Monday 1 September 2014

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

Directory of Destines







By

Changing Yuan
Table of Contents


  1. January
  2. February
  3. March
  4. April
  5. May
  6. June
  7. July
  8. August
  9. September
  10. October
  11. November
  12. December
  13. Monday
  14. Tuesday
  15. Wednesday
  16. Thursday
  17. Friday
  18. Saturday
  19. Sunday
  20. North
  21. South
  22. Centre
  23. West
  24. East
  25. A
  26. B
  27. C
  28. D
  29. E
  30. F
  31. G
  32. H
  33. I
  34. J
  35. K
  36. L
  37. M
  38. N
  39. O
  40. P
  41. Q
  42. R
  43. S
  44. T
  45. U
  46. V
  47. W
  48. X
  49. Y
  50. Z
  51. 0
  52. 1
  53. 2
  54. 3
  55. 4
  56. 5
  57. 6
  58. 7
  59. 8
  60. 9
  61. Red
  62. Black
  63. Yellow
  64. Blue
  65. Orange
  66. White
  67. Green
  68. Grey
  69. Violet
  70. ?
  71. Etc
  72. Synesthesia
  73. Metaphor
  74. Simile
  75. Hyperbole
  76. Anthropomorphism
  77. Metonymy
  78. Oxymoron
  79. 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 birds 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



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