nov updates: yuan's lit endeavors

- since i and my wife left vancouver on sept 7 on a sightseeing trip to china, i have never made a single poetry submission (first time for so long during the past 10 years), though i did get 13 acceptances in sept and 11 in oct; also, as before, i was unable to write a single line during my entire stay in china. based on my most recent china experience, i did draft 5 short ones the day before yesterday. in other words, i have literarily been inactive for the past two months.

- on oct 22, i returned from my china trip to vancouver, and became e.functionable again, but with a terrible new health problem, which gives me an unbearable constant pain; such normal bodily posture as lying on my back or belly, sitting, standing, walking, bending, jumping or running is now a luxurious act which i cannot afford any more. that's to say, i am almost disabled, and i do not know how long i will have to suffer like this. the only thing i know is that canadian doctors are totally helpless in this case except perhaps that they could use scalpels to cause more future problems.

this is the detail: on oct 8, i mopped the floor for my old mom; the next morning i felt a bad back pain;  around the noon time i and my younger brother went to visit my late father's tomb. unable to bend down to kowtow as every filial son was expected to do, i ignited a big roll of firecrackers and thus could not help jumping and turning away as they exploded. that's  how i got the problem: a herniated disc between l5 and s1.

in the following few days, i stayed in a buddhist temple called 'grand compassion temple,'  where i fasted strictly for 48 hours, and practised being a monk for 5 days. i had three purposes in mind: to do what my dad used to do there as a memorial gesture (he used to volunteer a month at least once a year in the temple and donated all his savings to it); to say my prayers for my two sons; and to gain first-hand experience as a chan/zen practitioner in a temple. to my disappointment, the abbot is not so well learned or approachable as i had expected; rather, he is perhaps a little too money-minded, while other residing monks and nuns are neither buddha-minded nor well-behaved as i had imagined.

unable to bear the back pain caused by the herniated disc, i returned to jingzhou and went to hospital directly as arranged by my Mom on oct 13. i was 60% recovered as a result of intensive physio therapy before boarding the plane to vancouver, but after the flight, the problem got much worse, and since then i have been suffering badly.

perhaps this is a good time/reason for me to take a literary break?

- my donation to u of saskatchewen has resulted in the establishment of 'the yuans award in canadian literature,' which was confirmed only 2 days ago after much delay.

- i posted Poetry Pacific (4.2) on nov 5, as scheduled, made pushcart nominations in addition to our nominations for 'best of the net anthology' (made in august). of course, i did all this while pain kept bugging me every minute.

sept. updates: yuan's lit endeavours

- after almost two months of hard work and extreme frustration, i have just had 10,000 hard copies of the first english-chinese edition of Wisdom for Abundance  《豐盛的智慧》delivered from shenzhen to hangzhou (on aug 31), and another 20,000 copies to be delivered to the author's home in surrey, british columbia (around september 19). on the one hand, the author/representative delayed again and again in signing the contract and making the payments, while the printer keeps failing to honor their signed contract and refusing to deliver, or even to book the delivery of, the books on time. as a result, i have to suffer more losses of both time and money and go through a great deal more of unnecessary frustration. after i leave vancouver on sept 7, Allen has to take care of everything and makes sure all the books are delivered from the harbour to the author's home. fortunately, the printing quality is very satisfactory.

from this experience, i feel all the more strongly that it's so much easier and more enjoyable to deal with objects/words than with humans! as the translator, editor, proofreader, typesetter, publisher and printing/import agent of the book, how i love to touch every word, every page of it!

- i wrote more than 20 poems in august, half of them belonging to a serial poem titled 'boyhood buoys' about my early life experiences as a poor village boy in china. a few of them have already been accepted by different magazines. in fact, i had 18 acceptances by new outlets in august.

- towards the end of last month, i finished answering all the 6 interview questions raised by the editor of Dukool, a us-based monthly arts and culture magazine (in print) for Bengali-Americans across the globe. this is the 9th time for me to be interviewed by a literary publication, the first time by an english magazine for minority readers.

- the anthology titled The Revolving City, edited by Wayde Compton and Renee Sarojini Saklikar, published by anvil press, is to be released at sfu's public square on sept 23. my poem 'immigration' is included as a result of my participation in sfu's lunch poems program on dec 17, 2014. for more info: http://www.sfu.ca/publicsquare/lunchpoems or  http://www.sfu.ca/publicsquare/upcoming-events/lunch-poems/the-revolving-city.html

- last but not least, i have committed myself today (on sept 1) to a 20-year donation plan to set up 'Yuans Poetry Bursary' in my alma mater the university of saskatchewan to support the study and/or publication of canadian poetry by esl authors. my purpose is to encourage new immigrants in canada to write their unique differences into poetry in english as their second language. i will never forget that it was u of s that offered me five years of scholarship while i pursued my graduate studies in english literature there. without the scholarship, i would not have been able to obtain my visa to leave china, let alone obtaining my ma, and phd in english. (columbia university offered me something to pursue a phd in tesol, but the funds were far from enough for me to get a visa to the states, while ubc offered me much less than u of s. that's why i eventually chose to attend u of s.)  in other words, i want to show my lifelong gratitude for u of s in a committed way rather than sporadically. i will contribute an amount of $500 cdn to begin with, which i may increase gradually depending on my financial situation. also, i will encourage my posterity to continue the program after i die. as for the terms or requirements, i may change them over time.

- during my sojourn in my native place (where i somehow can never write a single stanza, nor do i even know how to speak english), i will take a solid rest, try to keep away from a screen, stay as close as possible to nature, and live in Great Compassion Temple for some time as a Buddhist monk.

----------------------------

NOTICE:

as i am to stay between now and october 22 in my native place in china where i have no internet access, Poetry Pacific Press, as well as Poetry Pacific will take a vacation until then. 

happy reading/writing!

with all best for a great golden autumn, 

-yuan

[archived]: Poems by Changming Yuan © - 1/2014

2014

Seascape  

So heavy has the night grown

The horizon sags deep, deeper

Into the heart of the ocean, where

A new sun is slowly reacting, rising

As if to push up the entire world back

High above the morning

Quit It Tonight, Jesus

Come on, jesus

I know you are always busy

Writing your program for

All the lives in the universe

Admit it that you

Simply hate

This code monkey

Business of yours; why

Not quit it tonight, but

Let each fate write its own

Why not come out of your little castle

Walled with biblical pages?

Bored as you are, jesus

Why not just quit it tonight?

American Free Speech: ‘Kill Everyone in China’

During ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live! aired on 29 October 2013, a 6-year-old boy  proposed to ‘kill everyone in China’; in reply to the wide protest against such verbal violence, the White House recently declared: “the principle of protected free speech is an important part of who we are as a nation."

Apparently, it is not the tiny guy

But his big parents

Who would very much like

To kill everyone in China

No, it is not even his parents

But his teachers, the picture

Books he reads, the movies he watches

The computer games he plays, and

The media bombs he hears constantly

That encourages him to do so

On the other hand, it is not the yellow-skinned

Yellow-hearted Chinese really

But anyone that has a hue different from a wasp

That may turn out more civilized, less hypocritical

Or as innocent as the little angel sitting at the ABC’s

Round Table that Uncle Sam and his dogs of war

Aim to kill, destroy, wipe out from the earth

Just to get rid of any debts they owe

To you and me

Evening Walk

Each time I take a stroll after supper

I am haunted by the idea why night falls down

Far thicker and faster

On my neighborhood than elsewhere

In particular, I often see the fanciest house trembling

Like a tortured monster, as darkness shot

Out of its chimney, greenish blood gushing out

From its pipes, giant shapes charging

Towards the windows like bloated moths, smelling

Of fresh human corpses, myriads of muted voices

Screaming so hard as to thrust open the entire roof

Every time I would keep myself farther away from the

Residence, in case it might drag me into the black fire

That backfires from inside. The house belongs to

A new governor, just elected, a passer-by once told me

House Renovating

Our neighbor actually has a much newer house

But they have never stopped renovating it

For the past four years; always so noisy

Even in the depth of dead night.

More strangely, they hire no one

But do everything by themselves

Their materials looking extra-ordinary, for

They are made of human flesh and hair

Their paint smelling of human blood

Their exterior walls dotted with bloated eyes

Of human infants. No one knows

What kind of house they are trying to have

Chip

It all began with this chip

A chip broken off a digitalized bone

See? This brown stuff clustered

Around its rim is not rust

Nor is it thick human blood

Newly dried up; rather

It is red spirits, so condensed

They need a longer time

To shake themselves off

And fly into the air, not unlike

All the evils and devils

Locked inside the Pandora’s Box

Looking forward to Snow

Like the notes of light music

Sending from the other world

More like the spirits dancing

In a universal mime

Most like myriads of fairs trying

To smooth every sharp angle

To fill in every crack or crevice

To paint every surface into soft white

With their tender fluffy fingers, snow

Is expected to arrive, as I am waiting

Through the prolonged piety

Of the church within my mind, through

The solitary silence of my soul

To come and perch on my heart, as it is

Becoming a dying crow

Lost in the season

Within Our Coordinate

You are the x axis

I am the y axis

While everything else

Everyone else, including

Every world of dichotomies, is nothing

Nobody, but a plot

Or a dot

Between us

Metasequonia King

Neither the oldest

Nor the tallest

Not even the thickest

But the only survivor of a whole lost civilization

You have been standing for centuries in my home province

Against all storms and seasons

Among scattered cottages with straw-thatched roofs

Walled with corn-stems, deep in an unknown valley

You were discovered as a living fossil the other day

And ever since then, a park has been expanded

Into a national reserve, where worshippers keep

Coming to pay their homage, where your offspring

Begin their long march into every city

Of the new world, where you are growing

Strong and straight, shading the main streets and

Back lanes, as if to remind all foreigners of

Real dinosaurs and real ice ages

Not unlike me, or my fellow diasporas

A Modest Proposal

Now that we have had plenty of NGOs

To protect Great Bamboo Lemurs, China

White dolphins, Ivory-billed Woodpeckers

Black Rhinos, Wildlife Ginseng, Bois Denelle

Bobob Tree, Venus Fly Trap, the Cycad

How about starting to think about the ways of

Protecting or preserving some gentlemen

And gentlewomen? Shall we at least

Try first to collect their spirits?

Calling

Like the little guy screaming to his own death

On the collapsing bridge in Edmund’s painting

My other self is constantly calling

At the very top of its voice from the deepest

Valley of my sub-consciousness, from

The most remote corner of my inner world

From the darkest spot of my dream

Although its calls are muted, they travel afar

Echoing even beyond a whole continent

Like the calls of a blue whale, whose salty voice

Has such a high pitch that no human ears

Can hear them here and now

Big Rock Mouth

Far from Zhangjiajie, the UNESCO-designated nature park

In China; farther from the Louise Lake in Banff

The tourist hotspot in Canada; yet close to the little town

Where I was born, and even closer to

The paradise on earth, your are actually an unknown corner

Falling off from Eden, rather than a natural reservoir

Hidden in a remote valley, where hills are more

Like green elephants, where the water is sweeter

Than Coke Cola, with each tree more outstanding

More graceful than a fashion model walking around the Eiffel Tower

With each rock more artistic than a masterpiece of

Beethoven or Picasso. Even though no tourist has ever passed by

You feel neither lonely nor upset: is it because you find yourself

Fully fulfilled among the words arrayed in his poetry?

At the Estuary

As if the whole continent is having a diarrhea

Trying to excrete all the filth from within its body

This flattened asshole throws out huge volumes of

Animal tears and sweat, riding on swift currents

Of human blood, run off from both banks; surging

On the surface are endless waves of monstrous concepts

And constructs, followed by rafts of skulls and skeletons

Every grain of sand containing a stained soul; there are

No fishes swimming by, except rotten human corpses

Eyes swollen like dead octopuses, ebbs turning and

Swirling around to suck in every cry from above the dark sky

As the most newly-invented gods try to jump out of the flow

From time to time, as if to call for help before entering the ocean

Family Secrets (1): Best Poetry

Boil these few poems of mine, Son

And you will be able to see

And even smell my spirit as it

Evaporates above our family name

Take a sip once in a while, and you

You will never run short of inspirations

Whenever you take up your pen 

Spontaneous Meditation

On a rainy night, you will find

Yourself much sleepier

Than you seemingly remain awake

That’s when you are safer from

Wild beasts that may come out

To disturb you; when less light

And less oxygen make you feel

More relaxed; when the white noise

Fills in every blank of your consciousness

More important, when you become truer

Or closer to your entire inner being

Stars and Humans

Each moving along its own orbit

Stars never collide, no matter

How crowded they are

In a corner of the universe, but here

On earth we humans

Constantly run into each other

Not only because we are attracted

And live close, but also because

We travel along the same few paths

To gold, to fame, to sex, or to office

The Gardener

Like a bee, he is always busy

Attending the parties of flowers

But he never really stops to

Collect a single rose

Or dwell upon a tiny petal

Even when the whole season

Is in full blossom

The Hostess

She is not the hostess, but she never

Fails to warmly greet anyone that has just passed

Away: you are on the air

Grammatical Rules (1)

All proper nouns, like the first

Person pronoun singular, like

Your name, must be capitalized

And can never be used in the plural

Unless you turn out nothing but

A common countable nominal being

Grammatical Rules (2)

A pronoun must have a

Antecedent, with which it

Should agree in person, in sex

In number, just like a

Married couple, a father

And son, a human and his soul

Another Rainy Day, Granville Street

Water splashing against walls

And windows with each car

Passing by, colored umbrellas moving

Above unidentifiable human legs

Red light blinking towards the storm and

White noise, every cherry tree skeleton

Trying hard to find a shelter, a long-necked man

Hopping around with yesterday’s

Vancouver Sun on top off his bald head

An oversized truck full of

Thick cement pipes making a large turn

As a bus is waiting for strangers

To get off or on, all in wet cartharsis 

Which Is the Mirror for Which

The word ‘mirror’ is a mirror for the mirror

Just as a cave is a mirror for bats, the painting

A mirror for colors, shapes and lines, the cloud

A mirror for the sky or heaven, the bark

A mirror for the wind, the lake a mirror

For the mountain, the call a mirror

For the cuckoo, and the screen

A mirror for the human mind

When the thought is smashed into cutting pieces

There will be more mirrors for facts, for history

Have a Nice Dream

Sleep well and have a nice dream, Son!

Take your time, Clock, and have a nice dream!

Water the world well, Rain, and have a nice dream!

Try not to snore, Oak, and have a nice dream!

Stop your white calls, Crow, and have a nice dream!

Have a nice dream, Osler Street!

Have a nice dream, Night!

Have a nice dream, Jesus!

Call it a day, my Otherself, and have a nice dream!

Four Frogs

For the past half century, I have never seen

A single frog in this city, not even in the whole country

But there are four big-mouthed frogs leaping around

Afar in a ricefield of my native village, four frogs

Squatting under the rotten bridge on the way leading

To an unknown town, four frogs playing on a big

Lotus leaf in my heart, four frogs calling constantly

From the dark pages of history invisible at midnight

Four frogs meditating under a puti tree transplanted

In a nature park, four frogs swimming into a fish net

Like bloated tadpoles, the same four frogs whose

Monotoned songs resonating aloud in different tongues

With different pitches, yes, the four frogs still there

Another Afterlife

Like a goat fleeing from the zoo

My trueself wandered afar

Into the heart of darkness, where

I saw Milton’s Satan struggling

With agonies, while swarms of spirits

Trembling amid a black fire

Following Dante’s steps, I tried to

Find Yuan Wang, the supreme ruler

Of the underworld, hoping to

Exchange my soul

For his little brushpen

(he uses to keep his registry book

Much like Dr. Faust selling his

For worldly knowledge

My majesty, I began to negotiate

But there is no registry here

The king said, just suffering subjects.

Meanwhile, others are also trying to

Greet him in an endless queue

Here I find no classes

No sexes, no age or racial differences

Except human souls drifting into

A huge alchemic furnace, where

They are boiled with conceptions

Until we all evaporate above the ground

Like mists, on a sunny summer morning

This is neither escape nor astray

Word Journey

While hiking in the wild

I found a foreign word

Lying on the yin side

Of a slope as night began

To fall, I picked it up

Trying to use it to light

My way ahead, but the word

Did not burn, nor did it give

Any smell. Then I chewed it

Like a condensed energy candy

But it was tasteless and too hard

So I put it against my chest

And let it resonate with my heartbeat

When a fresh sun hops aloud

High above my darkened dream

I finally coughed it out with blood

Never knowing it

To be a noun or verb

The Worst Fear

There is a kind of fear, much

More worse than feeling itself

Also, it is so subtle that you

Can hardly distinguish it from

What you must have felt each

Time you are hard pressed with

Loss, ageing, danger, death

Becoming overwhelmed with

Worry or anxiety

This fear has a nickname

Called love

Or

Philosophy, among myriads of

Constructs in metaphysics

Objects in nature, or

Phenomena in history

Is, according to old Hegel

Like the god in the temple

Like the killing field

Like flowers and fruit

Like Minerva’s owl

Like digestion

Like physiography, the same one motto, or

Like the animals listening to music, which may

Become real when expressing itself

Or expressed through the rational alone

More exactly, like a drop of summer rain

The yin seeking balance with the yang

Within a pumpkin, the words squeezed

Out of your ball pen, the emptiness in

A meditating mind, and that is all

There is, or there is not to it

Helleh

While all my fellow humans hope to 

Enter heaven after they die, I am alone

Living in paradise already:

An earthly realm I have built myself

With the light from Lapland, where the setting sun

Shines with the morning glows above golden snow

The air from Shangri-la, where the yin

And yang are in pure and perfect balance with

Each other in every grass, every cloud

The water from Waterton Lakes, which

Reflect the mountain of trees as clearly

As the mountain reflects upon the clear water

That’s all my spirit needs, not the fragments

Of the meaning about Eden long lost

But the whole backyard within my solitary heart

Greatest Gift

The most generous gift life has offered each

Of us is our own mind, something that is

Not a hidden mine, but an open field

Where you can grow rice, tea, corn, or bananas

Where they can cultivate hope and even magic

Itself, most important, we can enjoy absolute

Freedom, with which to destroy or build anything

Anyone, anytime to our hearts’ content

Examples of Euphemism

Shoot!

Americanization!

Gosh!

Donkey!

My Goodness!

Uncle Sam!

OMG!

USA!

Jeez!

The Elephants!

Darnit!

Foot!

The ‘F’ word!

The ‘A’ Letter!

GD!

What These Words Have in Common?

Among all the nouns in all languages, this word has the most synonyms,  which include agent, auctioneer, banker, bargainer, bootlegger, broker, bursar, businessperson, canvasser, chandler, changer, chapjack, clerk, concessionaire, consigner, costermonger, dealer, discounter, dispernser, distributor, entrepreneur, e-tailer, exporter, fencer, gyp, haberdasher, haggler, handler, hawker, higler,  huckster, hustler, jobber, merchandiser, merchant, marketer,  monger, outcrier, palterer, peddler, pitcher, pusher, rep, reseller, retailer, salesclerk, salesperson, , scalper, seller, shopgirl, shopkeeper, smuggler, solicitor, tinker, trader, trafficker, tycoon, vendor, wholesaler…

What else to spell or sell?

Village Fair

In this open market

There are as many

Tangible or intangible

As human or inhuman

Goods for sale for all of us

To bargain round the clock:

Hopes, dignity, countries

Identities, square pumpkins

Soft rocks, virginity

Names, blood, perms, wounds

3-legged goats, siamese frogs

Burned blood, isolated ideas

Sex, feeling, manhood

Among other words, other imaginings 

How much is this

How much are you?

Convergence

His presence is falling upon me

More forcefully than a summer shower

Downpouring right from heaven. Everywhere

My mind wanders around will hung

A rainbow high above my absence

It is this wet metaphor that has balanced

All the yang elements in my heart with the yin

Ones outside my bloated selfhood

Music

Ancient Indian legend has it

That the origin of music

Was an om, supposedly the very

First and the most primitive note

(Whose frequency can cause resonance

If you adapt yours to it)

Although most educated people would say today

It is the big bang

That has been pushing its sound waves

Farther and farther

Beyond the boundaries of the universe

A fundamental feature

That can offer penetrating pleasure to any human

Ears anywhere anytime

Is the silence, a blank absence

Where the yin and yang reach

A higher balance within

A meditating mind

A sound of silence

A note whose frequency resonates with your inner being

Hawking

Some sell themselves for power

Some for sex

While others for fame, for money

Yes, we are all hawkers trying to sell

Whatever we have, or have not

Before the sun sets

In a village fair, where vendors

Far more outnumber buyers

Motifs: the Proto Bagua Poem

qian

Far from the southern sky comes along my later

Father, whose head turns towards the Northwest

And on a robust horse, his brain shines like gold

dui

Beyond the West      Lake a young girl

Tries to drive a herb of sheep into a metal

Mouth sucking in all the painful pleasures

li

an oriental woman of beauty rises

slowly above   the southern fire

her eyes burning with wild sparks

zhen

high above the eastern             wood the yellowish dragon

kicks all the thunders               around with its sharp craws

while his son moves back and forth following his own heart

xun

as the wind keeps blowing through the southeastern wood

your daughter feels lost at the entrance like a hen eager to

leave for something beyond    the fence and front yard

kan

both above and below             the house overflows the water

while a man in the middle finds himself trapped like a wild hog

whose ears would hear            nothing from the west or north

gen

a young boy uses his strong hands to move the dark earth

from the nearest ground                 to the northeastern corner

where to build a big hill                 to block his beloved dog

kun

everything will go smooth                   as long as our mother is

still busy cooking at home                   and cows feeding them

selves happily on the grass                  land stretching to south

Exit

Not to overstate this

But for hundreds of times

I have imagined myself

Leaving for an African

Forest like a dying elephant

So that I can bury myself there

In total obscurity and oblivion

As if I had never come to this

World. Yes, I am really haunted

By this suicidal whim

Not because I am tired of

Suffering from this unbearable

Loneliness, anxiety

That makes me a living dead

But because I long

For that ultimate dignity

Godly Joy

Sometimes I just wanna retreat

From my position in life, like a soldier

From his in a battlefield. No, not exactly

That would sound like a deserter; rather

I wanna hide myself within the boundary

Of my yellowish skin; better to withdraw

Into the deepest corner in my heart, where I

Don’t have to care whether to sit or stand

Where to look at or put my hands

What to smell, say or hear, a womb-like place

Where I can focus all my attention on my

Inner being, and let my outer self deal with

All the troubles of life, like bills, food, tea

Telephone rings, junk emails, mortgages, etc.

In a word, I wanna find a war-free zone

Where my innerself is absolutely free

Without having to return to the cage

Like the pigeon I really wanna keep

Hypergrammatical Rules: Adjective

Either as a complement

After a linking verb

Or as a modifier right

Before a nominal property

You are a part of speech

That can never be a subject

Even an object on your own

Like most humans who live

Only to describe others

Fuck the Guard Dog

But beware of the frog

Fuck the Shakespearean sonnet

But beware of the poetry scribbler

Fuck the inner party

But beware of the politician

Fuck the mid-summer sky

But beware of the west wind

Fuck the red red rose

But beware of the thorny stem

Fuck the trendy concept

But beware of the coinage

What I wanna say is

Feel free to fuck, pal

But beware of the hug

Wealth Accumulating

Ending her 3-session lecture

On how to plan your fiancé

And finance your plan, the advisor

Says, ‘Attitude’ is all

That determines success:

Because in this magic word

‘a’ is letter 1 in the alphabet

‘t’ 20,’i’ 9, ‘u’ 21, ‘d’4 and ‘e’ 5

In other words, ‘atti’ accounts for half

And ‘tude’ for the other

Together they add up to 100 per cent

Now begin to count, you poor idiot!

Balancing Up

Beyond the bay 

You are the presence

Of water 

Though that is never the geography 

Once you move

You become what is flowing  

Wherever you stay

You join the current

(Without overflowing with it)

To dissolve into a transparent moment

At which your spirit is to reflect 

While none of us has the cause

For staying here

You stay

To balance things up

Rain, in Vancouver

Out of days of days

And weeks of weeks of

Rain,rain that hit every roof

That cleansed the air

That wetted all masks and clothes

That flooded the widest gaps

That ran off from the narrowest sidewalk

Have you deconstructed your dried inner being

Until another, just another rainy season

Loneliness

All feelings are sharable, somehow

Except loneliness

Loneliness that drives you into the very depth

Knowingly

Like a caterpillar retreating, hiding itself

In its own cocoon

Where it keeps gnawing at the wall

      Until it flies out, like a butterfly

Seeing Shapes

Something was flapping, afar

(Was it a butterfly from the Amazon?)

Beyond the mountain shadow

While many futuristic figures

Perhaps the aliens

Are migrating secretly

Perhaps we shall have to too?

Nullius in Verba: the Progress of Science

To see

            Each phenomenon

      In shape

                        Line and

Color

Is

To believe

            Its very essence

      In number

                        Quantity and

Relationship

Zheng He vs Columbus

When the Ming eunuch set out to sea

With his 30 thousand men in huge boats

He was going to look for nothing, not even

For his emperor, be it fur, spices or even gold

On the contrary, he was ready to give fine china

Tea, silk to any barbarians they could see

In Southeast Asia, Middle East, or North Africa

More than a century later, Columbus began his venture

With a couple of hundred sailors, aiming to discover

Every kind of treasure, who might very well

Have all died without the help of local Indians

PS: soon after their voyages, the Chinese were conquered

By barbarians, while the Europeans founded their global empire

Autumn Dew Purple

One of the famous six combat horses favoured by Tang China’s great founding emperor Taizong, Autumn Dew Purple is the only surviving stone relief of the six set.

While still alive, you were determined to die a heroic death

On the battlefield, like one of Taizong’s most valiant

And capable generals; more than a thousand years later

Long since your demise, your beauty and spirit have helped

Your stone relief survive all human wars and natural disasters

Now standing still in Penn Museum, you are never to 

Evaporate in the light of a manmade sun, but your noble

Blood has dried up into a solid purple, far away from your

Home, where you were born to guard your rider, amid autumn dews

UN

At the security council in Heaven

Christ is 99% of a mummy

Newton has long since dozed off

Laozu is to abstain from voting

While Satan and Allah are fighting fiercely

To chair the meeting

Newton’s Third Law

           

Just as there is an equal

And opposite reaction

For every action, you are to

Receive whatever you give

Be it a curse or verse

How much does it contribute to happiness/success?

Knowledge: 11+14+15+23+12+5+4+7+5=96%

Work hard: 98%

Luck: 47%

Love: 54%

Money: 72%

Leadership: 89%

Wealth: 69%

House: 49%

Power: 98%

Attitude: 100%

That is, if letter ‘a’ accounts for 1, ‘b’ for 2…

---------------

Time

Is definitely not

An indefinitely big orange

But we have cut it

Into regular slices of carpels

So thin and so tiny

We can no longer get the taste of

Its shiny flesh, nor can we

See its juicy color while

Eating it

Now we have even forgotten it both looks

And tastes like sunlight

At the Numidic Quarry

An open museum

Embedded here once upon a long time ago

How was the all powerful Roman Empire

Chiseled out of this side of the mountain

Chip by chip

Piece by piece

Until it became so re-crystalized

As a whole civilization?

Pursuing Happiness: Episode 1

Happiness

Is a sunbird

Incubated at the tallest twig

Of your heart, where only the creature itself

Can peck open the eggshell to fly out; if you

Crack it open from the outside

It will die before it is born

Knot Theory

Your attachment to your past is

A big fast knot, while your connections

With all in your network

Nothing but a string

Of loose hitches

Cut the knot, and you will

Get broken bits, but untie the hitches

You will have a whole line

As simple as straight

As you like

Homemade Specialty

This bottle of wine is brew

out of sunshine

That dish of vegetable comes

    from the garden in my heart

How do you like it?

The Art of Origami

Each time I run short of inspirations

I would try to fold the dull season

Not into a decoration

But into a bird

I always hang it high

Above my head

Like my own spirit, where I

Can hear the droning complaints of

Each creature over its pain

The pity is, my senses are often too soft

To hold the shape firm

Self-Portraying:  A Word Is

Actually Worth Much More

Than Ten Thousand Pictures

Although Many People Would

Allege the Opposite Is True 

In-lightened

Intimacy: in the Name of Art

Once upon a long long time ago

At a drab karaoke corner in the far far east

Half-heartedly, without knowing this was

Actually a prearrangement made by

His old mischievous schoolmates

He climbed upon a colt-like girl

From his small native town

Squeezing several drops of yellow syrup

Into a tiny plastic bag embedded

Between her thick legs, like a primitive robot

Fulfilling a domestic task; there was

Neither foreplay, nor after-joy,

No orgasm, no dirty talk, no eye contact

No exchange of names, feelings, experiences

Except a big-solidarity, as red-faced

As the muted memory of his red pasts

When they departed in a dull evening

Did he eventually write a poem about this experience

As he had hoped?

Modern Civilization

1

0

Time Changing

I have neither cash

nor even a bank account

Let alone a safebox,

But I do have

This password

For all my websites

Psycho-Astrology: Mind-Looks

At the center of my inner space

There is a big black hole

It keeps sucking in all

The dark matter

Besides light

Like a transparent magnet

Attracting not only luck

And smiles, but also

Every kind of misfortune

Every kind of evil spirit

That’s how I look

What my heart is

Would Or Wouldn’t: the Variations of the Wing

If every human had a pair of wings

(Made of strong mussels and broad feathers

Rather than wax like Icarus’)

Who wouldn’t jump high or become eager to fly

Either towards the setting sun

Or against the rising wind?

Who wouldn’t migrate afar with sunshine

And glide most straight to a warmer spot

In the open space? Indeed

Who would continue to confine himself

Within the thick walls of a small rented room?

Who would willingly take a detour

Bump into a stranger, or stumble down

Along the way? More important

Who would remain fixed here

At the same corner all her life

Like a rotten stump, hopeless

Of a new green growth?

Limbo Residence

The whole street stretches

towards the sunlight

While my windows, only my windows

Are all heavily curtained

behind darkness

------------

2014,6,4

Ceteris Parisbus

Allah

Buddha and

Christ will join each other to stand for a new

Alphabet

Beginning with

Change

Inner Dersertization

Along the border of my yellowish skin

I have planted rows of rows of huyang trees

To guard against the Goby engulfing

My entire inner territory, where

The last oasis is threatened not only

By the deforestsration in the outer world

But also by the drought that has been

Blowing away almost all of the topsoil

Covering my living spirit 

Truth

Is as cold as hard

As a big chunk of floating ice

That each human eye can see

Only one surface

At a time from

Either the boat or the bank

While it flows towards the sea, where

It will evaporate up to the tropical sky

Kharma: A Mega Romance

It has taken the entire human history

For her and him

To meet

To be together, and

Sure, they will spend

All their futures alone

On an earth

Newly broken off

From this planet

Two Worlds

With only one sun

Moving around your world

You have to dream

In total darkness

Half of the time

And deal with

All kinds of shadows

During the day

Given as many as nine suns

That keep turning

Around my inner universe

My soul dwells in a realm

Full of light

Self-Insight

First, take off all your clothing

Then, skin off your masks

As well as your tattoos

Bit by bit, or

Layer by layer

Until you can tear your whole selfhood off

From your consciousness, and you will

See your true spirit

As fresh as tender

As a spring sprout

Ready to grow

Into a new onion

Tenancy Paradox

In this rented life of yours

Why to own a house by mortgaging it

Against your free will?

Carnivores: the Progress of the Humankind

While all the beasts in the wild

Enjoy both rotten and fresh corpses

We the rest in walled rooms eat

The fresh or frozen body parts only  

Short vs Long: a Dichotomic Poem

Short is my attention span, even

Shorter is breath, and the very

Shortest is my inspiration, but long

Long will be my life

In this short line

Thin vs Thick: Another Dichotomic Poem

This cup of tea

Made out of my life

Looks as thick as my blood

Or your hair

His hope

Even that forest

But it tastes

As thin as the human fate

Light vs Heavy: Another Dichotomic Poem

They all say light is the lightest of all

But I find it tremendously heavy

Heavy with each proton full of

Weighted souls 

Paper Plane: for Yuan Hongqi

I can never afford a spaceship

Nor do I even have a toy rocket

But I have many a sheet of paper

I have folded it, kept folding each

Into a plane, and launching it

From my humble homesite

One after another

High into the night sky

To fly close, closer, and the closest

To where his Buddhahood is sitting

Above a lotus flower, where his smile

Shines like the sunlight upon his sons

And grandsons down here, where he will catch

A plane gliding to him like a blue bird

Can you see its wings drafted with the poems

I have written for you, Dad

Saying Yes

Yeah! Ya! Yup! Yebo!

Okay! Sure! Excellent!

No problem! That’s it!

Oyez! Oyez! Oyez!

Yes! Aye! Uh-huh!

Certainly! Of cuz!

That’s more like it!

Oyez! Oyez! Oyez!

All right! Great!

Absolutely! You can say that again!

Oyez! Oyez! Oyez!

All’s right with the world!

2014, 6, 24

Cock-A-Doodle-Doo

Born in a year of the rooster

You were fated to crow

But not so high in the sky

Like any other bird flying fast by

Rather, you perch low

Low on a broken fence

(Still reserved for ghosts and spirits)

Crowing as aloud as you can

To welcome every sun

Looming above the dawn

Yes, you are vociferous, both because of

Your breed, and your personality

Soundscaping

Buzz! Baa! Bark! Bray! Bow-wow!

Chirp! Cluck! Coo! Croak!

Growl!

Hiss!  Howl!

Moo! Meow!

Oink!

Purr!

Quack!

Rattle! Roar!

Slurp! Sniff! Squeal!

Tweet!

Woof!

Yap!

Shh ! Who’s winning the vote 

On the animal farm?

Every Book Is a Horse

Long since have I been riding

This little book from the start

Under our village poplars

Each holding many a cicada

Whose song can lead me

To a puti tree far beyond the lotus pond, where

Everyone has a book to write and, if not

Everyone is a book

To read or ride

Song of a Tone-deaf: for Allen and George Yuan

There is often such a time when you, a no-songster 

Would want to sing aloud to yourself, a song

That everyone else might also love to sing; the song

Whose lines you never remember, nor can you

Control your pitch as it rises and falls randomly

On its own, nor will you keep the tune on the

Right track; the song whose rhythm you do not

Care to follow, while lost in your little privacy

The song that has an evasive melody

Deeply encoded in your heart

Although you sound like a duck or donkey

Your voice is full of euphonies

Trance

While meditating at dusk

I see an enlightened butterfly

Breaking newly from the chrysalis

Of my mind, like a

Message emitted into

The night sky, waiting to be

Picked up by an unknown radio

Flapping against the autumn air

Is my inner being, from bough to bough

Marpole, Vancouver: for Liu Yu

It rains a lot in Vancouver

Often does this rain remind me of

The days when you sojourned here

With my family, after Father left all of us

While walking in the rain, you would

Recall, under my big umbrella

How you once waited in a drizzle

With me in a broken basket on your back

To cross the widening river, not far

From our village when I was crying hard

For a large spoonful of flour soup (you were too

Weak and too hungry to produce any milk)

Seeing you do nothing about my hunger

The ferry man asked, Where is its mom?

I am his mother!  You replied, tears rolling down

With the raindrops on your childish face

How old are you then? – Almost 17.

It is raining again in Vancouver, and beyond this rain

Your voice echoes aloud on the other side of this world

Final Relaxing Moment

Don’t be afraid, pal

It’s really going to be

The most pleasurable dream

You can ever hope to have, where you

Will be put on a pile of soft light

Drifting slowly and weightlessly, just

As you used to shake in your mom’s womb

Where all your consciousness is sponged

Out of your mind, where you will have no hearing

No smelling, no tasting, no touching, except

A single outlandish idea about your selfhood

Stuffed with nothingness, which you feel as if

You could catch and throw it around

Like your own body, your own spirit

Modern/Americanization

Every year there is

As much summer

As many a tree here

Than in my native village in China

But there is not a single cicada

At any twig, or among any clusters

Of leaves, a cicada that I used to listen to

Singing aloud monotonously, like a

Fine saw working on a rusty metal

Or between my boyish ears

What I hear is a deafening American voice

About selling every human

Behavior, every human whim 

That keeps penetrating each animal ear

Y as in Yolk: for Misako Chida

totally lost in chan meditation

i perceive my yellowish spirit

bloated into a yolk-shaped balloon

hanging so high in the blue sky

as i start to float around, looking

for an answer to the question

about the first letter of my family

name, i find my entire inner being

enclosed tightly with huge rose petals

rather than sitting above a lotus flower

down on the ground is left behind my outer self

shrinking like a stuffed crow

[note: written on 12 june 2014 Thursday to pair Misako Chida's "looking for an answer"]

Autumn Wind

You have chopped off every head

Every head-shaped

Or every head-like object

In the wild field is left nothing

But stumps, each as naked as a human soul

Shivering within a skeleton

Childhood Secrets

When I was three or four, I buried

Several hard-gained marbles

Near our rented room, hoping one day

They would grow into magic trees

Half a century later, I dug them all out

On a dull afternoon. The moment

I put the first one on my table, a flock

Of crows flew up; when I thought of

The second, it burned like a forest fire

Now I hesitate to write the word ‘immortality’

Lest my last marble should melt with diamonds

Community Theater

Deep at the heart of our world is there 

No stage, a place where we can put on

Shakespearean plays, or perform

Our own shows; rather, with the

The shades of our inner beings, we create

Our drama up on a huge open wall

Where each of us makes a soliloquy

Without seeing any other human shape

While gods and ghosts are dancing

In colored costumes near the spotlight

Neither is there writing on the wall besides

Reflections of shadows of democracy