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

In the Hall: A Parallel Poem

I danced an hour with Discontent

She turned around me a hundred times

But made me none the happier

For all the sweet smiles on her face

I danced a minute with Content

And ne’er a single move made she

But oh, all the blessings I can gain

Even when she looks sullen

The Spot of Spirits: A Parallel Poem

Some raindrops go up and some go down

At the selfsame spot where it gathers

‘Tis the heat of the sunlight

And not the terrain

Which sends them low or high

Like the raindrops are the ways of our spirits

As we are scattered around like corral islands

‘Tis the set of the mind

That keeps us up or down

Not the rock where we perch

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

There Are No Delicacies

There are no hard delicacies in me

Like the chips in a computer

Though I have numerous nerves

All integrated like the circuits

In a cpu or gpu

Don’t hook me up just yet

There are too many emotional data in me

To be digitalized into your software

Though there are plenty of spaces

For processing or programming

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

Unsure

When a deer was born

The sunlight thrilled the whole forest

When the idea looms

What view? A volcanic island

Will be the newly-formed

Mirage. With a morning glow

Trying to land

beyond the mindscape

For Morland

You listen to a trout in the sea. Its fins

Are flapping.  

And the whale that swims

As it charges into God’s fishing net

Like a moth bumping into a glass window

                        Gradually together

Without the currents approaching afar

You find too many shrimps and sharks

                        You hate to see

The animal scene. And I depart

So noisily that the trout turns frantic

And you spot an eel’s shuttle

Amidst waves.

                        So finitely vast

Yet few

Departing

At the airport of your home city

You lost your passport

Your only and most authentic id

Lying there, meditating

Before long, someone

Who finds it

Will care no more about your other self

This evening, as you do now

It is a small world

Of numbered narrow gates

Lines of passengers and luggage

You run around, looking

The space behind you

Bright, free of shadows

In a prison of domes of glasses

You became a frenzy moth

Early travelers

Hurrying and light-hearted

Out of sight, the ground

Of a footprint-free texture

Third call to check in

But you are still looking

Before you find your valid selfhood

You have to stay put

Awaiting

There is a long wait of the passengers

For the detouring and delayed bus

And the wait of the wintry grasses

The wait of the legendary lion king

Before it preys upon a real baby zebra

And the wait of the summer sun deep in the nightmare

The wait of the orchid on the window ledge

The wait of the diamond in an unknown mine

And the wait where you stop and watch

And there is a wait of this darkness

Which you are going to compress into words

A wait that is to spread out thin on the blank paper

Unlike winter stars holding their light in light-years

The wait after you finish writing

And the longer wait then

Class 761, Shanghai

So you are the second one

From the middle in the first standing row

In a world of black and white

Is this the girl squatting in the front

Who you might have pursued hard

But your pride and prejudice prevented you

The tall and handsome guy from a high-class family

Who suspected your poverty had made you a thief

Before he lost and found his fancy watch in the dorm

And your make-do friend is the third one

From the left in the second standing row, the nice guy

Who had a really hard time passing every single test

Wait, there is more to it –

Who is the guy that has become the vice president of Citigroup

And who is the girl that died a miser-multimillionaire in Seattle last year

What’s happened to the character library building behind all of you

Did they really convert it into a brilliantly decorated hotel

To accommodate your travelling alumni, rich or famous?

Seeing the Dragon: A Parallel Poem

Did you see

Some creature seeming to loom

Somewhere above the jungle?

You find only part of the picture

Like an eerie-shaped piece

For a huge jigsaw puzzle

Or you never bother to look for the pieces

And put them into a whole

It is neither a boa nor a serpent

Nor a phoenix

Certainly not an eel

But a strange dragon rising up

Beyond the bluish bay

How come it turns out a dragon?

You feel it disgusting to the bone. Monstrousness

Is particularly despicable

At the side door of your mind

A heavy metal voice is knocking

Constantly:

So unthinkable!

So hatefully unthinkable

To see a real damned dragon!

The Cherry Flower: A Parallel Poem

            (After Xi Morong)

Finally, on this Marpole street

She manages to fall

Exactly on his shoulder

After a prolonged season

But a sudden gust of summer wind

Blows her away from him 

Onto the spring-carpeted sidewalk

Only to be trodden there

By a stranger’s foot

Like a dejected flower   

The Man Most Handsome

The most handsome man

Is the man under the little buttocks

Of an infant boy, the one who is giving

The child a thrilling experience

By carrying it on his broad shoulders

Flapping their arms together

Like wings feathered with boyhood dreams

Making it feel as if gliding, flying

Swirling around

One day, the child will become a pilot

A pioneer, someone who operates a machine

To fly in an entirely new space

The little child will not remember

The way the man waved their arms

Nor did it see the beaming smile

On the man’s face when they

Jumped over the ditch, dodged

Blocking tree branches, or ran

Against a sudden cold wind

But the child can never forget

How it felt

As the man kept running forward

Under its little buttocks

Glass Safe

There is a time

When engineers

Will make chips out of people’s spirits

As a hobby

Someone I used to know returns from then

I have seen her recently

But she knows me no more

Even after I told her who I am

“The spirits are installed onto various

Motherboards,” she explained

“They are all transparent

Kept in the same big glass safe.

But no one knows how to open it from within

Or whose spirits are whose.”                    

If U Can’t See Me, I Can’t See U

            (sign at the back of a truck)

Outside the picture, if you can’t see me, I can’t see you

Under a pile of words, if you can’t see me, I can’t see you

Behind a big truck, if you can’t see me, I can’t see you

That is, since I drive in front of you

If you want to pass but can’t see me in

My driver’s seat, or in my front rear mirror, you are

In my blind spot, so don’t follow me too closely, don’t

Try to pass me, but stay calm behind my shadow

Otherwise you would kiss my big ass in a bloody way

And so, when you communicate

Wait and make sure you see the right person first –

That’s for your own safety, pal

When you are cursing, singing, dancing, playing or fighting

It’s best to have the real person in view:

If she can’t kiss you, you can’t kiss her

If you can’t put up with me, I can’t putup with you

If fame can’t grow out of you, you can’t grow out of fame

If money can’t find you, you can’t find money

If the politician can’t trust you really, you really can’t trust the politician

Look, what I point out is, if you can’t see me, I can’t see you

Whether it is in a book, at a cemetery, on a plane, or behind a truck

Drive safe, you asshole.

This Is a Line

            (for Liu Yu and other mothers)

A line this is for my mother’s birthday

A birth line for my mother’s day

A mother for the birthday of a line

A celebration of my mother’s line of birth

Mother, I will line your birth with celebration

I will day a line with birth celebration, Mother

I will mother a day line with celebration

I will celebrate the mothering of a line

Mother, I will celebrate a line’s birthday

Mother my celebration of a line’s day

Mother my day’s line for a birthday

Celebrate my line with my mother’s birth

Celebrate the day with my mother’s line

Mother, I celebrate your birthday with a line

Another Snapshot

A man is searching everywhere

At dusk

With a leash

Unleashed in his hand

While the dog hides itself beyond a fence

We grin from ear to ear

At our shared secret 

Lesson Learned from Insomnia

            (After Billy Colins)

One night when I noted philosophy

Tossing and turning constantly on the bed

I gave her a cup of warm milk

Instead of the pink pills she desired

Unable to go to sleep side by side

Let alone make love on such occasions

I moved to the guest room where I

Began to count all the sheep on earth

How surprisingly resentful she yelled at me

When I returned in a fragment of dream

The fact I did not suffer insomnia with her

Nor did I find meaning on a meaningful night

The Unseen

            (After Lorna Crozier)

Most ignore such things

As dirt, rock or trees

That make up the collective pronoun

The pronoun is all

Before you open your eyes

All is there

And there you may perceive

Your whole world in them

Out of their shapes

Their colors, their textures

Their statues

You construct an open garden

To concentrate upon

That patch of nature

Never confined to the human mind  

On the Recycling Day

            (After Fergetti?)

One neighbor took out a blue box

Full of cat skulls and dog legs

Rather than glass or plastic bottles

Another carries out a yellow bag

Containing human bones, mostly children’s

Instead of magazines or paper products

A third pushed out a green bin

Filled with failed evils and devils

Where there should be leaves and twigs

Behind every house in a neighboring back alley

The garbage truck is placing a big time bomb

The Tree Spirits

            (After ‘Horses’)

No doubt, they never knew when, how

Or why they were doomed

The previous generation of earthlings

Have long disappeared, tracelessly

Except for some thinning memories

Hidden in earth’s heart, or drifting

In a corner of an unknown world

But we are different: we make

Metals and plastics besides books

To survive the judgment day

Land collapses, ice ages, nuclear wars

Or alien strikes, although they may eventually

Weather away with the sun

Then will come a monstrous ant

Followed by swarms of tree spirits

On the second day, the ant gives them all shapes

On the third, the spirits begin their earthy lives

On the forth, the ant flies into the outer space

To prevent evil from returning to earth

On the land used to be tree stumps

Debris of all man-made products

There are now only trees growing

Growing silently in the moonlight

Above deeply buried human souls

There

How

It’s disappeared

Kills

The history

Flee afar

From the centre

Listening

Coming

Then will be everything
To support
Or break, every

Thing but
Plants, such
Future as you plow

Present. Why not
Eradicate some days
Here, many

Roots holding beneath
Their feelings

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

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?

Single Last Sale: A Parallel Poem

            (After Margarite Atwood)

You’ve long since sold out

Both your sweat and blood

Now you try to sell your heart

Though nobody wants it

Some say the blood is not red enough

Others find the chambers too narrow

Still others think the coronary arteries

Stained with too many feelings

You peddle around, chanting aloud

From street to street

With your heart still fresh

Beating like a frog in your hands

You hope to sell it for a glass of water

Just to cool down your burning voice

So you do not have to sell your soul

Like all other hawkers in the market

Well satiated, but hardly heart-felt

Poppies: A Parallel Poem

Each pair of round lips

Cut right in the middle

Bleeding so boldly

In a foggy field

Nobody to kiss

Nobody to talk with

All like blood-skirted pasts

Painted thickly close to the heart

Ritual

A seagull glides

Its motionless

graceful glide

Above a million freshly foamed waves

From this realm

You hear the gull

As all birds are

Little is definitely impossible

Fortune Cookie Fortune

Good fortune

Bad fortune

Always delivered

Within a crispy cookie

Cheap wisdom

Costly instruction

Always served

By an angel waitress

White plate

Black message

Always digested

In a Chinese restaurant

To eat your fortune

Before reading the message

Or to read the message

Before eating your fortune

It is all a question

Of if you would like

To eat out in the downtown

Of your heart

Or prepare your own meal

In the kitchen

Of your home

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?

Steeper See-Saw: Another Parallel Poem

            (for John Hollander)

The higher the income, the lower the morals

The taller the building, the shorter the attention span

The bigger the house, the smaller the family

The more wealth, the less joy

The more conveniences, the less leisure

The more knowledge, the less judgement

The more medicine, the less health

The more protection, the less security

The faster the transportation, the slower the communication

The closer the network, the looser the relationships

The cleaner the environment, the dirtier the mind

The wider the highway, the narrower the perspective

The Second Departing

            (After William Butler Yeats’ ‘Second Coming’)

Going, going away in an ever retreating bay

The ebb starts below a quickened sun setting

People swarm here, watching, picking, fighting

Over the fishes, shrimps, crabs, shells, weeds

All left stranded, struggling for waters on the beach

They do not care if darkness stalks right behind

Their shadows, rolling like a tide upon their souls

They care only about the benefits they can gather

The sea produce they can trade with one another

Surely some ignorance is still in proper place

Surely the second departing is taking place

The Second Departing! The very idea stirs in the minds

A whole flock of crows beating their darkening wings

Flapping into the narrow skies of the prolonged history

It’s these crows, these very unidentifiable black birds

That are driving the light beyond the horizon, inner or outer

(Where they have found God as a redundant re-creation

When they believe they are the right gods for themselves)

By Now: A Parallel Poem

By now, the words like good

Beautiful, and truth have been so abused

They are meaningless

Reduced to blanks or holes

And the whole language becomes

Insufficient, deformed, absurd:

People are trying to communicate in a dialect

Or, rather, in a series of utterances

Whose meanings are yet to be invented

We have a syntax as powerful as before

But we have no more proper word in the proper place

The Room Just Rented

            (After Robert Frost)

One room becoming available on this busy street

And delighted you are the new fortunate tenant

For this popular unit, which you have recently taken

And moved in as soon as you were allowed

On a rainy evening before all lights were turned on

Here to the manager, an alleged aid to God

You eagerly paid both your rent and deposit

And planning to stay and have your own children

Though the Landlord seldom cares, the living now

Is getting ever more crowded, more stressful

And the only corner big enough for your heart

Is full of dust and spider webs, the closet

Where you planned to hide all your dreams

Has long been colonized by ants and roaches

You wonder where your inner being can dwell

You want to complain aloud and directly to Him

About this hasty relocation for your individuality

The only room available to you here and now

Yes, you have settled in a place simply too crowded

And that makes your entire tenancy full of sound and fury

Well, Well, the Well

            (for Yuan Hongqi)

In the lowest terrain of

My father’s native village

Used to be an old well

As deep as the memories

Of last century, around which

Boys would be running

At noon in summer

And girls dancing under the willow

At midnight, where my father

Often sat, listening to his sick mother

Telling stories about his unknown ancestors

The well finally ran dry

After God knows how long, and

Since electricity came across the hills

And ponds, nobody has returned to it

Except mosses and lichens that have colonized

The whole territory, where only my grandma’s ghost

Shines down from time to time

Trying to guard its walled-in secrets

Now as dry as its mouth

Epilogues: After Yeats’s ‘Prelude’

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

I

From the front yard of a melodious morning

From the busy road of a sweet Saturday

From the moist corner of a heavy march

From the back lane of pale winter

We have come, here and now, all gathering

In big crowds gathering in big crowds

Gathering in ever-bigger crowds gathering

For the boat to cross the wide wild waters

Before the fairy ferry is fated to fall

Under our feet too heavy with earthy mud

II

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

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

III

Flying between sea and sky

Between day and night

Amid heavenly or oceanic blue

I lost all my references

To any timed space

Or a localized time

Except the non-stop snorting

Of a stranger neighbor

Then, beyond the snorts rising here

And more looming there

I see tigers, lions, leopards

And other kinds of hunger-throated predators

Darting out of every passenger’s heart

Running amuck around us

As if released from a huge cage

As if in a dreamland

Another Way to Stop Anxiety

            (After Lorna Crozier)

As the Fraser River keeps trying to

Draw the entire Pacific ocean

Into the hearts of Vancourites

A little tugboat is pulling

A huge barge

Full of unseen cargo

Into the little harbour

When you watch it with your mind’s eyes

Or when you go astray in your dream

Natural Confronta Confrontations 

            (After Ye Chuan’s ‘Confrontating’)

1/ Seagull

With its sharp wings

Feathered with

The light of thunder

The seabird is cutting open

The curtain of a whole season

Along the borderline

Between the seas and the sky

2/ Swirl

A gossamer-like breeze 

Left behind by

A running dog

Tries to strike

The stagnated twilight

All over the city

Before the storm sets in

3/ Sprout

From under

A bulky boulder

Sitting still, meditating

Like a Buddha

A tiny bamboo sprout

Has just broken the earth

Ready to shoot up

Against the entire sky

Expanding  

            (After Ye Chuan)

A fragile front page

Of last year’s newspaper

Falling down from nowhere

Begins to drift around

As if to cover the entire city

With its faded words

Some broken into small

Fragmented lights, some burned

With frantic ambitions, others glistening

Like the stars beyond the horizon

Where the headlines run parallel

To the midnight, leaving the content of

The same old story, yes, the same

Old story partly saved

Partly crashed

Somewhere within the web

Still expanding 

A Simple Wish

When there is a long and cold night

I want nothing but a little corner

Of time, or a brief moment

Of space, where I would

Occupy myself, sitting still

Trying to concentrate

As if in deep meditation

Watching for the first rays of sunlight

Dispersing the shadows in my mindscape

That’s my dream

Recalling: For Yuan Hongqi

‘Wait a while!’ Mother would shout, ‘they say

There might be more showers this afternoon.’

So I recalled, from time to time

How he would turn a deaf ear to her

And continue, dragging out quilts

Sheets, pillows, blankets, padded coats

One pile after another

Like moving forests

Hanging them on thick ropes

Tied to deformed poplars or lamp posts

‘Not again! This old man of mine just wouldn’t

Want to waste a single ray of sunlight.’

            And remembered, for nearly half a century

My dad had tried each time to empty the whole house

And sun-wash everything, more like a grandma

Than like a father, even during the Cultural Revolution

            Now realizing how I have been haunted

By his stark image, smiling, in blue, ever since

He nodded his head to Mother for the last time

About 5 pm on January 2 last year

            I find myself choked again with gratitude: 

It was my father who gave me so many a chance

To smell fresh sunlight in my boyish nightmares

   

Skyline

Golden teeth glistening

In the mouth of the city

Silver clouds colliding 

At the tongue tip of day

Bite off all darkness

They whisper

And chew the season well.

Yearning

Invisible dust, mixed with

Myriads of transparent bodies

Of your dead skin cells

Struggles to escape from your room

A rented space, first through the lock hole

Then to a freeway, further then

To a patch of sky, where they will drift

Along the horizon, where they will finally

Find or form a direction

In the far distance

Here in Vancouver

You will come down

To the lower mainland

Here’s everything to do, though

It is tempting to go up there

To the Grouse Mountain

Where beyond the few patches

Of spring, winter is still dressed in its best

Like a plump bride 

Unlike, by now, beyond the rain zone

Coming down to this valley

Visitors have forgotten snowflakes, falling

Silently on the mountain top

But you still can recall the chill of glacier

Of last ice age

It is comforting up there, to touch

The slick skin of another season

Yet down here, you are free to roam

Snorkeling in the English Bay

Taking a sun-bath on the Kits beach

Rain-dancing in Deer Lake

Or daydreaming on Robson Square

In the heart of a suburban city, where

Summer is flirting with spring, when

Autumn is chasing winter

Like urchins, at the front yard

Of nature

Vibrating

Did they feel a momentary trembling movement of the earth

Around 4 o'clock this morning, when they were still

Half asleep, half awake?

Have they ever felt that before?

Or, have you?

I have.

I know for sure it's neither an atrial fibrillation

Nor an earth quake, rather

It's the agitation that is well

On its way, with its seismic waves

Originated deep, deep

In the heart

Of our civilization

Perspective

is not so much a 3 dimensional arrangement of

lines, colors, shapes, texture, composition

He made to represent the world 

in human words

and feelings

as a mind

that attempts

to expose itself

to the light with a position that

you might take here and now to embrace

the sky, the sea, the earth, the plants or animals

parcenary

                        my destination was preset

you will receive a parcel

            by express.  It turns out

all too expressly, and

the sender was my parents

        who had wrapped themselves

                        inside already

[self-expressing]

from glaciers

of the arctic syntax

words keep melting, trickling

into a stream, constantly

trying to express themselves

through the ebbs

in a lake, or a river

as they flow down the valley

to join the sea

You Need Night

Yes, you do need night

When darkness engulfs half

Of the world, and makes you pause

For you need a stable universe of time

To reflect on light that guides you

Through the unseen, as through your thoughts

Surely, in this black and heavy stillness

You can see the brilliant colours

Above the entire season, you may even dream

Here you can dissolve into a big whole

Like yin and yang, to nail your souls into

Each other’s flesh, to gain strength

Yes, you simply need night

For you need this unique reality of our world

To pause, to recover, to discover

Protrusion

Before you change your heart

And throw away the old one

Nothing your new heart is hating

Will depart or can be skinned off

Before your laser-cleaned pupils sprout

In your eyes, all foreign stains returning

Nothing your new eyes are attracted to

Will arrive, forgotten to shed tears on

Thinking for Too Long

You realize you have lost all your directions

Besides a shoe lace

You see, then will reach the spot to break free

From your skinned shape

Meditation is the clothing you have been wearing

As a doer, the practice of Initial Thoughts

Therefore, you keep thinking for seven days

It can be anything that is nothing

But the Initial Thoughts

Whim in, whim out

Penetrate into the wall

Around your selfhood

Father’s Soliloquy: For YCM

The other night, before the cock crowed, or

The crow cocked out of darkness, a yellowish

Shape stalked in vision, as in blank verse

‘Mark me,’ it says, sounding almost exactly

Like my late father. ‘Lend thy very serious

Hearing to what I shall unfold.’ Suddenly alerted

I got up among figures, between dream and sleep

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

For looking at me always with your eye whites

Giving me an ugly face each time I talked to you

So much so that I cursed you numerous times in

My dream for being such an unworthy son; I often

Doubted if you were my own flesh until you grew

Into a normal loving adult, making me feel guilty

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

Betraying me, not only in heart but also in body

I almost caught her making love with some guy

On our own bed - -You still remember that small

Apartment we used to live in? Among all my dadly

Secrets, these two I want to reveal to you first

Next time, I will tell you more about the limbo

Between hell and heaven, with the lightest word

Which might harrow up thy spirit, burn up thy

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

Should You Allow

            (After Claude McKay’s ‘If  We Must Die’)

Should you allow us to live, let it not like robots

Running and working around the clock, to give you

All the comfort and convenience available to human

Masters. Should you allow us to live, o let us live

With the kind of freedom you enjoy, the equal rights

And democracy you are talking about so aloud

So that our tears and sweat will become less salty

Than our blood, our eyes less murky than our visions

Then even the food and products we make would warm

Your hearts. Don’t try to make love with us only to fulfil

Your sense of conquest, or beat us mad, containing us

Whistling your dogs of war upon us when you have

A nightmare. True, like robots we may not be entitled

To your human rights, but even a cornered robot rabbit will bite back

Someday, somehow, like a treaded cobra, like your fore fathers

Cybersburg Address: A Free Sonnet after Abraham Lincoln

Four dozen and seventeen years ago

Our father’s brothers brought forth

A new civilization, conceived in electronics

And dedicated to the cause that all

Machines were created to be equal

To apathetic humans when a message was sent

From a lab at a green campus, which can

Think logically, but not respond emotionally:

Whether you like it or not

This semi-being would never speed up

A moment even though you are dying

Nor will it slow down when it is to crash

Neither a smallest smile to hear

The great news, nor a smattering of

Sadness over the loss of your dearest

It keeps working at the pre-determined pace

Always indifferent of the people

By the people and for the people

Until we all perish with the earth

Y, for Yowl: after Allen Ginsberg

Yipping, yelping, yapping

Yelling, yukking yoicking 

Yawping, yackety-yakking

Yammering, yodeling, yahooing

Yup, yummy, between and beyond

Yin/yang, yetis/yuppies

Yankees/yamatos

Yeomen/ymirs

Yowl!

To Mars: A Modern Sonnet after Elizabeth Barrett Browning

How do we love thee? Let us count the ways:

We love thee to the very limits of high-science

The boundaries of technologies, the frontiers of

The human conscience; in particular we love thy

Art of work on a mother feeding her baby in a

Shelter, a sheep boy driving his little herd to the

Valley, or a crowd of country lads celebrating a

Wedding. More important, we love the way thou

Help us to get rid of all extra food processors

In the human shape: the poor, the sick, the weak

The old, all wanted or unwanted others, above all

We love the way thou have become a real game as

Bloodily vivid as a movie on a vast colored screen

Thousands of miles far, far away in an other world