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
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