[archived]: Poems by Changming Yuan © -2008

-Chinglish Sayings

Adjectives

The moon over America is bigger and rounder than china

The crows in the rose garden are less black than the forbidden city

Adverbs

We natural follow our hearts more close than to our minds

Those standing most closest can strike most deadliest

Verbs:

The east wind will suppress the west wind is certain

We enjoy go watch play basketball on the weekend

Nouns:

Few Chinese individuals have really independent personality

In social relation face and golden mean are most important thing

Conjunctions:

Because china is the most populous country, so it has most problems

Tho our ancestors invented gunpowder, we used it for celebration only

Articles:

Firewood, rice, oil, salt, sauce, vinegar, tea are seven things of every household

People take food as sky while emperor is just as too far away as sky is too high

Prepositions:

Since we without the condition, we strongly against this system

We are desirous getting into the stage though we lack of masks

Pronouns:

We find simply inappropriate to use ‘I’ or ‘me’ too often

My home is the only place in which myself really cares

-The Making of a Best Poem

1/ A: a worthy arrangement of worthless words

B: a public print-out of private puzzles

C: a rational repetition of random ravings

2/ A: mailed from a good address, better school-associated

B: including a good bionote, better award-winning

C: signed with a good name, better recognizable

3/ A: received by a well-circulated magazine

B: read by a well-connected editor

C: recommended by a well-established publisher

4/ A: the magazine is in the right need

B: the editor is in the right mood

C: the publisher is of the right kind

5/ A: published in the perfect year

B: included in the perfect section

C: presented on the perfect page

6/ A: selected by a poetry lord, somehow intrigued

B: voted by an expert reader, somehow over-reading

C: chosen by a guest editor, somehow idiosyncratic

-Interview Interrupted

It does not sell a penny, even if it does

The honorarium can never offshoot the costs

Of the stamps, envelopes, pens and papers

Not to mention the computer and laser printer

Nor does it bring any worthy honor or fame

Since it died as early as a century ago

when people began to turn to novels, movies

fashion shows, tv, sports, rock and roll

Nor can it help articulate any post modern

Feelings, thoughts, impulses, dreams

Sensations, experiences which can be more

boldly expressed in digital fonts or formats

Nor can it really prove, record, mark, communicate

Criticize, satirize, promote, denounce, debunk

Describe, reflect, educate, stimulate, amuse

Amaze, appeal anything or anybody in today’s world

Indeed, whatever can be said has all been said

And whatever has been said is already the best

Of all the artworks plaguing this polluted world

Why the heck do you have to write poetry?

-Etymology-of-Love

It is perfectly easy:

All you need to do is

To separate ‘be’

From the intended act

Or take out the first letter

From the ‘glove’

[on your personality]

or simply press

and thus cover

the ‘g’ [spot with

Your whole being

Bare]

-Post-Modern Epitaphs

1. off line

2. tuned out

3. game over

4. id expired

5. a static statistic

6. too tired to toil for more fame and money

7. here I have found freedom, equality and fraternity

-Diphthongal Quartet

(for children and others)

hi the guy, dye the tie

I to my eye cry and lie

Why to vie and sigh in the rye?

Show or throw, a crow is no foe

No foe would go so very low

Flow the toe or owe a blow

How to tow, how to vow

Allow the bow for a pow-wow

Now to cow in order to row

Bake a cake, make a flake

Brake the snake for wake’s sake

Take the ache off the fake lake

-Sell-Liberation-of-Words’-Worth

Although with a broken pen soul

I am not writing tear ably or pointlessly

on the new clear issue for the magazine

run by a non-prophet society

set up on the basis of its members’ lie ability

To me, an operation would not secure but mean

a sentence to the peace in that infected area

As a banana author, I may lack a peel

but it is rarely better to turn left than to be all right

To avoid a rest, I’ve de sided to go fast on a weak day

then I will call my sun to rice in the mourning

after he falls in love at the first site

In deed, if we give the act an inch

it would become a ruler. Just like a life guard

I hope to keep all the buoys in line

With a film-like memory yet to be developed

I try to keep my head above the water

as I swim for word, yet I have no interest in the bank

Unlike a lawyer who may be debarred or a model

to be deposed, I’ll never become a poet to be decomposed

nor do I allow my train of thaw derailed; rather

I will commit sue side by continuing

to write worse or move in verse

-QUX: Waltz of Alphabet

[A]bide one [B]arrow

[C]art another [D]ear

[E]late in the [F]air

[G]love the [H]owl

[I]deal with the [J]ail

[K]ill to [L]earn

[M]arch the [N]arc

[O]pen a [P]lay

[R]ice for the [S]crawl

[T]angle the [V]ale

[W]rite about the [Z]one

-Dancing Definitions

Descant of beauty

Art of mechanics

Geometry of youth

Poetry personified

Painting in 4 dimensions

Heavenly handwriting

Figure thinking

Rhythm of imagination

Each and all

In human dynamics

-Spelling-Test

Happy

Happy is the baby who picks and plays with a plain bottle among all the fancy toys

Happy

Successful

The dog is successful when it finds the bone it wants to chew

Successful

Love

If we love animals, they will love plants in return

Love

Peace

When mice begin to enjoy playing with cats, there will be peace

Peace

Healthy

Children are healthy as long as they are eating, running and giggling

Healthy

-Dearest-Discovery

If you have not yet found

The way to immortality

It does not matter, I have

And there is actually a short-cut

You don’t have to convert yourself

To avoid hell and go to heaven

Nor do you need to take elixirs

Or even try to accumulate prestige

Fame or creation does not help

All you ought to do is not to lose

Your self-awareness, the energy

That preserves itself after your death

Keep it or let it drift against night

It does not matter, if you really like

Concentration can turn it into

A spirit, a ghost or even a god

So, concentrate

-Towards-a-Broader-Highway

Is it an old bumpkin again

Driving a jalopy ford pick up

Unable to speed up on a highway

Or some mrs billionaire sitting behind the wheel

Of a s8000 mercedes

Too careful with her fancy life

Somewhere in the front?

Surely there is no accident

No police patrol or even a red light

You fuck, you dumb shit, why do you

Have to drive so stupid slow

On such a gray Saturday evening?

You dumb shit, you shouldn’t do this, people

eager to press horns on you, to zigzag, to

Switch on and off their highbeams to protest

Against you originating such snail traffic

All of us have to drive at this speed you set

Even tho a red toyota cannot wait to make love tonight

A blue mac to have a good beer all by himself

And a white shadow to meet her death by the weekend

You fuck, blocking this long single-laned traffic

If only I were driving a crazy tank or a frenzy bulldozer

That I can crash your stupid soul, crush your snail car

And clear the way to my destiny in the twilight

-Movements

1/ to the wild rhythm of an open fire

our ancestors danced with their naked bodies

in each other’s warm shadow

although they are total strangers before the cave

2/ to the blinking beat of a cold screen

we are now dancing with our gloved fingers

in the bright spots of our own minds

although we have no spectators in rented rooms

3/ to the unheard melody of a starry song

our offspring will dance with their lucent souls

along the borderline between earth and heaven

although they cannot distinguish themselves from air

-A: A Brief Biography

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

-Real-Or-Unreal Conditionals

As if the chrysanthemum leaf were more tender than the petal

As if the china cat were being chased by a cloned mouse

As if money became something like air or sunlight

As if god were to come to rescue your name or fame in particular at the end of the world

As if the knob could tune up love or wisdom

As if the sounds were more brilliant than cherry blossoms

As if the butterflies had never seen a flower

As if the sun were to rise every other month from the north

As if language and art were not modern behavior

As if I had really found the way to become a god after my death

As if you were all to live to 800 years

As if all the world’s water began to drain away from our planet tomorrow

As if consciousness evolved into the only form of intelligent beings…

-Dancing-with-Crane

I show her how to move her steps

But she’s much too timid

Worse still, she cannot coordinate with my movements

And

Although she dances with me, to an unheard melody

It’s her own music she’s dancing to

She likes the way I hold her

And

Even lets me kiss her shoulder from time to time

so richly white and velvety

But she always keeps me at bill’s length

Each time I come closer

She backs off with a glaring scream

What have I done so wrong?

What is in her mind?

Jumping off the stage

She shows her best, which is a scarlet crest

Like plum petals blown onto the wall of west

I beg her to return

And

So she did, but only to depart from me again

Outside the spotlight

She begins to beat her wide wings against my blue wishes

Her eyes sparkling, as if saying to me

I have my neck and legs

Both too thin and too long to be your partner here

In this cage-like hall

And

Worse still, she’s much too timid

-Primavera

Now another ice age is coming

Everyone knows how

-Day-&-Night

If each night rises

Outside each day

There lies a mighty mountain

Where darkness runs wild

You want to climb

Along this trail of light

And hunt for the rising darkness

Even without an arrow

-Bonsai

I had a conversation with a potted pine tree

Put precisely at the center of a corner

Among some dwarfed plants

Crowded in an ornamented house

Full of solid walls and railings

Like its twigs and even roots

All its protests were pinched and pruned

With the scissors of human art

It was mad, it was sad

Preferring to be growing in on a wild hilltop

From this pine tree deformed in a pot

I heard the muted cry of every soiled woe

Every suppressed life on earth

-Stream-And-Lake

All your life, you have been trying

Flowing, pouring and dissolving

Every droplet of your thick and transparent being

Into this lake

For her sake

Yet at the end it is you

Who turn yourself into the lake

Your gift is as long as your life

While she remains absent-minded

As if worshiping herself

And never becoming a stream

To merge with you

-Passengers

I am the type you are supposed to despise

Dark-haired

Yellowish-skinned

Smaller in size and duller in personality

More of a herbivore

I speak aloud in tongue

I eat noisily with bamboo sticks

I appear everywhere like locusts

I have recently been wanted by the editing authority

When the sun gets me

I am a dream walker

Now I am sitting beside you

In the same class

So whether you keep your eyes open or not

You can feel my warm shadow

Until we touch down

My breaths will invade

Your private space

My chanting will beat your ear drums

While you pursue your dream

My elbows or knees will occasionally

Touch or even hit yours

When monstrous clouds attack our plane

You’d better remain relaxed

Since it is not a matter of choice

Yet I am the type you are supposed to respect

I had an even happier childhood in nature

Although quite premature

I used to be the most civilized

Mighty and mysterious

I am in papers

I am not a phoenix

No more or less than a fellow traveler

With my own destination

So feel free to do whatever comforts you

We will travel together

-The-Peril-of-Watching-Too-Much-TV News

If you watch too much tv about what is going on beyond your living room

You go quite mad

That’s what marco polo used to say every time he saw someone

Watching the big well-washed mouth yabaaing in front of a bigger camera

All their reporters and editors, none of them a true fly on the wall

With their freaky bias and nancy ways of looking at others

Selecting and shuffling words and pictures about evil soviets

Demon chinese, civilized lamas, angel-like looters

Humans biting dogs, johns’ caps on jills’ heads, and the deer called a horned horse

All of em juggled and tripping over one another in your little fragile brain box

Well, it’s a bit like unleashing a whole century’s illusions out of the corral

To stampede right over your ears and eyes

All those colored or uncolored lies

Whirling around inside your poor skull

Beating up storms of yellow dust

So overwhelming you cannot see or hear with your own senses

The real other world which is just the real other world

They claim to be the bars helping cage the most ferocious among us

Yet they are more ferocious than the crowned lion preying around in the jungle

Listen – what I say is

If you believe everything bbc or cnn reports about their edited worlds

You go quite mad

-Animal Farm Revisited

The other day, I saw a vulture wearing the feathers of a dove

That happened to sneak into this fairy farm

There it was bullying pigs and goats into flight

Torturing ducks and roasters for having wings feathered with similar dreams

Beaking the bear because of its claws just as powerful

Conspiring with bulls, elephants and walking dogs against the dragon for trying to fly just as high

And threatening all others for emptying their bowels through their own ass holes

Just like itself

Did you honestly see that?

-You Know How Fast You Are Driving?

I have no idea, officer, but

I am trying to catch the next flight to heaven

I have an important appointment with an angel

I need to go to a washroom

This is my first day to go to work

This is my last chance to save my marriage

This is the only hope to find my lost child

This is the right situation for a surpass

My new boss is waiting for me

My new bride is expecting me

My baby is being borne

My father is dying in hospital

Something has gone wrong with my right foot

Something blurred my eyes for a moment

Something is not right with the odometer

Something funny is going on…

Sure, but I have to give your ticket

For driving too fast to your destination

-Have Aliens Found Us

Still

We haven’t em

We have found fossils

Those white birds of history

Their wings frozen in time

Once flying mischievously

In our personal climate

It’s all like hide-&-seek

They have found us

We haven’t em

Yet

-At the Gas Station

Does this gas

Taste of grain or blood to you?

They say pump

What you don’t drink with your mouth

Do all these nozzles

Serving the wrong thirst

Reach out from the same nightmare?

They say it’s all civilization

Anyway

So be a vampire

-Politicians & Public Opinion

This distorted shadow of a monster dancing widely

Or of a colossal rain cloud above the borderline between sea and sky

Constantly changing its shape and thickness

With lightning and thunder

Ready to blow or to be blown into an unseen bubble

By the whirl beaten up by another dancing monster

-Beggetting

On a bright night, at a violet site,

I sowed a seed onto a fertile field

Never expecting to enjoy the thick shade

Under this tall pine tree

Like an all-purpose shield

-Not My Ashes

No, please do not keep my ashes in that suffocating urn

Where my spirits can neither fly nor to the ground return

But throw me high, higher against a wild west wind

Let me travel along with this season’s sigh thinned

Like the seeds from an unseen hand

Spread finely across a far virgin land

-3 Sketches from Sichuan Earthquake [12May08]

1/ Mother and Baby

with all your human motherhood

your arms and legs like concrete poles

you created a safe cradle for your baby

as it enjoys sucking life from your withering breast

under tons of debris

2/ Teacher and Pupils

as the mountains clashed

you returned to the school sinking in the quake:

how did your single small body manage

to protect four teenagers from being smashed

by the walls caving in?

3/ Victim and Rescuers

just from the bloody battlefield against death

you are carried down on a stretch made of soldierly arms

too feeble even to feel alive

yet you remember to make a military salute

to the unseen PLAs supporting your boyhood

-No One Knows When

Deep in every human heart

Is caged a ferocious tiger

Always ready to spring out

And eat you or me alive

-How Does the Big Eagle

How does this big eagle

Improving its shining claws

And spring around like a mad beagle

To every unwritten clause

How innocent it pretends to be

How fresh it prefers fowl

And bullies the starving bee

Out of tasting a petal foul

-Requiem

Under a narrow and starless sky

Dig me no grave but let my fly

Loud did I sing and loudly sigh

Please throw me against a high wind

This be the spirits you scatter around:

Here he starts from and falls on the ground

Here is the cuckoo, home from the sound

And his ashes fall upon a wild flower

-White Crow in the First Place

You’ve never seen a white crow

You will never expect to see one

But you know your colorless soul

Would rather be than see one

-This-Busy-Life

--on W. H. Davies’s ‘Leisure’

what would our life be if, full of desire

we can from our own hearts all retire

stop counting every shining rusty coin we could make

or selling our dignity, freedom or something even fake

stop trying to have sex with someone ideal

or to kiss, and talk dirty with someone real

stop gathering fame like picking every fallen pine cone

or seeking the autograph from someone better known

stop pursuing the power to influence others

or building the authority belonging to fathers

stop looking for bigger houses, richer foods, and more fashionable clothing

or getting newer hardware or fancier cars even when there’s nowhere going

stop pleading Jesus, Buddha, or Ala for a happier after life

or building heaven with earthly prayers said only to survive

-Soil-and-Air

Some sing life will restart out of soil

Some sing out of air

From what you’ve never heard of

You give up on those who hate soil

But if it were to be born once again

You doubt you had any idea of love

Not to sing that for construction air

Would not hold even with sunlight

Or suffice

-The-Season

Stalking

First on clumsy panda feet

It squats, eye-sweeping

Over trees and grasses

On silent haunches

And then, begins to loll and wallow around

-Confucian-Gentility: the-Origin-of-Haiku

Orchid: Deep in the valley

Alone on an obscure spot

You bloom none the less

Lotus: From foul decayed silt

You shoot clean against the sun

Never pollutable

Mum: Hanging on and on

Even when wishes wither

You keep flowering

Plum: Your brave bold blood dropped

As though to melt all world’s snow

Before spring gathers

-Set

Ten, turn tight.

Nine, note night

Eight, alienate April

Seven, Satan saddens

Six, spirit’s secrets

Five, fight fire

Four, forward force

Three, thread throes

Two, tourist tools

One…

-Icarus,-I

I could never really fly

But into the air I often jump high

When the moonlight dyes the whole night

With all the glimmering tranquility

It seemed a perfectly natural thing to do:

I took a deep breath

Then bent my knees

And jumped again

Before I fell onto the ground

From above tree tops or lake waters

I willed myself to rise like a hot air balloon

As I strove to prove with every demonstration

That it was not a dream

And, each time, I wondered

Even if it was all but a dream

Why did it never melt

After the sunbeam set in?

-Light-vs-Shadow

Was it the shadow?

Was it the shadow beyond?

Was it the shadow beyond the shadow?

Still fell the thick night,

When the heart blocked the light.

Yes, it is light!

It is light within!

It is light within light!

Loud sweeps the morning glow,

Where the mind has no shadow.

-Modern Narsasis

I’d better stop

Looking hard in the mirror

With these gold-rimmed lens

Or I’ll cut myself

Into sharp bleeding pieces

If it is broken

-Songs and Calls

Birds make two types of sounds:

They sing

When they perch

Together

On the tree

And

They call

When they fly

Alone

In the heavens

-Between-Me-and Mirror

Looking right in the mirror

I find

No human reflection

Not even my shadow

Though the room rented

Is full of morning glows

Except,

Except the presence of absence

Where I am

I am

What is blocked

However I turn

The mirror absorbs my entire being

I long to take a closer look

At my truer self

But all I could see there

Is,

Is a blank space only

-Sam’s-Song

Tho my partner threw me away

Like one of her used lipsticks

After putting on a new makeup

Tho my landlord gives me shit

Each time I fail to pay him

In full amount or on the first day

Tho my boss has just fired me

Simply because he happed to see me first

After he lost a fortune this morning

Tho my only friend big mac

Is too weak to play with me

Or dream about having gold solid

Tho some call me trash

Others look down upon me

And still others never see me

Tho I have had little luck

Not to mention money

Except a few human rights

Be all that as it may

i got to eat a loaf of bread

and sleep in a dry corner

even on a rainy day

-Pounding,-Pounding

Hard above my head

Is a heavy rhythm

frightening

As death’s thumping steps

Ready to iron me onto the ground

-fair Is the Fate

each of us

has a fiery steed

you may tame it

and enjoy the ride

on its back

like a pilot

or you are kicked aside

and even trodden

under its feet

like the dirt

so, be brave

and to horse!

-Musings over the Moon

1. what a splendid silver plate

holding so many gold dreams

2. you cover your face with cloudy gossamers

not really because you are too shy or timid

3. this world can never go without light

so you come even before the sun exits

4. when darkness rules over the earth

only you remain close to human life

5. you always keep a cold and hard distance

tho your tender fingers caress every soul

6. you give no warmth in winter

but you offer light at midnight

7. unlike flirting stars whose affection is never stable

you are always loyal to those truly in love with you

8. you know all the secrets of the moonless night

yet you never use them to blackmail the sunlight

9. you quietly withdraw from the scene in the morning

only to let the sun receive tribute from all worshippers

-No-More-Hanging-On

so long have I longed

to give up all my earthy concerns

like an enlightened Buddhist monk

i am ready to climb up to

the peak of an unknown mountain

where I can build a plain hut

with fallen leaves and branches

where I can feel nothing

but the fresh songs of the forest

where I can hear

the budding of wild chrysanthemums

where I can taste the green wind

caressing the bubbling stream

where I can watch the sweetness of bamboos

shooting from the rocky vale

where I can smell the heavy breath

of tall pine trees and unknown bushes

will earth stop rotating round the sun

because of my humble interruptions?

-Reflections on the Road

1. the road is narrow because few have traveled along

the road that has few travelers is not always narrow

2. broad ways lead only to the foot of a tall mountain

it is thin trails that lead travelers to various peaks

3. there had been no roads in this world to begin with

they came into being after people began to travel

4. there are thousands of roads available to all

but you can choose only one to travel along

5. like bars falling down from the heavens

roads have chained the world into history

6. roads have neither starting or ending points

except stops and stations along either sides

7. there are no roads just as straight on earth

as those followed only by the human heart

8. no footprints can be found on broad highways

only on paths are they marked like milestones

9. while the straightest road can disappear

your steps will lead to your destinations

-Meteorite

with your resolution hard as diamond

you punctuate the whole universe

like a prolonged exclamation mark

as you accomplish your mission

leaving nothing in the heavens

but a memory of light

or an idea of fire

-Voices: Active vs Passive

To say

Everyman

Loves a woman

Is not to say

A woman is loved

By everyman

-Yellow-Comedy

Using my yellow tail

I yellow-swam

From the Yellow River

As a yeast of the yellow peril

Against the yellow alert

In yellow journalism

With a yellow hammer

And a yellow sheet

I yielded to the yellow metal

At a yellow spot

Close to Yellowstone

People call me Yellow Jack

Some hailed me as a yellow dog

When I yelped on my yellow legs

To flee from the yellow flu

Speaking Yerkish like a yellow warbler

I have composed many yellow pages

For a yeasty yellow book

To be published by the yellow press

Don’t panic, I yell low

-The-Girl-Who-Danced-with-Democracy*

It was the same old story

Story of one meets many

Yes the same old story

Story of one meets many

The one is disabled

While the many enjoyed all the powers and freedoms

Like a sampan

Riding on a stormy sea

Against foams of prejudiced justice

Foams of jealous pride

Foams of fearful composure

Foams of hateful fraternity

Foams of selfish altruism

And foams of foams of ignorant knowledge

She was edging forward

Inch by inch

On a little wheelchair

Under breaking waves of quasi-lamas or lama supporters

Waves of frenzy political correctors

Waves of ill-focused professional cameras

And waves of waves of impulsive pinchers and grabbers

You remember how we watched her

Struggling like a strong coral tree

And we knew for that moment

She was more noble-minded than ever we would be

A Chinese girl carried the Olympic flame in Paris

The cradle and capital of our most advanced civilization

Where she danced with democracy

*As the 3^rd torch bearer for the Beijing 2008 Summer Olympics, Jin Jing was physically assaulted during the relay in France on 7 April although escorted heavily by the Police.

-Harmony of Homonyms

Assent of ads adds to the ascent

Blue buses blew busses

Chaste councils chased counsels

Dyed days died in daze

Earls elicit illicit URLs

Fazed fays faze phased

Guys in guise graphed to graft

Hairy Harry heals heels

Idols idle in idyle

Jugglers jammed in jambed jugulars

Knights knock at the nocks of nights

Leased lyers are least liars

Mind mined in mist missed

Nice gneiss on nickers’ knickers

Overdo once one’s overdue

Past profits passed prophets

Quays quoined with coined cays

Ryes rise with rows of rose

Sighted symbols are symbols cited

Tales about trust are tails trussed

Urns earned have no use for ewes

Violed verse versus vale vialed in veil

Weeks whiled are wild weaks

Xi sighs with psi in size

Yoke your yore in yolk

Zealous Zellers zooms in zooms

-Hey Neighbor!

Would you like to try

These pyramid-shaped dumplings

With glutinous rice

Wrapped in reed leaves?

The fillings are my wife Helen’s recipe,

But the tradition is my culture’s specialty.

We eat them only

During the Dragon Boat Festival

To commemorate the death of a great poet,

Who drowned himself in a river

Long before Jesus was born.

Oh yeah, in my country of origin,

This food is called zongzi, yes, z-o-n-g-z-i

-Theological-Thesis

Nay, Eve did not

Eat the apple

Rather, she ate an onion

A really red hot onion

Nor was she seduced

By the ugly serpent

But by a handsome human

Who became her sole partner

So, the human history

Has been infused with

Women’s tears

And men’s guilt

-Eas-Idioms (1)

a/

All the animals of the jungle

Flee in fright from the little fox

As it carefully stalks behind

In the tiger’s shadow

d/

A dog begins to bark at the sight

Of a shadow that seems shivering

Then all the dogs in the neighborhood

Jumped into a chorus like crazy

m/

It is the magistrate that indulges himself

In random arson in broad daylight

But prohibits local residents from lighting a lamp

Even in the heart of the night

t/

The oak tree longs to stand still

Or sit in deep meditation

Yet the wind would never stop

Trying to uproot or remove it

-[suspected spam]

Dearest One,

I am writing this letter with due respect and healthful of tears since we have never known each other, but I confide in you bearing in mind that one has to take risks to survive trial times.

I am Ms Poesia, the only inherent of the late Art. Before the war broke out, my father deposited thousands of Stanzas in the Literary Canon. Given the present state of the human mind to be entertained in my society, I am hoping to get some understanding in installments from readers like you. For each reading I promise to offer you one golden Stanza to show my gratitude.

Please kindly contact me on this e-mail address for more details. (For example: one Golden Stanza is equivalent to about one million American Dollars.)

Miss Poesia

Peach Garden, Erehwon

-Misplaced Modifiers

You bartered a beautiful ball for your baby with a big basket

You will plead your pal tonight not to play with the panther

You have helped him to hum the hymn to heave heaven

You walked with your warbler, always weeping and whining

You did not dart into the darn because you were doomed

If grammar serves you right when the ambiguity is completed with a phrase

You will stop as long as she finds the adverb before he places the adjective

-Gerunds vs Infinitives

I remember forgetting singing this song

I remember to forget to sing this song

Stop regretting telling her your story

Stop to regret to tell her your story

-Relief-and Belief

When one leaf begins to tremble

The whole willow may remain still;

When one poplar tries to shake

The whole forest will stay calm;

When one forest cannot help agitating

There must be something arising, like a storm.

-The Clothes from Heaven

Clad with the heavens’ brilliant cloth

Weaved with golden and silver light

The blue and the dim and the dark embroidery

Of heart and soul and the half-heart,

My dreams hang there with the morning glows

While my soul remains stark naked

In the shadow of last night here on earth:

I am standing right in front of you;

Do not stare because your eyes might hurt.

-Tall Tale Newly Told

As peach flowers fell like a brilliant snow

From the back lane to the wood did I go

Listening to the stream sing without a mouth

I forgot to return where is my monster house

The water flew from the mountain to the sea

As if it had nothing whatsoever to say to me

But its song always held my heart tight

Thus the night would give me no fright

I sang with the stream, whose song let me go

I am home again, and find every soul so low

-Intermezzo of the Flute

I saw a flute in Henan,

And slim it was, at an archeological site.

It made the noisy quietude

Overwhelm that muted site.

The quietude agitating underground,

And spread around, no longer quiet.

The flute was slim upon the sound

And long and of a melody in the air.

It was carved out of a whole eagle bone,

With a stone chisel by the same hands

That played a song, its pitch rose

As high as the eagle could fly.

Fluted descants were delicious,

But those un-fluted are even more so;

Hark, even after eight thousand years

They still echo from soul to soul…

-Winter-Willow

What a strangely familiar blizzard

That has blown your bare body

To the far end of the prairie

Standing stiff at the still cliff

You listen to the muted monologue of the valley

With all your hardened heart

Then and there, in the shape of the wind

You start to shake off your silver branches

Like a huge skeletal seagull beating its wings wildly

Eager to flap into the northern lights

-After The Bulb Burned Out

Through the dark tunnel of the hallway

I fumbled my way humbly to the door

Back home again

I found everything

Just so much brighter

Even my old shoes

Dusted with thick shadows

At the closet of my heart

-Clairvoyance

Gray is heaven

Gray is hell

Gray are human buildings

Even grayer are human beings

From behind all this ash gray

Flies a big bird

Feathered with black humor

Right onto the white stage of history

-Masculine Haiku: A Poet’s Family

Debao

Head and heart both bald

He’s not pulled out one single line

Except his surname

George

Using no poet’s lathe

He shaves off his young manhood

With an e-razor

Allen

Like son, like father

His voice has begun to break

All for poetry’s sake

Michael

To his great credit

He’s published two finest sons

Among his fine poems

-Dream China

Shanghai! Burning bright in the heart of night

Where do you see what you keep looking at?

Sure there is no Dragon King or Jade Emperor

Nor could the western moon be really rounder

It is a good cat that can catch mice in the dark

He who finds Venus has the eyes for the mark

Bright is the heard symphony performed by the fingers of culture

Brighter would be the unheard harmony between man and nature

Shanghai! Burning bright in the heart of night

Where can you see what you keep looking at?

-Another Dilemma

--on David Budbill’s ‘Dilemma’

I long for tons of

money

so I can be a

honey

with all this

money

What good is my

generosity

when I get

bogged

in such

poverty?

-Just-A-Quick-Note

Sorry

To have

Changed

The lock

Though

I had

Strongly

Wished

There

Would

Never

Be

Such

Need

-Chronometry

I kissed your morning

With mine, and held

Your night closely with mine too

Between your spring and autumn

I lay my summer

Deep in winter

From your January through February

To your March, I wrap your April and May

With my June and July

Within your August

I use my September or October

To caress both your November and December

And right from your moment

I suck my whole year

-White-Calls

How many times

Have I lain in thick darkness

Imagining a white crow

That I wish to see

Or rather to be

Not until the other morning

Did I hear a wild bird crying

Like a loud persistent knock

At the door of my heart

Beyond my curtained window

Beyond my curtained dream

It was a crow hammering all its white yaws

Right into my soul

Resonating with my truer selfhood

The Game of Love

Always a three-way hide-&-seek:

You are fumbling for Helen

Helen is looking for Harry

While Harry is trying to find you

Who can take off the ribbons

Let you open your eyes wide

And see what you are looking at?

-Family Man’s Fantasy

Boy, who says it’s ideal

To have a Japanese wife

An American salary

A Chinese cook and

An English garden?

Who says they can make

Every man truly happy?

For the past twenty years or so

He has been tired of them and more

Like a spoiled and exploited old bunk

Ever deep in debt

With an oily belly too big to budge

And a whole backyard of dirty dirt

Who says he is truly happy

How much more unhappy can he be?

-Faulty Comparison with My Hometown

Like Vancouver, the climate of heart is mild all year round

Unlike the Lower Mainland, it is very hot in mid-China

The grasses on Grouse Mountain are similar to Luojia Mountain

The trees in Stanley Park are taller than the East Lake Park

The salmons in the Fraser River swim as far as the Yangtse River

Most residents in BC live much longer than Hubei Province

-Lexical-Tourism

(after Bill Holm’s ‘The Icelandic Language’)

You do not speak that language

Neither have you been to their country

But within the territory of our English vocabulary

You can easily find who they are:

They enjoy playing mahjong in a casino

They are afraid of typhoon

They kowtow to show their respect

They fight with kungfu skills

They believe in fengshui

And now they have their own taikongnauts

Visiting these lexical spots

You will witness the way they work and play

-Keeping-Hands Full

You are always grasping, my friend

Says my therapist

You must learn to let go:

Whenever your hands are not full

You want to get hold of something

Or indeed anything

Now a bird in your left hand

And a bunch of flowers in your right

That’s why you are unhappy all this time

Because you do not have more hands

To grasp more things

Like green backs, purple ribbons

tall titles, soft sex and charming children

If you empty your left hand to catch the ribbons

You became unhappy about the departure of the bird

If you put down the flowers to take the greenbacks

You feel unlucky about the loss of beauty

But if you let go

Just let go

Whatever you are grasping

You can get happiness whenever you can

Since your hands are free

-Poetry Penning

(after Charles Bukowski’s ‘Poetry Readings’)

Poetry penning has to be the saddest damned business to do today:

You melt the letters with the best ingredients you have

Your boldest blood, your tenderest tears and your saltiest sweat

Every piece uniquely heart-made

Packaged with the purest silk of your soul

And priced far below the cost of the little fire in your body

But you can sell it for not a single cent

Indeed, only a few tribesmen and tribeswomen caring most about this archaic trade

Might come and take a casual look

When it is marked ‘free’

Like some utensils in a used box put on the road side

Oh yeah, with more wordsmiths than wordwares

More wordwares than hawkers

More hawkers than patrons

How can you expect the miracle of a market niche

For this sad damned business

As more and more patrons turn to raps, heavy metal music

Soaps, chat rooms, computer games, virtual sex

Hot dogs, chilled beers, pot or marijuana

That can entertain every nerve ending

The human body may or may not have besides the mind

So, if you must pen something

You’d best try a story, a screenplay, a slogan or even a spam

What I say is, pen pal

You may well pen anything

But for Christ’s sake

Not this crap

-Over-This,-Over-Nothing

For God knows how many times

I have ever so strongly felt

Like crying at the very top

Of my hoarse voice

In a corner of twilight

Crying my nerves away

Crying my blood dry

Crying my head off

Crying my heart out

Crying my body up

And crying the whole sky down

But each time

There are no tears

Just no

Damned tears

-Word-Collage:-A-Democratic-Poem

According to a poll conducted worldwide in 2008, these are the 50 “most beautiful English words”

Mother of Passion, Smile

In love for eternality and fantastic destiny

At freedom or liberty

With tranquility or peace

In blossoms and sunshine

On the sweetheart gorgeous

To cherish enthusiasm, hope and grace

Under rainbow blue

Like sunflowers twinkling in serendipity

With bliss and lullabies

Beyond the sophisticated renaissance, cute and cozy

Under butterflies from the galaxy

At this hilarious moment beyond extravaganza

Against aqua sentiment

In a cosmopolitan bubble

Above pumpkins, bananas and lollipops

As bumblebees giggle

About paradoxes and delicacies

Despite the peek-a-boo behind an umbrella

Beside a kangaroo

-Valentine-Gifts

A

Single

Simple

Rose

In exchange for

A

Whole

Splendid

Spring

-Uncertainty

Just as the shadow beyond the light

Is fictional, and fictional is

The word on the paper or screen

So is this hand also fictional

That writes from the heart of the night?

All the feelings swarmed together

What I meditated, flows

I wonder if this life of mine

Is posthumous before the birth

Of a refracted metaphor?

-Thanksgiving

(For Jane Kenyon)

You could have been killed

In that accident in 1997

But you did not. You could

Have lost every hard-earned loonie

When the big bubble burst

But you did not. You could

Have failed to realize your boyhood dream

To have your poetry published

But you did not. You could also

Have had to stay in the bed

Unable to eat or piss for three weeks

After the surgery last time

But you did not.

This morning you could have broken

Your newly old legs or arms

On the icy road as you jogged

But you did not. One day

You know, you might become

Much less fortunate somehow

But you will not, because you believe

you have always been lucky

-Hamlet:-the-Play-or-the-Movie

(For David R. Slavitt)

Who does not love Hamlet,

If they show or perform it again tomorrow night,

Who would not go to watch him?

To be or not to be…we all have this question, mostly

In mind. But with audiences young or old,

The answer is all too clear, at the tongue, ah!

And the world will well remember,

Admire, study, discuss and argue

In every dialect for centuries and centuries.

Not so bad, after all, the poisoned

Wine, the poisoned sword is fatal.

The cries on all sides must be a warm comfort.

We all fall: only a few on a classic stage,

In front of so many

-A-New-Recipe-She-Invents after

Thirty years of Marriage

(for Leo Dangle)

‘yummy, it tastes so good!’ he exclaimed.

‘really?’ she asked.

‘where did you learn the recipe?

These steamed fish chips are really delicious

With all this shredded green onion and fresh ginger.’

‘well, this is the third time I cooked

it this way. Do you really mean

you like the dish?’

‘of cuz! Why would I want to lie

about the food YOU cook?’

‘well, this is the only thing

i am never sure about you.’

‘are you?!’

How Long Have I Been Living?

Today is exactly like yesterday

This year like last one

And this whole decade like the last as well

If only I lived differently each tomorrow

How many more years would I

Have lived before I stop counting my days?

-Spell

The moment he wrote down the word ‘crow,’

It beat its wings and flapped up from the paper

The moment he punched the word ‘rose,’

Bees began to bump against the screen

The moment he spells the word ‘fire,’

His soul no longer trembles in cold

So to preserve the power of writing

He has frozen his heart fresh

The Fish in the Glass Jug

You keep jumping above the water

Just to escape from this doorless prison

You do not know there is everything

But water outside this transparent wall

-Scything

I often deplore my sons and nephews never felt

The pleasure of scything

There is no telling

Just how many hearts have been uplifted by this simple exercise

The warm wheat like golden flowers cut down, carpeting

The sunlight-framed fields

A plump land of ears listening to the songs of autumn

How neatly the ripeness lies around

The blade cut all the harvest right into the heart

Ignorant the wise e boys who

Have no idea of this stupid but sensational movement

-Vancouverites

(for Edward Field)

Everywhere else in the new world, when people meet

They would greet one anther saying

Isn’t it a nice day today! Sure it is!

Only in Vancouver will you say, another rainy day, or even

Foul or gloomy, and launch into your complaints and frustrations

Then yawn and become bored as they begin

To pour out their own similar resentments in more detail

Echoing like a parrot, you try to keep yourself less wet

Look, pal, it’s downpouring again, we got to run…uh…

So you start to flee in opposite directions

Each trying to hide yourself somewhere in a dry corner

As both of you leave the scene in haste

You know you can never remain dry on a rainy day

-East-Idioms (continued)

d/

the moment a bold pupil is dotted

inside each of its handsome eyes

the painted dragon jumps alive

and flies high above the sky

f/

when the lofty fir begins to dwarf

all other trees in the same forest

it will be knocked down flat

by the first storm at night

l/

deeply buried under the dirty silt

the lotus root is pure and clean inside

you break it into pieces widely apart

yet they still remain connected by the silk

n/

three days after the nightingale flew away

its calls are still circling around every tree

with its songs squatting at each leaf tip

like a dewdrop refusing to fall onto the ground

s/

on the bare ground, with a broken twig

she drew a picture of the serpent

as lively as her own tongue

except for some feet added, though pretty

-To-Seek-Bright-Light-I-Close-My-Eyes-Tight

(for Dylan Thomas)

Looking around, I only see darkness in sight

All is thick shadow beyond thick shadow

To seek bright light I close my eyes tight

In each dream I have dreamed at midnight

I follow my heart, and closely my heart I follow

The darkest nightmare contains rays of light

Striving, I strive forward with all my might

Against the high flow, the flow that I well know

Looking around, I only see darkness in sight

Right at this site where the time is right

I let go my dream drifting away like a morning glow

Looking around, I only see darkness in sight

Inside, more inside is a door shining bright

I fumble my way slow as if a rough raft to row

To seek bright light I close my eyes tight

Men and women, come down from heated height

Don’t you hear the song from soul to soul echo

Looking around, I only see darkness in sight

To seek bright light I close my eyes tight

-East-Idioms (4)

Mr Ye/

Instead of God, Money, Computer, Sex or Art, he believes in Dragon only

He loves the legendary animal so much so that he paints it on every surface he can find

Deeply moved by his devoted passion, a real dragon comes down to visit him

But no sooner has he seen its face than he jumps to flee, with his pants all wet with fright

Ms Dongsi/

Every time she walks in public, she tries hard to press her belly and frown her brows

Exactly in the same way as does Xisi the most beautiful woman in the whole country

For her, this is the trendiest thing to do to win herself some lovers or admirers

For Xisi, this is a gesture she cannot help making while suffering from a physical pain

Mr Fool/

To remove the two big mountains blocking the way to or from his home

The old man uses a spade to dig away the dirt and gravel day by day

Isn’t it much simpler just to relocate you own family house, says Mr Smart

But so long as we persist, the mountains will be gone some day, he replies

-Drawing-the-Dragon

There was a contest
Once
For the most faithful representation
Of yellow loong,

(Or the Chinese dragon)

In England

An inflated Satan
Or was it Sua proper
Came to squat among
words

Then stroke by stroke, again
It rose right
Upon
Each slate of white

Mind

-East-Idioms-(cont. 3)

In Handan/

In their fondest hope to walk as gracefully as handsomely as the residents of Handan

People swarm in from every part of the country to learn and practice the ‘capital steps’

But many have failed to learn the new steps while others forgot their old ways

So they all have to crawl back on their fours to where they originally came from

Bell Stealing/

To prevent the sound from being heard

As he tries to steal the only bell in the village

The thief stops his own ears with thick cotton

Believing that no one would find him out

Loss of the horse/

On a snowy evening a poor old frontier tribesman

Lost his horse, the only means of living he had

While everybody still felt sorry for him a week later

The horse returned home with another one wild