since the evening of 9 september, just one day after my wife left for china, i have been extremely busy translating into english a book entitled create abuandance (创造丰盛）, written by an internally influential chinese spiritual leader named xingyue zhang (张馨月）.
as of today, i have finished rendering 64 pages (the whole book has 197 pages) of chinese text into 15,354 english words. most pages have been quite easy, but some are extremely difficult, since they refer to ancient chinese literature, as well as religious and / or buddhist scriptures.
i have never done any translation work since 1997: it was amazing even to myself that i finished rendering a thick book written by a british journalist into chinese within 3 months while i was tutoring almost 8 hours on a daily basis. the book has much political content, and was published in the same year when hong kong was officially returned to china and deng xiaoping died.
i hate translation work: it was challenging, boring and restricting. you have to be 'faithful' to the original text. you have a highly limited 'freedom' of expression. even when it is published and circulated widely, it is not your own creative work, which i always hold in highest esteem. as my physical health deteriorates, i feel much less efficient than i could - i made a name for myself as a particularly fast and good translator while i was still a student pursuing my first master degree in tianjin teachers university more than 30 year ago.
nevertheless, i have willingly been translating this book, because i share most of the ideas conveyed by the book. for the past few years, i have been particularly interested in finding the way to happiness. i have written much poetry about spiritual journey or growth. i believe and hope that the book will be not only theoretically interesting but also practically helpful to happiness-seekers, or anyone concerned with his or her spiritual well being.
of course, the book has some weaknesses: it is written with the chinese, mostly female readers in the author's mind. it has too many colloquial expressions, as well as too many (emphatic or rhetoric) repetitions.
i hope to finish the draft within 50 days. probably i will be the publisher of the translation. we plan to publish the english version by the end of this year.
10:55 pm, 14 sept 2014.
Sunday, 14 September 2014
Monday, 1 September 2014
[archived]: Structured Poems-1 by Changming Yuan ©
Directory of Destines
By
Changing Yuan
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
- January
- February
- March
- April
- May
- June
- July
- August
- September
- October
- November
- December
- Monday
- Tuesday
- Wednesday
- Thursday
- Friday
- Saturday
- Sunday
- North
- South
- Centre
- West
- East
- A
- B
- C
- D
- E
- F
- G
- H
- I
- J
- K
- L
- M
- N
- O
- P
- Q
- R
- S
- T
- U
- V
- W
- X
- Y
- Z
- 0
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- Red
- Black
- Yellow
- Blue
- Orange
- White
- Green
- Grey
- Violet
- ?
- …
- Etc
- Synesthesia
- Metaphor
- Simile
- Hyperbole
- Anthropomorphism
- Metonymy
- Oxymoron
- Point of View
January
Standing alone
At this coldest spot of the doorway
You pause, wondering which door to
Knock at, which to
Push or pull
So you can go inside
A warm room where you know
You cannot stay for the whole year
Nor would you come out of the same door
But which to enter:
The narrow door with a wide exit
Or the wide one with a narrow exit?
February
Rolling, flowing, dripping
From the palest memories of last year
The melting snow stops moving
But hung everywhere
Like crystals
Against the freezing fits of frantic winds
With the moon always broken
In this shortest month of the pearl
No love can be purified
No couple can enjoy a full honeymoon
March
At this true, truer outset of the year
When the world finally awakens
From its prolonged white hibernation
When we can march forward like soldiers
With the steadiest steps
Every life can now
Give a morning kiss
To earth, to the landscape
Without mask or cosmetics
April
All plants beginning to burgeon
Open their hands and hearts widely
To draw inspirations
From the season
To play with spring spirits
While the ghosts of those doomed to die
Within the year are stalking behind us
Some to the church
Some to the mind
Others to the corners of night
May
Seeds of hope, seeds of love
Deeply planted since last winter
In the fertility of
Dreams, expectations
All come into blossom
In every heart beating against sunlight
On every face beaming with smile
At every twig reaching into the sky
Just when leaves grow fullest, freshest
Before they begin to fade, or fail
June
Come, come to the open fields
Let’s embrace most daylight
Of the whole year
In this northern hemisphere
Where we can stay young, younger
Enjoying our honeymoon
With the sun, with light
With warmth
Instead of cold darkness
That is dominating the other
Half of the world
July
Dogs are making human history (right)
When humans deal with dog days (right)
When the sullen, sultry sky witnesses:
Fraud, fervor, frenzy -- yes
It is our inner heat that has been
Warming the whole atmosphere
Like Julius’s inflated heart
August
With stone fruits
Like plums, apricots, preaches
Ripening rapidly
In this month of the sickle
It is high time to cut open
The secrets of sunlight
In their hardened hearts
Wrapped with the fleshiest
The juiciest season
September
In the open fields
Nothing, not even a wish is left
Except bare stems
Deep holes, bald twigs
But behind each closed door
Is a cozy room
private or public, full of
Colored fruits, plump seeds
And overflowing minds
As if all ready for
the new school
of thought
October
Burning, blooming
Like spring flowers
All tree leaves
Giggle, guffawing
With the west wind
In their fierce defiance
Against the elegy of the land
Recited aloud
In blood-throated voices
November
Most monotonous month:
Each passing day is depressed
Into a crow, its wings
Its body and tails
Newly glazed in the mists
Of thick dusk
Though its heart still
Lingers in the memory of
Summer’s orange morning glows
December
As the sun sinks deeper every day
Into the other side of the world
The shadow is getting longer, darker
Making our lives slant more and more
Towards night, when nature
Tries to balance yin and yang
By covering each dark corner
With white snowflakes
Ever so softly, quietly
As each twig frowns hard at twilight
Why not give it smile and thus
Book a space in heaven?
Monday
-Monday’s child is
fair of face
Beginning of endless beginnings
When we start running between
Sun shine and electric light, caring
No more about the moon on moon’s day
Tuesday
-Tuesday’s child is
full of grace
Under Tiw’s rule, every law is
Established to stage war upon
The unlucky, who keep setting
Fires to avoid miss fortunes
Wednesday
-Wednesday’s child
is full of woe
Right in the middle of laboring
Even god of mercury turns green
As it persists in fasting
Far beyond the hump
Thursday
-Thursday’s child
has far to go
God of thunder, man of wonder
We will continue despite hunger
Until we cannot go any farther
Or uphold our spirits together
Friday
-Friday’s child is loving
and giving
POETS day, TGIF, Day of Venus
Unlucky for those trying to catch
A few fish in the open sea, but lucky
For whoever is swimming ashore
Saturday
-Saturday’s child
works hard for a living
Though confined to their earthy coffins
All vampires are eager to go hunting
Both within the nightmares of mad dogs
And outside the shrinking orbit of Saturn
Sunday
-
The child that is born on the Sabbath day is bonny and blithe, and good and
gay.
East or west
All for a rest
When wanderers doze off in the sky
Meditators wake up to a distant cry
North
after the storm
all dust hung up
in the crowded air
with his human face
frozen into a dot of dust
and a rising speckle of dust
melted into his face
to avoid this cold climate
of his antarctic dream
he relocated his naked soul
at the dawn of summer
South
like a raindrop
on a small lotus leaf
unable to find the spot
to settle itself down
in an early autumn shower
my little canoe drifts around
near the horizon
beyond the bare bay
Center
deep from the thick forest
a bird’s call echoes
from ring to ring
within each tree
hardly perceivable
before it suddenly
dies off into the closet
of a noisy human mind
West
not unlike a giddy goat
wandering among the ruins
of a long lost civilization
you keep searching
in the central park
a way out of the tall weeds
as nature makes new york
into a mummy blue
East
in her beehive-like room
so small that a yawning stretch
would readily awaken
the whole apartment building
she draws a picture on the wall
of a tremendous tree
that keeps growing
until it shoots up
from the cemented roof
A
As the first born to the Semitic family
A was originally a picture of an alef or ox, the
Agricultural energy that was rotated twice until
Alpha loomed up in the Greek psychoscape even before
Adam became the chosen father of all Europeans close to
Athens, where Apollo had acupunctured wisdom and knowledge
into
Aristotle, the intellectual ancestor of modern man, who inspired
Alexander to make the first effort of globalization, which
did not reach East
Asia, the land of Ah Q’s, the largest hotel for
All travelers until centuries later, but it is
Atomic bombs that will blow up all our pasts and send us
through
America to a higher civilization, where the drop of an
Apple is to enable us to fly to the other side of the
universe
Along the cosmic string as
Africa, the heart of human darkness
Awaits for Buddha, Jesus, Allah or
An other unknown author to come and rotate for the third
time
A scarlet letter of
A
B
boy, boy! britain begins beating brazil badly behind belrus'
back, because bipedal britons believe brazilians behave better before boys
become barbaric; beyond blue borders, bill's big bully boss blatantly breaks bounds
by betraying blood-bound brotherhood, but bill's best biographer belies books
braving bellicose breeds between balanced buoyancies.
beach birds besides boulders beget babies below beautiful
bushes...
C
a Phoenician throw-stick
held high in his right hand
the Egyptian basket
lying far beyond his reach
what was, what is
the Chinese peasant
trying to do
in his story?
D
it is
neither a
door
nor a delta
it is nothing, anything
but a
hand
trying desperately
to open the
door to the delta
when every
reed bows down deeply
E
born to be a double reed
that can be bent
into a long vowel
the most frequently used letter
in english, echoing
endlessly
in silences
if pulled down, it offers two doors
one leading to Soul via will, the other
to Him
via wisdom; if turned up right
it forms a mountain with three peaks
like three holy swords, pointing high
one against the sun
one against the moon
one against the sky
Facing
always towards the east, it embraces
existence, equality, eternity, emancipation...
F
as in fragrant flowers
that keep flirting with sunlight
on a French afternoon
forwarded to the future
will be a foiled fairytale
about France, as it tries to
catch a deformed viper
with an ancient hook
G
Gives us
all the glories of
God, Godot,
the gorilla
Amidst the
gamers, constantly
Reminding
us of George
Germany,
the G-spot,
GPA, or GDP
H
inspired by a fence in hell
you were invented long ago
to connect
every human
for a tall ladder
of hope
that we can stand high
against the blue
horizon
like the Babel Tower growing to reach Him
where I can
find a home in the fame hall
where I can
settle my soul in
heaven
I
To begin with
The hieroglyphical origin of
My identity was simply no body
But a common reed
Bowing its head to the rising sun
On the barren bank of the Nile
Slim, tall, hollow-hearted
Standing against tropical heat
Until one day 'I' was used
As a human symbol, an open vowel
Referring to the speaker
And since then I have become
One of the most frequently spelt letters
In the linguistic order of the day
Always capitalized
To embody my dignity
Though I am nothing
But a common reed
That could have been made into a flute
J
a small cobra coiled
in a big pyramid's shape
always read to bite
just like Japan
just like Justice
K
an other
basket
you hold
anything having a shape
but sand or
water
* *
for all
your knighthood
you keep
quiet before knowledge
but never
the king
L
with an
open angle
you
embraces all legends
about light
and lions
M
despite
your body
as imposing
as a massive mountain
you have a
mindset
hidden
deeply
in the
wisdom of a little owl
in the
plasticities of a drop
of water
N
No, nobody
knows this
But you are
really no more
Or no less
than the old
Egyptian
metonymy of
A stream,
river, lake, sea or
Even an
entire ocean, where
There is
always water , where
There are
always fish
Rather than
a synecdochic Z
Pushed
straight upright
On the bank
of the Euphrates
O
a rope loop propped
up with hope
to lasso words running amuck
a mouth reshaped, repositioned
to pronounce the roundest vowel
P
not really a
stoop
but a flag fluttering
there
followed by
pi rates
[archived]: Structured Poems-2 by Changming Yuan ©
12 feb2014:: Directory of Destines
Q
a chord, made of sunlight
instead of
grass
will lead each climber to the peak
though few can find it
on the hillside
beside the question
R
residing
near their summer resort
through her
entire year
after their
marriage, (for better or for worse)
russian
author catherine tries narrating
her bearish
story from their wintery perspective
where her
major concerns are perhaps
wrapping
gershwin's rhapsody
around
hieroglyphic spring sprouts
S
with a
double hook
the sexist, the most charming shape
looking more like a naked woman
in postmodern art
than folded cloth used to cover her body
in an Egyptian tale
always
ready to
seduce
T
the Egyptian loaf
far off the Phoenician mark
is still edible now
U
u is surely
a part of you, while
you sound
no more than a single letter
u, which is
nothing but a copy of a chick
you used to
be on the bank of the Nile, where
u can be
changed into
v within an
european word as in yvan; it's said
you have
the makings of a
victor, a
us or un representative who begins the
uniform,
university, universe.
V
with the shape of victory
you are a viper in essence:
each victory is a
poisonous snake
W
pecking around a lion
only the little chick
knows the word's worth
as it writes the worlds' story
with its feet printed on the ground
rather than on a papyrus
X
only when two straight roads meet
at an intersection, or
only when you cross the road
crossing the border can you
understand why Christ's body is
nailed on the cross, but his soul
rises high above the land
Y
You
love ‘Y’, not because it’s the first letter
In
your family name, but because it’s like
A
horn, which the water buffalo in your
Native
village uses to fight against injustice
Or,
because it’s like a twig, where a crow
Can
come down to perch, a cicada can sing
Towards
the setting sun as loud as it wants to
More
important, in Egyptian hieroglyphics
It
stands for a real reed, something you can
Bend
into a whistle or flute; in pronouncing it
You
can get all the answers you need, besides
You
can make it into a heart-felt catapult
And
shoot at a snakehead or sparrow, as long
As it
lands within the range of your boyhood
Z
sharp-angled
in opposite
directions:
you are not
so much like
a weird weapon,
a manacle, or
a bolt for
fastening the flood
of the
Nile in ancient logography
as like a
postmodern zebra
zigzagging with
zeal
like a
zealot trying to pass
through an inflated
zero
0
meaning empty (for early
indians?)
or no entry (to ancient
chinese?)
definitely, it is no more,
or
no less than a placeholder
between you and me
nothing that can be
anything
except the wheel that
keeps our civilization rolling
a circle, squeezed to look
taller and slenderer
a shape, less round than a
hole
but it can suck in a whole
world
o that we were not all
living within the circle
full of emptiness
1
first formed in the far
east
a horizontal line
kept moving westwards
point by point
as it rose gradually
trying to stand up
straight
like the axis of the earth
to be identical with the
first person singular
with or without a serif at
the top
with or without a support
at the bottom
until 1 and i became one
and the same
presenting itself as a
single unity
one that is its own
factorial
its own square, its own
cube, the identity
For multiplicities, each
derived from tai chi or nothingness
First of all there was,
there has been
2
one line originated from
the yellow river
the other from the ganges
keep flowing parallel
until they joined each
other
to form an open circle
as if to embrace
all other valleys of
civilization
the first magic prime
number
like yin and yang combined
to draw every human
dichotomy
into double happiness,
since all
good things come in pairs
3
first
rotated
then curved
before being finally connected
The same three horizontal lines
as with the trinity
for the three gems
during wudhu
to stand in as many red words
written in solid, liquid and gas
since in a race anybody, anything
beyond this smallest prime number
is nobody, nothing. That’s why the lines
still remain parallel in Roman and Chinese:
one is almost dead, vertically
the other still very much alive, horizontally
then curved
before being finally connected
The same three horizontal lines
as with the trinity
for the three gems
during wudhu
to stand in as many red words
written in solid, liquid and gas
since in a race anybody, anything
beyond this smallest prime number
is nobody, nothing. That’s why the lines
still remain parallel in Roman and Chinese:
one is almost dead, vertically
the other still very much alive, horizontally
4
just how a cross,
was joined between north
and west
with a square, few know the
truth
to grow in a twisted corner
where snow never smelts
winds blow in all other
directions
where white shapes the
solid, the touchable
inclusive indeed, like a
glyph drawing all
the uncertainties to itself
always ready to bury, to
create
the very outset of abstractions
the legs of the whole
universe
it is believed every
tetramer is a sign of
speed, strength, stability
5
looming among the matrices
of ancient Brahmin Indians
you have come all the way
to present yourself in a
bloated shape
of an equally old Chinese
steelyard
rather than the Khmer glyph
with an enlarged hook
to weigh anything
even ether, even the soul
while the weight-beam is
shortened
to mark our narrow senses
6
a forgotten European
flirtation with a glyph
the Ghubar Arabs borrowed
from Indians
all of whom dislike its
squigglish tradition
a cherished number
emulating the uppercase G
not really related to home,
family, responsibility
but easy and smooth, what
else on the road?
7
you are always lucky
though you have turned L
upside down
otherwise, you would have
been executed
by law, by light
8
first, a curved 1 from
Indians
then, it was twisted until
it became an S
ready to seduce,
re-presenting itself like a 5
before the Arabs connected
her two closed circles
piling them one above the
other
as if to round up
all sudden Chinese fortunes
9
a question mark without a
definite dot
you stand on a single
curved leg
to reach the highest level
of changes
more like a shrunken dragon
than a swollen lowercased g
to be close to God
among just as many
worthies, bows
and circles of hell
as though all in a divine
comedy
Red
seeing
the strange belts
like
little mouth masks
hung
on bamboo poles
I
often wondered:
what
kind of clothing was that
so
funny looking
in
front of almost every straw-thatched cottage
but
you boys don't bother about that
until
one of my aunts told me
on
a showering afternoon
it
was only until I began dating
with
a girl in a major city, so close
to
beijing many years later
did
I get to know them
to
be no other than menstrual rags
(a
taboo of human blood?)
although
they actually looked
more
like shrunken flags
than
thick masks
that's
all I remembered about my boyhood
my
native village, my motherland
Black
coal,
ebony, charcoal
crow,
graphite, lactrodectus
chinese
hair, african skin …
what
do they all have
in
common? - they are not
a
color; rather, they are an absence of light
which
becomes weaker and weaker
as
stars keep moving farther and father
away
from us
filled
with light
within
their dark shapes
they
are quiet, but cool
and
profound
Yellow
as
rich as old soil
from the qingzhang plateau
as long as endless water
from the huanghe river
as appealing as common rapeseed
as smooth as ripe banana skin
as noble as shiny as neon
as full as a tender egg yolk
as bold as the blatant yellow peril
from the qingzhang plateau
as long as endless water
from the huanghe river
as appealing as common rapeseed
as smooth as ripe banana skin
as noble as shiny as neon
as full as a tender egg yolk
as bold as the blatant yellow peril
as
bold as blatant suggestions about the peril
from
the east to the west
Blue
is,
needless to say
the
most powerful civilization; built
with
the two pupils
of
a caucasian blonde
between
sea and sky, where
it
has been permeating, where
it
has prevailed
but
until where?
Orange
this
is the most affordable color
since
everyone can readily
get
it by shedding blood upon gold
by
staging a revolution
along
the Yellow River, by smashing
rapeseed
into roses, or simply
by
chewing a chili heart
together
with
mango flesh
White
out
of thick clouds
like
mountains of inflated cotton
high
above spring fog, much
lighter
than the snow of last year
a
biblical dove flies, soaring around
as
if unable to find a place
to
perch on land, where reed flowers
grow
tall in the fields of salt, where
ivories
float around
in
rivers of milk
while
no pale surface is taking in any light
all
colors gather into a blank filled with flour
slaked
lime, or aging hair just to reflect
a
whole living civilization
Green
with
the same word root as 'grass' and 'grow'
you
are the only living color in the entire universe
most
nutritious to the human vision, you possess
both
the noblest pine tree and cheapest grass
along
the trail through the forest of olive
your
treading upon the season sounds like jade...
Grey
the
most mediocre color
between
black and white
that
is engulfing every paved road
every
naked building, even
every
human soul
like
ashes to ashes
Violet
you
have degraded yourself
from
the royal to the common
just
as yang red has faded
into
yin blue
like
gray
between
black and white
?
Supposedly, a lightning flash
Striking from right to left
Or a lower-cased q as in question
Trying to stand up on an o
But can it be a crescent moon
Broken by darkness, a smashed star
Falling from the summer sky
Or a hook never able to catch
A lost soul that hopes to
Find an answer voiced
From a human mouth?
…
A lapse of the mind
An omission in the human utterance
A gathering of feeling
All dotted
etc.
we, yuan ii, by the grace
of god, emperor and
autocrat of
all english words, king of
dreamland
grand duke of assonance and
consonance, author of
allen qing yuan, architect
of
george lai yuan, last
scribbler of
poetic lines, et cetera et
cetera
et cetera et cetera etc
herein proclaim ourselves
as no extra ordinary line
but an ellipsis...
Synesthesia
amidst glaring noises
dancing madly
around my cracking shape
i caught a cool euphony
drifting down gracefully
from the smiling sky
fragrant to the salty
fingertips
of
my soul
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
Bitter sweet or sweet bitter is love, 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?
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
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