feel just as happy as unhappy, depending on the way one looks at it.

when Roosevelt was robbed in his early life, he felt so grateful as to be particularly happy for 3 reasons: the robber had stolen only some of his belongings rather than all of his; Roosevelt was not physically harmed during the robbery; and the robber was not Roosevelt himself. a different person might well have looked at the situation dramatically from a different perspective, and thus become angry and unhappy instead. for another example, when criticized by the same composition teacher for the same reason, one student felt happy, believing that the teacher was trying to help him to writer better, while the other felt unhappy because he thought the teacher simply disliked him. as a result, one student eventually became an international famous author; the other remained good for nothing during his entire lifetime.

for most non-religious people, to obtain happiness means to gain a positive mentality. only when one develops a conducive thought pattern can one hope to attain an informed sense of happiness.

for most religious people, it is their faith that helps them to internalize a beneficial world outlook. genuinely religious people tend to be happier than secular people mainly because the former usually have a a more conducive thought pattern.
-------------------

by thought::

1/ more than anything else, one's thought pattern contributes most significantly to one's sense of happiness or unhappiness. 

2/  whether you were born with a happy personality or not, you have to develop a positive mentality to live a happy life.

3/ a conducive thought pattern is not innate; rather, it can and should be acquired through learning and training. 

4/ to live a happy life does not necessarily mean to feel happy 24 hours a day or 7 days a week; rather, it means to have a conducive thought pattern which allows you to have a sustainable informed sense of happiness. 

5/  a conducive thought pattern is the biggest happifier.

6/ personally, despite of the unusually strong cynical and pessimistic tendencies that i seem to have been born with (my parents have told me many times that i never smiled in my childhood),  i have developed a conducive thought pattern through self-learning and self-training, especially in recent years; as a result, i am a happy man. 

changming yuan: towards happiness -19

people have all kinds of character traits, which they have developed as a natural result of genetic, environmental and educational factors working together. it is true that certain people with certain personal qualities may tend to feel happier than others; for instance, we often find that individuals with an extrovert personality, especially those who are outgoing, sociable, optimistic and open-minded, seem to be happy by nature. some people may even have been born with more endorphins than others. however, there are also many people who may feel happy although they have an introvert personality - they may simply enjoy being alone most of or even all the time.

personality is a major internal happifier, as it may contribute significantly to the way an individual feels naturally or intrinsically happy, but those who are happy 'by nature' may not necessarily be happy in actuality. while everyone may be as happy 'by nature' as a well-looked-after baby, what determines the extent to which a person is happy is none other than the way the person controls his or her own feeling.

despite one's personality traits, one may suffer from a temporal or a chronic low 'mood' (emotional state) for one reason or another. according to some scholars, a person is in low spirits for as long as 70% of his or her whole lifetime. depending on how a person can manipulate his own mood, the person can emotionally manage to remain happy. this ability to manage one's own feeling may prove to be not so much part of one's personality as something that has to do with one's thought pattern.
----------------------

by-thoughts::

1. whether one is happy by nature may be determined by one's personality, but how happy one is in actuality is determined by one's ability to manage one's own feeling. 

2. technically as well as theoretically, to be happy means to be able to control one's own mood to one's psychological advantage. 

3. what is the dynamic interrelationship between personality and endorphins? do certain personality traits produce more endorphins in the body, or otherwise?

4. are the endorphins purely physiological products, or can they be endorsed through psychological effort?

changming yuan: towards happiness -18

like our sociopolitical reality, working station and family, health can also play a major role in determining the extent to which we feel happy. if we are in good health, we tend to enjoy our lives more and feel better about being ourselves; otherwise, we may suffer in one way or another.

however, this does not necessarily mean that our physical well-being is always a happifier. although good health is never a dehappifier, there are numerous examples showing that it is far from the most significant source of happiness. just as there are many people who are suffering even constantly from a painful disease but may still maintain a happy state of mind, there are also many people who live in perfect health but may feel unhappy about their lives.

so, the most decisive factor determining how happy we are about being ourselves is not health, although it can be seen as an important internal or intrinsic factor, let alone other external ones, such as our sociopolitical, working and family environments.

by-thoughts::

how happy (or unhappy) we are is always determined by internal rather than external elements. 

happiness can be obtained and/or maintained only from inside.

changming yuan: towards happiness -17

as our micro-environment, our family can, theoretically speaking, be as big a source of happiness as one of unhappiness, depending largely on our relationship with each family member. in real life, it is more often than not an external source of happiness and unhappiness at the same time. 

just as we have little control over other external elements (either in the sociopolitical reality or at the working station), we have no choice over such elements within our micro-environment, except in the case of our spouse. it is true that we may divorce our spouses or break up with our partners, but this process is an unhappy one; it is also true that we can stop communicating with our parents or offspring, but we can never choose our parents, nor can we really psychologically 'disown' our offspring, whether we enjoy a good relationship with them or not. most of our unhappiness about family may have to do with this very 'unchoosability,' which has an unavoidable effect on our psychology. 

while we love our family, this love, one of the most natural human feelings, can be a source of constant fear, worry or anxiety. coupling together with this love, our sense of responsibility drives us to do whatever we can for the safety and well-being of our family. while making such efforts, we are sure to face all kinds of dehappifiers and have to deal with them in one way or another. as Leo Tolstoy has put it, 'All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.'


by-thoughts::

family is always as much a happifier as a dehappifier to each of us.  

the only way to turn our family from a dehappifier to happifier is to adjust our own psychology.


[as my eyes hurt too much and too long whenever i sit in front of a screen, i have to minimize my computer time in recent weeks. for the past half a year, the eye drops have been basically helpless. as a slow typist and prose writer, this situation affects my thinking and writing greatly.]

[archived]: Language Poems-1 by Changming Yuan ©

12 feb 2014 the following poems have mostly been published online or in print since 2005. 

Another Impasse

Writing from Vancouver West

To my former friends in China

I always feel hesitant

Whether to or not to use

The first person singular pronoun

As in ‘I do not really think so!’

Time and time again, they have

Unnecessarily reminded me of 

The biggest difference in language

Between the east and the west:

“There in English you always

Spell your favourite word ‘I’

In big bold italic upper case, however

Here we have really rarely

Employed the word even in poetry”

In their writing practice (probably too long)

They either drop the pronoun or replace it

With many an impersonal thing like:

The present writer, the writing subject

The unlearned, the uncouth one

The old person/body, the little human/one

The trivial/insignificant/unmentionable

The president/manager/[          ] proper

The person per se, or more precisely:

[Your] inferior, [your] subordinate

[Your] stupid husband/brother/son

[Your] foolish wife/sister/daughter

[Your] humble [          ], or less humbly:

As [your] father/mentor/lord…

Instead of standing up for an unmasked person

‘I’ should try to remain hidden like a taboo

In Chinese

Chinglish Sayings

Adjectives

The moon over America is bigger and rounder than china

The crows in the rose garden are less black than the forbidden city

Adverbs

We natural follow our hearts more close than to our minds

Those standing most closest can strike most deadliest

Verbs:

The east wind will suppress the west wind is certain

We enjoy go watch play basketball on the weekend

Nouns:

Few Chinese individuals have really independent personality

In social relation face and golden mean are most important thing

Conjunctions:

Because china is the most populous country, so it has most problems

Tho our ancestors invented gunpowder, we used it for celebration only

Articles:

Firewood, rice, oil, salt, sauce, vinegar, tea are seven things of every household

People take food as sky while emperor is just as too far away as sky is too high

Prepositions:

Since we without the condition, we strongly against this system

We are desirous getting into the stage though we lack of masks

Pronouns:

We find simply inappropriate to use ‘I’ or ‘me’ too often

My home is the only place in which myself really cares

Faulty Comparison with My Hometown

Like Vancouver, the climate of heart is mild all year round

Unlike the Lower Mainland, it is very hot in mid-China

The grasses on Grouse Mountain are similar to Luojia Mountain

The trees in Stanley Park are taller than the East Lake Park

The salmons in the Fraser River swim as far as the Yangtse River

Most residents in BC live much longer than Hubei Province

The Canadian Comedy

in London we speak like Yankees

in New York, we sound like Cockneys 

we try to have American economy

British politics, French culture

yet we are somehow lost in British economy

French politics, and American culture

one reason is we only look skookum

another is too proud of our face off

our blue line, and especially our puck

more important perhaps, we pronounce z as zed

rather than zee, eh?

The Objective Case of a Pronoun

no statement begins with me

a word never capitalized

never allowed to be the subject

but doomed

to substitute an other

to receive action, always passively

even within quotation marks

in italics

or in the title itself

o, for a momentary justice

me to be an entity rather than a pro-form

D8: A MSG TXT Or a Cell Poem

WUD? R U OK?

PPL WANT C U

Y? –COZ U R GR8

I 4 1, I WAN2 C U 2

Y? – I LV U

OIC. U R XLNT2

I WAN2 C U 2

TTYL

C U 2MORO NITE

LOL

Egg* Poems: An English Languacultural History of China

             

1/ Ancient China

They used to drink tea

Wear silk

Eat from china

Think in terms of zen

And practice Confucianism

Only - is it true?

2/ Semi-Colonial China

Wearing cheongsam

These poor coolies arrived here

On sampans

Always ready to kowtow

To a tycoon

Who lived in Shangri-La

Eating dim sum

Drinking oolong

Playing mahjong

Gambling in a casino every day

Though reluctant to give cumshaw

3/ Mandarin China

Led by dao

A yin

Running dog

Wearing qipao

Is fighting against a yang

Paper tiger

With wushu

After getting brainwashed

Through maotai

Like a taikongnaut

At a fengshui spot

Dominated by qi

*A word (or person) with a Chinese origin living in the West is often called an ‘egg,’ which is white-skinned, but yellow-hearted. 

[chinglish signs]

postcard mono plize [postcard store]

mobile phone electrizing [battery charge]

the road const ructino, please round to go [construction / detour]

adult care, condom, sexcare [sex shop]

please be well seated and always make yourself safe [buckle up]

please don't make confused noise when chanting [no noise during recitals]

excution in progress [construction ahead]

slip and fall down carefully [wet / slippery]

do drunken driving [no drinking and drive]

Y: Yellow Musings

Gold, lemon, butter, rapeseed flowers:

Pre-positioned, you function to lead

A whole column of evils as in the yellow

Peril, bastards, bellies, dogs, fish, guts

Journalism, heels, even men and pups

After words, you will become as noble

As imperial, as royal, or as Chinese

Yellow. That makes all the difference

Between a noun and an adjective

Between Chinese and English

LIFE within a Digitalized World

            birth is a wonder, death is a hunter, nothing is in between except a number after a number

1        000000

1        0

1        0

0          1  000000        10101  1

1          1  0                  0         

            1  0                  10  0101

1          1  0                  0

010 01  10  01010 1 0 1 01 010 

Narrative Viewpoints (1): First-Person

Having perceived more shadows than lamps

More cries than songs

More raw coffee than refined honey

More rotten fish than yulan magnolia

More thorns than petals

I left my home village for a distant hill

began to hike with an unknown god

Since then, I have been moving

Moving around

From east to west

From yin to yang

From the outer to the inner, where I

Hope to relocate my soul, where I believe

My senses can better be entertained 

On a rainy day, I will leave a short note

To my family, telling them

Never bother to find me, for I will have gone alone

Along an un-trodden trail, like a dying African elephant

Narrative Viewpoints (2): Omniscient

God in the West:

As long as I can get by in my way

I believe I must be doing the right thing

So, I will keep using all my powers

To convert all others and othernesses

Into the religion I have defined, and

Refined for them, despite their black hatred

Despite their red resistance

God in the East:

Longing to live in harmony with nature

You hate to interfere in the way yin

Seeks to balance with yang, or otherwise

Even when you try to enlighten others

You respect them, be it an ant, or a blade of grass

You would never do anything to them

That you would not be done by

Gods in between:

Feeling coerced, cheated, betrayed

Manipulated, offended, they all came

Down from heaven, up from hell

On a sunny afternoon

To join common humans on earth

Making love, or trading with them

For a heart’s hijab or a soul’s turban

Narrative Viewpoints (3): Third-Person Objective

A big bed, with only one leg visible

Under a chandelier, within a room

Neither too large nor too small

A clock ticking, tacking somewhere

A male lying on the bed

his limbs as hairy as a chimpanzee’s 

A female riding on his top

Her body bobbing up and down

Short breaths, mixed animal calls

Curtains flapping against moonlight

All in dimness, something in progress:

A dreamy smell or smelly dream

English Irrationalities

There might be love in between gloves

But no egg in eggplant, or ham in hamburger

English muffins did not originate from England

Nor French fries from France

Sweetmeats are actually candies

While sweetbreads are meat though not sweet at all

Readers read, singers sing

But typewriters do not type, nor fingers fing

A mouse can multiply into mice

But a grouse never into grice

People may recite at a play and play at a recital

Their noses run while their feet smell

They park on the driveway, or drive on the parkway

Ship by truck and send cargo by ship

Teachers may be taught, but preachers are never praught

One goose may stand between two geese

So may one tooth between two teeth

But a booth can never between two beeth

If vegetarians eat vegetables

What would so-called humanitarians do to humans?

Semantic Absurdities

When stars are out, they are visible, but when lights are out, they are not

When your wind up your watch, your start it, but when you wind up a poem, you end it

Houses can burn up as they burn down, where you fill in a form by filling it out

A slim chance is the same as a fat one, but a wise man is by no means a wise guy

Quite a few and quite a lot are alike, but to overlook is not to oversee

The weather can be hot as hell in summer and cold as hell in winter

Before we die, our alarm clock goes off by going on

English vs Chinese (1)

All the most significant differences

Between the English and Chinese

Languacultures originate from one little fact:

In English, the first person singular

Has only one letter, is always capitalized

And can never be omitted in a sentence

While in Chinese there are at least

108 interchangeable expressions

To stand for the personality

Speaking or writing behind a human figure

That may or may not be presented at all

In a meaningful utterance

English vs Chinese (2): Similar Similes

As bitter as wormwood as goldthread rhizome

As bold as brass as the city wall

As happy as a cow as a lark

As old as the hills as the sky and the land

As tall as the Maypole as the wire pole

As cunning as a dead pig as a fox

As drunk as a mouse as mud

As thirsty as a camel as a dragon

As dumb as an oyster as a bottle

As hungry as a bear as a wolf

As industrious as an ant as a bee

As timid as a rabbit as a mouse

As stupid as a goose as a pig

As stubborn as a mule as an ox

As hardworking as a horse as a water buffalo

As wet as a drowned rat or hen

As listless as a hen or ant on the girdle

Should ‘I’ Join the Word: An Anagram Poem

The flute would become futile

The printed could turn intrepid

The gale might grow agile

The glue would feel like guile

The stratagem might smell like a magistrate

The brush could look like hubris

The barter would sound like an arbiter

DRAWERS: A One-Word Poem

The drawers

In the rented rooms of those drawers

Out of the top drawer

would be full of awe

if sketched awkwardly

by the warder

only for reward

during the war

Word Politics, Winter Olympics

            According to Global Language Monitor, the following are the top three names, phrases and words that were used most frequently in 2009.

Gold/

Hu

without

Anger and rage

against

Spillcam

Silver/

Ipad

from

Climate change

to

Vuvuzela

Bronze/

The narrative

about

The Great Recession

to

Barack Obama

In No Sense, Or In A Sense

You are

in ascent;

I am to have

inner scent;

She is already

in a cent;

Aren’t we all 

innocent?

Fragile, Archaic China

They listen to you

Surprisingly

Which china are you talking about?

They wondered

Which china are you talking about?

You certainly know

If you please… one accosted you

Which china on the rise? He demanded

You are referring to the ‘sleeping giant’ in the east

The fattening hog to be slaughtered and divided

The country with an elephant’s body

But a chick’s heart

All china out of fashion, he commented

Shrugging his non-colored shoulders

But which china? He persisted

Really antic stuff? China made in Jingde Town?

You really like china?

Blue china? Ming china?

Or perhaps Song china?

You coughed in good will

You realize something

China is interesting to see

Only for its long history

X Missing: Provincial Proverbs

Affection blinds season

Beauty may have fair flower, but ugly roots

Caesar’s wife must be above suspension

Drink only with the luck

Enough is as good as a beast

Fire that’s closest kept burns most in the fall

Good face is better than a good base

Handsome is as handsome buzz

Injuries are written in glass

Jill has every jack

Knowledge is no burden

Love is full of beer, love is without season

Money is often lost for want of honey

Nature is above nurture

One man’s feat is another man’s shit

Present to the eye, present to the kind

Question for question is filled with air

Reward and punishment are the calls of pity

Slow but sure wins the face

Trust is the mother of defeat

United we band, divided we call

Variety is the spice for a wife

Willows are weak but never bend for good

Youth never lasts for peril

Zeal without knowledge is a runaway source

Words, Only Words, Nothing but Words

Arranged in her order

They are not just politically correct

But richly colorful

Like rings of diamonds

Suitable for the crown only

Put in your way

They are nothing but clanked clichés

Rambling weeds in the fields of paper

Or scrambled eggs in a dirty bowl

If, If Only… subjunctive mood unsubjugated

I would jump madly with joy

I would go to the depth of limberlost to die an elephant’s death

I would charge forward with my car as if it were a super tank

I would tattoo the words on my butt and nake-run wildly in broad daylight

I would fuck my love to death at a bare hilltop

I would blast myself into a million bloody pieces

I would nail the president on a swirling swastika in front of a Buddhist temple

I would shoot like a burning comet beyond the milk way

I would cry my whole heart out and all my tears dry

I would stop the earth from rotating for seven days to recreate the world

I would put God in a blue cage before hanging it on Babel Tower

I would drive all spirits and ghosts back into their human shapes

I would roar like a whale pushing the sound waves three thousand miles away

I would…

Content Words

Amidst the waves sits still a stark noun

Like a coral island in the east sea

Looming in and out in the star light

Through the trees runs a little verb

As if to flee from one valley to another

In case the sun’s arrows should hit it too hard

Above the clouds thunders a series of adverbs

Their sounds too loud to produce an echo

Even in a great hall of fame

Beyond the skyline drift some adjectives

Ready to fall with last year’s narration

Greyer than the greyest patch of history

Hyper Grammatical Poems: Pronoun

Like a stage play

Reenacting an experienced

Or un-experienced

Moment in space

A place in time

Before an eager audience

To make their daily existence

Less repetitive

Less cumbersome

Less political    

Hyper Grammatical Poems: Preposition

Exactly like a coordinate system

You locate

Any nominal identity

In time

In space

In logic

More like a physical linkage

You enjoy introducing

Each solitary soul

As an object

In an adjective or adverbial phrase

To modify

The more important elements of

A muted human statement

Hyper Grammatical Poems: Conjunction

A marriage broker

Coordinating

Males and females

For sexual intimacy

Or subordinating

A car, a computer, a house

To a home owner

Or correlating

Two ideas, two emotions, two parties

In a human context

Hyper Grammatical Poems: Verb

Just as the child

Plays the most dynamic role

In the life of a family

You make a statement alive

By acting

Growing

Or simply

Being

Substituting 

Running short of bulbs

I planted some root words instead

Along the fence

In the backyard of my mind

All winter

They seemed dreaming under the frozen soil

When the last dews fly away

You will see certain three-colored tulips

Blooming aloud

Towards the early summer sun

[archived]: Language Poems-2 by Changming Yuan ©

12 feb 2014-  the following poems have mostly been published online or in print since 2005. 

Word Vogue: Another Politically Correct Poem

            According to Global Language Monitoring (2009), the following words have appeared most frequently on flat and e/media over the past decade.

Global warming, with

9/11, before

Obama, through

Bailout, for

Evacuees, from

Derivatives, via

Google, behind

Surge, against

Chinglish, till

Tsunami                                                                                    

English Kanata

Living in the buttes and parklands

With the chutes running through the muskeg

Where Douglas fir and Sitka spruce dwarf

Manitoba maple and tamarack

Among kinnikinnick, saskatoon and soapallallie

We keep fool hens, siwash ducks

Turkey vultures and whiskey jacks

But not really caribous, pecans

Siffleurs or Massassauga rattlers

We eat cisco, inconnu, kokanee, ouananiche

Or oollichan together with timbits

Under the guidance of a bush pilot

Along the blue line

We sometimes ride a chuck wagon

On a grid or asphalt road

When we have a tea party on our veranda

We always prefer to sit on a chesterfield

We have coined tons of loonies and toonies

To pay our premiers and suitcase farmers alike

It matters not if we dwell in a flat or apartment

If we play with a pack or deck of cards

Not even if we take a holiday or vacation

But we do care about how our MLAs

Face off with one another

Even over a puck

The Words: A Parallel Poem

The words I have captured are wild

You warned me they would fly

But I really wanted to give a try

Taming them into birds nice and mild

Within the edges of this blank page

They long to return to the open wood

But I enclose them with delicate mood

Even if they might die as if in a cage

Coarse Language: A Four-Letter Poem

They fart, they fick, they feck, they foak

They piss, they pish, they puss, they poop

They darn, they dump, they dick, they dyke

--Can’t they ever live with more love than fuck?   

Private Enjoyment

each night

I retreat to my bed

taking off all the clothes

from my body and soul

and, always, a cluster of consonants

elbow into my mind

murmuring voicelessly

and burying me deep

into my pillow

filled with vowels

You, Or

                        few

            of the crew

          will preview

                   review

         or inter-view

                 the new

                      view

                of a dew

            on the yew

The Fat Fabulous

easy-going, they

gab; they

grin; they

giggle; they

guffaw; they

gossip; they

gyrate; they

goof off; they

galumph; gooey

Will

Wit

With

Withe

Wither

Withers

Or

Withers

Wither

Withe

With

Wit?

Allen in Wonderland

Qucheng

Homerburgh

Dantefield

Shakespeareston

Goethestadt

Pushkingrad

Baudelaireville

Nerudastad

Frostdale

Tagorerboro

                                                                                               

Home: A Logo Poem

HO

USE G.love

The Confucian Knowledge: A Parallel Poem

Only you know, you only know, you know only

When you know that you know

When you know that you know not

You need to know when you know not that you know

You know that you know not when you know not

Or you know not that you know not when you know not

Modern Mandarin-Speaker: Another Parallel Poem

The Chinaman you are

Is not what I heard

Though your speech is still single-syllabled

Four-toned

The Chinaman you are

Speaks a different mandarin now

Changed over time

Like pidgin

Making utterances

Bubbling and boisterous

That might hide

Your local accent

The Chinaman you are

Is not what I hear

Speaks with the same old pronunciation

But a new intonation

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

If Omitted

Had yesterday lasted a month longer

Were the earth flattened today, or

Should the mind become separated

From the body tomorrow…

Word Collage: A Democratic Poem

            According to a poll conducted worldwide in 2008, these are the 50 “most beautiful English words”

Mother of Passion, Smile

In love for eternality and fantastic destiny

At freedom or liberty

With tranquility or peace

In blossoms and sunshine

On the sweetheart gorgeous

To cherish enthusiasm, hope and grace

Under rainbow blue

Like sunflowers twinkling in serendipity

With bliss and lullabies

Beyond the sophisticated renaissance, cute and cozy

Under butterflies from the galaxy

At this hilarious moment beyond extravaganza

Against aqua sentiment

In a cosmopolitan bubble

Above pumpkins, bananas and lollipops

As bumblebees giggle

About paradoxes and delicacies

Despite the peek-a-boo behind an umbrella

Beside a kangaroo

Lexical Tourism

            (after Bill Holm’s ‘The Icelandic Language’)

You do not speak that language

Neither have you been to their country

But within the territory of our English vocabulary

You can easily find who they are:

            They enjoy playing mahjong in a casino

            They are afraid of typhoon

            They kowtow to show their respect

            They fight with kungfu skills

            They believe in fengshui

            And now they have their own taikongnauts

Visiting these lexical spots

You will witness the way they work and play

Gerunds vs Infinitives

I remember forgetting singing this song

I remember to forget to sing this song

Stop regretting telling her your story

Stop to regret to tell her your story

Misplaced Modifiers

You bartered a beautiful ball for your baby with a big basket

You will plead your pal tonight not to play with the panther

You have helped him to hum the hymn to heave heaven

You walked with your warbler, always weeping and whining

You did not dart into the darn because you were doomed

If grammar serves you right when the ambiguity is completed with a phrase

You will stop as long as she finds the adverb before he places the adjective

           

Voices: Active vs Passive

To say

Everyman

Loves a woman

Is not to say

A woman is loved

By everyman

Real Or Unreal Conditionals

As if the chrysanthemum leaf were more tender than the petal

As if the china cat were being chased by a cloned mouse

As if money became something like air or sunlight

As if god were to come to rescue your name or fame in particular at the end of the world

As if the knob could tune up love or wisdom

As if the sounds were more brilliant than cherry blossoms

As if the butterflies had never seen a flower

As if the sun were to rise every other month from the north

As if language and art were not modern behavior

As if I had really found the way to become a god after my death

As if you were all to live to 800 years

As if all the world’s water began to drain away from our planet tomorrow

As if consciousness evolved into the only form of intelligent beings…

Spelling Test

Happy

Happy is the baby who picks and plays with a plain bottle among all the fancy toys

                                                                                                            Happy

Successful

The dog is successful when it finds the bone it wants to chew

                                                                                    Successful

Love

If we love animals, they will love plants in return

                                                                  Love

Peace

When mice begin to enjoy playing with cats, there will be peace

                                                                                    Peace

Healthy

Children are healthy as long as they are eating, running and giggling

                                                                                                Healthy

QUX: Waltz of Alphabet 

[A]bide one [B]arrow

[C]art another [D]ear

[E]late in the [F]air

[G]love the [H]owl

[I]deal with the [J]ail

[K]ill to [L]earn

[M]arch the [N]arc

[O]pen a [P]lay

[R]ice for the [S]crawl

[T]angle the [V]ale

[W]rite about the [Z]one

Sell Liberation of Words’ Worth

Although with a broken pen soul

I am not writing tear ably or pointlessly

on the new clear issue for the magazine

run by a non-prophet society

set up on the basis of its members’ lie ability

To me, an operation would not secure but mean

a sentence to the peace in that infected area

As a banana author, I may lack a peel

but it is rarely better to turn left than to be all right

To avoid a rest, I’ve de sided to go fast on a weak day

then I will call my sun to rice in the mourning

after he falls in love at the first site

In deed, if we give the act an inch

it would become a ruler. Just like a life guard

I hope to keep all the buoys in line

With a film-like memory yet to be developed

I try to keep my head above the water

as I swim for word, yet I have no interest in the bank

Unlike a lawyer who may be debarred or a model

to be deposed, I’ll never become a poet to be decomposed

nor do I allow my train of thaw derailed; rather

I will commit sue side by continuing

to write worse or move in verse

Diphthongal Quartet

(for children and others)

hi the guy, dye the tie

I to my eye cry and lie

Why to vie and sigh in the rye?

Show or throw, a crow is no foe

No foe would go so very low

Flow the toe or owe a blow

How to tow, how to vow

Allow the bow for a pow-wow

Now to cow in order to row

Bake a cake, make a flake

Brake the snake for wake’s sake

Take the ache off the fake lake

Harmony of Homonyms

Assent of ads adds to the ascent

Blue buses blew busses

Chaste councils chased counsels

Dyed days died in daze

Earls elicit illicit URLs

Fazed fays faze phased

Guys in guise graphed to graft

Hairy Harry heals heels

Idols idle in idyle

Jugglers jammed in jambed jugulars

Knights knock at the nocks of nights

Leased lyers are least liars

Mind mined in mist missed

Nice gneiss on nickers’ knickers

Overdo once one’s overdue

Past profits passed prophets

Quays quoined with coined cays

Ryes rise with rows of rose

Sighted symbols are symbols cited

Tales about trust are tails trussed

Urns earned have no use for ewes

Violed verse versus vale vialed in veil

Weeks whiled are wild weaks

Xi sighs with psi in size

Yoke your yore in yolk

Zealous Zellers zooms in zooms

Etymology of Love

It is perfectly easy:

All you need to do is

To separate ‘be’

From the intended act

Or take out the first letter

From the ‘glove’

[on your personality]

or simply press

and thus cover

the ‘g’ [spot with

Your whole being

Bare]

Run-on

One would try to add a colon now and then

Another might insert a semi colon up and down

Still another could have used a period here and there

but he knows only when to cast a careless comma

as he writes, writes, and keeps writing

his entire life into an ever long-winded sentence

Behest Impressed

from a messed nest to a jest fest

with a blessed crest and a dressed breast

the pressed guest had best detest

molest or invest in a west quest

for the chest of zest

in the assessed protest

against the test of pest

lest the rest vest

in the depressed or accessed

These Few Words

In hundreds of languages

Over thousands of years

Under millions of circumstances

By billions of human beings

And for trillions of times

These few simple words

Have been repeated

Still on the mouth

At finger tips

Or with heart beats

Even though they have become meaningless

Pale and feeble

More tasteless than thin water

Dangling Modifiers

to write your dead past

into a living essay

this chapter should be read

with your eyes and mind

both widely open

by perusing or pursuing 

such perfectly bound books

all the essential rules

can easily be learned

about their sophisticated syntaxes

taking notes with all her attention

the idiomatic usages

of her adopting language

will be mastered well

over a small spot of time

heavily loaded with grammar

his whole being is

an isolated adverbial

often meant to modify

the wrong logical subject

Topic Sentences: There Are Snowflakes

that look blue

and never fall down

in the winter beyond the horizon  

sometimes, the lighter the snow

the heavier the notes for the singer

other times, the closer the flakes

the farther the thought for the hunter

[point of view]

no, no, no

no more do i want to be

a chinaman, brown-visioned

with all my yellowish

outlooks, yellowish sentiments

nor do I intend to be

a red-skinned big-foot

with my ancestors' vast land

all occupied by foreign devils

nor a rising black star

with evil pale-faced memories

nor a big white boss

with all his politically correct dollars

rather, I prefer to be a tiny rock

sitting still at a hilltop, on the roadside

watching, observing, or even

whistling when there is a wind blowing hard

Metaphor

with a big bang, the stage of the world

comes to the spotlight, where a shepherd

lay down for his sheep first, and

then all actors and actresses

flooded in, shuffling

between their exits and entrances

as religions, arts and science grow

from the same tree stump; where

souls are washed away

from the dust of human life; where

the crumbs of words fell down

from the feast of the mind, screen pages

are filled with breathings of the heart; and

every movement of the cursor

leads a fish biting at the hook

within this vast scene, we try to look at ourselves

beyond the entire picture

Simile

as hope grows like the twinning vine

she becomes as snug as a bug in a rug

when they compare thee to a mid-summer day

you feel happier than a tornado in a trailer park

while the highest goodness resembles water

your lines look similar to chinese chopsticks

Hyperbole

white hair longer

than the yellow river

warm tears higher

than a tsunami

li bai grins as broadly

as the universe itself

while his words echo loud, louder

than the summer thunder, as if

to emulate an erupting volcano

to challenge God’s roaring

Anthropomorphism

the sea smiling widely

with every wrinkle open

towards the morning sun, the trees balletting

in the storm of summer, the birds

chatting aloud, indeed, all is well

as God is taking a nap, dreaming

about becoming a human

both in form and in mind, where

nature imposes itself as a wild urchin

and the whole cosmos is expanding

from a past concept into its present body

that’s how we approach the world in our own terms

first, and last

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

Oxymoron: Love Is A 

faith unfaithful that keeps you

falsely true to yourself, like

yinyang seen through with

mournful wisdom, at the very moment of

violent relaxation, while the

guest host stands

alone in a crowd, presenting herself in

dark night, among the

sounds of silence, to give a speech about this

sweet agony as a necessary process in

virtual reality: yes, we all

agree to disagree that

we love humanity, but loathe persons; isn’t that

American culture?

The Jiujielity of Liknonomics

Together with fengqing

Damas use all

Kinds of guanxi to

Go and look, never

Afraid of chengguan

Or shuanggui as they

Explore every geilivable

Dollar issued by chinemerica, like

People mountain, people sea

Between them: we two who and who?

Yes, no money no talk!

Omniscient Viewpoint

Every human can emulate God

By creating a world or reality

Of his own will, where he can

In words as well as in graphs

See whatever is going on within

Or without the body of a mind

The senses between or beyond

The psychoscapes in the world

Where he knows as much about

How the dying is feeling, as how

This God may find worshippers

Subject: a Hyper-Grammatical Poem

Never appearing after a pre-position

Seldom does it follow the predicate

But always remaining as the very focus

The topic of each single sentence, you can

Be a noun like America, a pronoun like Him

Even a verb led by ‘to’ or followed by ‘ing’

Even a whole clause introduced by ‘that’

Or a wh- word, except a modifier like an adverb

An adjective, not to mention any other empty

Word that lacks a meaning in its own right

While in Chinese any word can be the subject

Any subject can be omitted, here in English

We have to keep it, surely and squarely

To demonstrate our democracy, the rule of law 

Object: A Hyper-Grammatical Poem

Direct or indirect

It must be

Within the grasp

Of the senses

To complete the meaning

Of a sentence

To reach something with a shape

To strike at a moment of space

To count like an abstraction in math

That never exists at any time or space

Predicate: A Hyper-Grammatical Poem

You have to take the form of an action

Static or dynamic

Predicting what the subject does

Or portraying how it is

Within a tense, a mood

Or a voice

Like the human heart that beats

Against every pumping of bloody feelings 

Y10: Be

You had been before

You were, and since then

You have been, although

You could, you might, you would or

You should have been, now

You are, and shortly

You are going, to be or not to be, of course

You can, you may, you will be, but if

You must be

You are to

Be-come, which is being

Proofreading

Although without either usage problems

Or grammatical errors, your life

Is a long-winded sentence, rambling

Along, with too much redundancy

So, if you keep editing it, you will find

It is actually not a sentence

Not even a phrase, but a singular

Proper noun, which is capitalized

But holds no meaning on its own

Until one day, your death will add an adjective

To this noun, often misspelt, mispronounced