Wednesday 25 June 2014

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. 

Wednesday 18 June 2014

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?


Wednesday 11 June 2014

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.

Wednesday 4 June 2014

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.]

Monday 2 June 2014

[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
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 Holms 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 worlds 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, Ive 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, Ill 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 wakes 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 ones 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