[archived]: Poems by Changming Yuan © - 2010

&First Day: Another Genesis

While in the East

Pangu was busy

Waving his hands wildly

To cleave the chaos

Into yin and yang

All God did in the West was

Give his first order to nobody:

Let there be light

And then light came in

While presenting myself

With a loud yellowish yell

to a small muddy village

In central southern China

I reached up my little hands high

To the apathetic sky

And felt it bending low

To fill them with soil’s smell

The moment my Allen managed to crawl

Out of his mom’s womb in St Paul’s

What he saw was the absence of thickening

Darkness that became an island

Beyond which I had travelled afar

To where the borderline was erased

Between day and night

As I watched him grow

In ever freshening light

&Charon

You may well hate him

But you cannot help feeling envious-

That business of carrying the diseased

Across the River Styx is ever so prosperous

The only monopoly in the entire universe

That has a market share

Larger than the market itself

Daydreaming, on this side

Of the river, how you might wish

To be an entrepreneur like Charon

A success American dreamer

&Inner Tides

In the daily modification of

The alternate rise and fall

Of my inner tide, the sun has

Much less impact on the waters

Than the moon, though

It is so much greater in mass

Unlike those high celestial bodies

You can never cause a flood or ebb tide

But sometimes like onshore winds

Other times like offshore storms

You push the waters up and up

Against the rocky coast of my soul

&Naming a Nation

At birth, we were given pet names

In school, we begin to have formal names

For some fame, we choose our own style names

Among friends and relatives, we are known by our nicknames

In the literate world, we use our hao or pen names

While we try naming ourselves with all glory and dignity

Foreign barbarians give us unnamed names:

Mangis, Chinks, Chinamen, Chinkies

Chinoiseries, Nuocs, Shina, Chinees

Ching Chong, Coolies

Even blue and grey ants

And so they call us names

In open defiance against Confucius

Our master teacher, our saint, our saga, our literary god

(O poor guy!) ever so obsessed with the Chinese idea:

A proper name for a proper personality

&The Naming of a Nation

In this Confucian game, for the sheer sake of fame
We are always ready to claim a proper identity with a proper name
For instance: between our first and last names
We have generation names
Besides our official names
We honor ourselves with pet names, school names
Style names, nick names, pen names
While we try naming ourselves with all glory and dignity
Foreign barbarians give us unnamed names:
Mangis, Chinks, Chinamen, Chinkies
Chinoiseries, Nuocs, Shina, Chinees
Ching Chong, Coolies
Even blue and grey ants
And so they call us names
Or give us bad names
Before they vote to hang us

&Reading behind the Words

Behind the words is there no meaning squatting

Except a bold row of cheerful cherry trees

Standing tall in front of my half-fenced house

That bloom for two weeks in a year only

Between spring and summer

Behind the words is there no emotion hidden

But a pair of little unsung yellow birds

Popping up from nowhere

One has flown far away from home

The other still learning to fly close to the nest

Behind the words is there no metaphor explored

But a black and white photo of my parents

Who are hospitalized alternately in China

For the imbalance between yin and yang

A disease both blood-related

&On a Rainy Day

I open, you

Close, or you

Open, I

Close, either my umbrella

Or yours

To keep both

Ourselves dry

From this cold

Rain, we have

To share

The one

The same

Umbrella, if we

Must walk

Hand

In hand

&On a Rainy Day

You open, I

Close, or I

Open, you

Close, either

Your umbrella

Or mine

To keep

Both ourselves

Dry from

This cold

Rain, we

Have to

Share

The one

And the same

Umbrella, if

We must

Walk

Hand in hand

&This Is a Line

(for Liu Yu and other mothers)

A line this is for my mother’s birthday

A birth line for my mother’s day

A mother for the birthday of a line

A celebration of my mother’s line of birth

Mother, I will line your birth with celebration

I will day a line with birth celebration, Mother

I will mother a day line with celebration

I will celebrate the mothering of a line

Mother, I will celebrate a line’s birthday

Mother my celebration of a line’s day

Mother my day’s line for a birthday

Celebrate my line with my mother’s birth

Celebrate the day with my mother’s line

Mother, I celebrate your birthday with a line

&Civilization

Eat MacDonald’s or Kentucky Chicken

Drink Coca Cola or Pepsi

Listen to Jazz or Rock n’ Roll

Smoke Kent or Marlboro

Watch CNN or Hollywood movies

Wear blue jeans or polos

Drive a GM or Ford

Invest in derivatives rather than in properties

Go online with an IBM or Apple

Read New York Times or Great Gatsby

Play football or baseball

Microsoft all your Intel hardware

Talk aloud about freedom, democracy, human rights

Support the strike against devilish Iranians

Evil North Koreans, demon Mainland Chinese

Most important: vote while you google, google while you vote

And you will become an American

A political correct member of the truly civilized world

Quasi Americans, welcome aboard

&Hyper Grammatical Poems: Preposition

Exactly like a coordinate system

You locate

Any nominal identity

In time

In space

In logic

More like a physical linkage

You enjoy introducing

Each solitary soul

As an object

In an adjective or adverbial phrase

To modify

The more important elements of

A muted human statement

&Hyper Grammatical Poems: Conjunction

A marriage broker

Coordinating

Males and females

For sexual intimacy

Or subordinating

A car, a computer, a house

To a home owner

Or correlating

Two ideas, two emotions, two parties

In a human context

&Hyper Grammatical Poems: Verb

Just as the child

Plays the most dynamic role

In the life of a family

You make a statement alive

By acting

Growing

Or simply

Being

&Hyper Grammatical Poems: Pronoun

Like a stage play

Reenacting an experienced

Or un-experienced

Moment in space

A place in time

Before an eager audience

To make their daily existence

Less repetitive

Less cumbersome

Less political

&My Crow, My Other Life

Every morning, even before I open

My eyes, the little doors of the cage

My crow cannot wait to flutter out

Into the light-washed heavens

Striking its transparent wings into beating

Every night, even after I put

The cage back inside my cozy house

The bird still glides close to the moon

With its wings feathered with spirits

Forgetting to return home

Sometimes I wonder why

Day after day, night after night

It refuses to settle softly in its cage

Like a domesticated parrot

Were I it, would I?

Or you, once the cage broken

Would the bird return

Coo itself into sleep, dreaming

Of celestial freedom?

&Clothing

All creatures are naked
Except humans
And humans only

Wearing glass fiber
If not polyester

Silk
If not flax

Furs
If not fig leaves

Themselves always clad
By shade, by shame

The clothing species
Never showing their naked selfhoods

Ever since that first bite at an unripe apple

&Springscape

As the morning fog

Stalks away on its fluffy feet

All boughs

Unanimously agree

To take action

By bursting themselves

With dripping green buds

Little dimples

In myriads

Across the widely smiling face

Of spring

&Another Snapshot

A man is searching everywhere

At dusk

With a leash

Unleashed in his hand

While the dog hides itself beyond a fence

We grin from ear to ear

At our shared secret

&Content

After a prolonged hatch

In your lukewarm soul

It has finally pecked open

The big shell of winter

And will soon start to fly

Before its wings are feathered

With the morning glows

Of another spring

&At 161 West 49^th Avenue, Vancouver

A whole dozen of tenants

In this unauthorized rooming house of mine:

One is a drug addict

Nosy and manipulative

Trying to play her dubious role

Of a tenant representative

And self-styled manager on site

Another has just broken his old hip

Ready to suit me

For an imagined fault on my ownership

A third has been using bed bugs

(God knows where she gets them)

As an agent to bilk every penny

Out the wallet of my kindness

A fourth has finally moved out

Tho his stuffs still piled up

Under my heavily abused sundeck

While others either unable to pay their rent

Or bug me constantly for their endless rights

With the tenancy act here more protective

Of evil tenants than of law-abiding landlords

I wonder if I should just sell this rental property of mine

Rather than continue living with it until I get the order

To shut down this inner house of mine

All mad inside out

&Within This Open Bottle

Every bee dies

While charging towards light

All flies survive

And even thrive

By fleeing into darkness

What

What if the bottle rotates?

&Bees vs Flies 

Within this open bottle
Every bee dies
While charging towards light

but all flies survive
And even thrive
By fleeing into darkness

What
What if the bottle rotates?

&In This Open Bottle

Every bee dies

While charging towards light

All flies survive and thrive

By fleeing into darkness

What, what if the empty bottle rotates?

&Let Me Let Be

Let yourself be an other

Let an other be your self

Let an other be an other

Let yourself be your self

&Vancouver Wants to Show Its Best to the World

In front of Riley Community Centre

They have just replaced the old garbage bin

With a big plastic bag

Fresh, greenish, transparent

Kept open by a simply but strange structure

Full of bits of banana peels, brochures and bottles

The content is never new

But the idea is innovative:

Who would expect us to openly display

Our dirty, ugly, messy wastes

While we celebrate the opening

Of 21^st Winter Olympic games?

&Astrology of Shadows

The higher the sun

The shorter the shadow

The lower the sun

The longer the shadow

The fuller the moon

The thicker the shadow

The brighter the stars

The darker the shadow

&Sounds of the Ocean

Whining, whistling, whispering

Singing, murmuring, sighing

With myriads of tossing tongues

You just follow the earth’s rhythms

If not your own instincts

If not the tunes of the winds

Articulating yourself in an unfailing voice

You do not care if you have any audience

To begin (or end) with

Indeed, there is never a need for understanding

From either humans standing afar on the shore

Or fishes swimming close to your heart

&At Dusk in Dundarave Park, West Van

Strolling along

The overly trodden seaside walk

I find myself lost amidst human shapes

Constantly shifting

Into and out of one another

As they appear and disappear

Larger or smaller in size

Striving to linger one day, one month

Or even one year longer

Here and now

Within one of the bodies

A poem is taking shape, so is

A vision within another, so is

An evil plan within a third, so is

A bitter memory

A yearning

A bubble of consciousness

While I stop to stand still

Watching the vast sea view

Which is nothing but a view of the sea

Mindlessly

&The Boy and the Gull: Erasure vs Disclosure

A chubby gull is pecking around

On the bare beach

Like a curious child

Hoping to find a magic shell

While a little boy is picking pebbles

Trying to throwing them into the ocean

Like a mischievous gull

Tantalizing a huge ironed monster

&At the Talent Show

Everyone of them is rationed

With a bowel of flour

Nothing more or less

Than a bowl of wheat flour

John baked it into plain bread

Jill baked it into tasty cookies

Joy made it into a birthday cake

Jake made it into a pizza

Jake tries to refine it into gourmet powder

And Joe will brew it into Dovka

They look and taste so widely disparate

Tho they all come from the same bowl of flour

&Dialectic Diary (1)

The waters always look murky

To those standing on the shore

Although they are truly transparent

Beneath a flying seagull

&Dialectic Diary (2)

Never has the light been so bright

It can melt everything

Even crow feathers, even the night

That will come to land

Sweeping all their way to the heart

I dislike the mountain during the day

Not because it blocks the view

Or spreads shadows, dark and thick

To the closest trees, but it is the soft gaze

Of a lonely walker that will

Focus on their dancing reflections

In the lake. You claim the light

Can melt everything, even a soul

Yet not the shadows, not the dreams

Not such shaded thoughts

&Inner Drought*

In this lower mainland, rain is the order

Of the day: while the drizzle moisturizes

Dreams and drama alike, storms have filled

Every crack and crevice with seasonal juice

But deep in your body has been a drought

Persisting ever since your birth, no plant

Grows green enough, no bird comes to perch

On a bough, all pipes and rivulets dry

Oh, for a rich rain to moisten and irrigate your

Inner fields, your cells, your nerves, your hopes

I would sacrifice my fatherhood, provided you

Could take a shower in the open, with your spine

Stemming straight like a strong young tree

*My 15- year-old son Allen has had a disc problem since 2008, which has resulted, according to traditional Chinese medicine, from the internal ‘dryness’ he was born with.

&Wishful Thinking

Breaking in great swells

You thunder against the rocks

Exploding into foam

Spewing white high

Up the barnacle-encrusted cliffs

Before you become too exhausted

To stir any more inner waves

&The Dream Catcher

Like a cat

Body coiled

Tan and tawny

Came with a big leap

Springing on

An invisible mice

Your only prey

&Mindscaping

On the beach of your mind

You have been using

Every grain of sand

To build a castle

Or even a whole city

While you could have kept it as is

Where gulls stalk and stroll

Leaving their footprints there

Before the waves erase them again

&Crows in the Sunlight

Soon after their dreamless roosting

The crows on the boughs begin to look up

Some ready to fly, some to land

Beyond the darkest moments of last night

Disturbed by their calls, a solitary squirrel

Climbing down the tree, crossing the fence

To a pasture no greener than the leaves

But there is certainly more sunshine

More photosynthesizing, under the golden film

As I walk past, neither the crows

Nor the squirrel bothers to notice my presence

Why should they be startled away? It is me

Trespassing a new territory between day and night

Where the crows hide their night-dyed feathers

&What Goes in the Front

You are someone else’s cat

Stalk, and you are behind your owner’s back

Jump, and you throw your kittenhood on desktop

Sit, and you watch the child toddling along

Your long whiskers stretch beyond your solitude

You long for nothing but this moment

You understand only what goes in the front

You meditate the way a cat meditates

You shrink into a thick pile of dreamy cloud

Ready to drift out of that locked house

&Picture Personified

You hate to be confined within a frame

And hanged up there on a dusty wall

When a lively picture is taken out of your life

You want it to fly into heaven like a bird

You would rather stay in a worn-out wallet

Where you can feel human warmth all day long

&I Love You

Is certainly the most abused utterance

Made by so many men and women

On so many occasions

In so many languages and dialects

It has become a meaningless euphemism

Of such as:

I want to fuck you

I want to talk dirty with you

I want to kiss you, touch you

Smell you, hear you, watch you

But if I say what I mean to say

You would be offended, scared

Disgusted, appalled, though you may well

Want to say exactly the same to someone else

So damn hypocritical

I fuck you

&Lesson Learned from Insomnia

One night when I noted philosophy

Tossing and turning constantly on the bed

I gave her a cup of warm milk

Instead of the pink pills she desired

Unable to go to sleep side by side

Let alone make love on such occasions

I moved to the guest room where I

Began to count all the sheep on earth

How surprisingly resentful she yelled at me

When I returned in a fragment of dream

The fact I did not suffer insomnia with her

Nor did I find meaning on a meaningful night

&Immaturity vs Immortality

If you know there is no air

Thus no wind, no weathering effect

On the moon, you would probably

Also want to take a walk

And leave your footprints there

Forever undisturbed

But as an earthy creature you can

Never untie the chains of gravity

Unless you find

How much more desirable to shout

To yell, to sing, to curse here on earth

Where sound waves can eventually

Reach the shore and beat the ear drums

A voice to be heard

An immature life under the moon

&The Unborn

The unborn are wildly shuffling among us, I believe

As we try to catch a plane or prepare a lunch

They are jumping, hopping, tripping like wantons

While they remain invisible even to ghosts

If they had been born, they would have proved better

Making all the prize winners in the world feel shamed

If only they had a chance to grow in broad daylight

They could have regrouped us all between hell and heaven

All this time, they are demonstrating, protesting against us

Their crowds snowballing, their shouts never heard

&America Deep in Debt at Everett

On the morning of March 3

I was driving south light-heatedly

Along I-5, as an invited reader to perform my poetry

To a friendlier post-bush America

When a gloomy-looking trooper (numbered 837)

Suddenly stopped me supposedly for my safety’s sake

I must give you – eh, a speeding ticket.

-Why me sir! I was just following the traffic.

But you are the first one I saw.

-Simply because I have a Canadian license plate?

If you were an American, I would do the same.

Lost in anger against such blatant discrimination

(Or bad luck?) I stopped protesting

While shaking my head all the time, peacefully

Oh, poor America! Look at this armed boy of yours

He is ambushing your neighbor like a robber

To help bail you out of your big financial shit

I thought, but never said so

For fear of getting another ticket, bigger or thicker

&The Privilege of Being a Poetry Scribbler

On the early morning of March 3, I was detained

At Peace Arch by American Customer Officers

For intending to sell my autographed copies

Or smuggling my poems in a book form

It’s illegal to come to America and sell your stuff.

-Yes, I understand, I understand.

You are not allowed to get paid for reading poetry.

-I will remember this, remember this.

Another officer could have refused you entry.

-Sure, sure, surely sure.

But you are excited about your poetry

Both my chief and I want to be nice to you.

-Thanks! May I know and use your name in a poem please?

It’s CBP Officer Eric Sachs, but don’t get me into trouble.

Knowing my Canadian passport would expire within six days

I drove fast to hell of a heaven, and heaven of a hell

While it was still valid

&The Triumph of the Eight Trigrams

The creative: yangyangyangyangyangyangyangyang

yangyangyangyangyangyangyangyang

yangyangyangyangyangyangyangyang

the clinging: yangyangyangyangyangyangyangyang

yinyinyinyin yinyinyinyin

yangyangyangyangyangyangyangyang

the dragon: yinyinyinyin yinyinyinyin

yangyangyangyangyangyangyangyang

yinyinyinyin yinyinyinyin

The receptive: yinyinyinyin yinyinyinyin

yinyinyinyin yinyinyinyin

yinyinyinyin yinyinyinyin

&Defining Situational Irony

The cat bullied by a mouse

The dead tree standing in full bloom

The gold mine snoring underground in a remote corner

The big breast suffocating its lover

The fire truck burning in flame

The optometrist becoming blind

The cooks holding a hunger strike

The hockey player scoring against his own team

The survivor dying of thirst in the sea

The patient feeling cold on a scorching summer afternoon

The greatest story never told to the world

The junklines published widely under a renowned name

The police officer murdering a witness

The wicked egoist elected as a national leader

&Dialectic Diary 3

Like an agitated oriole

Flying from branch

To branch to branch to branch

Your yellow-stained call

Echoes from soul

To soul to soul to soul

&Dialectic Diary: 2010:04:07

However winds blow

All waves keep pushing forward

Towards the shore

Only the light rays at sunset

Retreating to the ocean’s heart

Like a flock of pigeons

Returning to their cage

&The Unseen

Most ignore such things

As dirt, rock or trees

That make up the collective pronoun

The pronoun is all

Before you open your eyes

All is there

And there you may perceive

Your whole world in them

Out of their shapes

Their colors, their textures

Their statues

You construct an open garden

To concentrate upon

That patch of nature

Never confined to the human mind

&Happiness

Is the shadow of feeling

You can readily find

Right behind your soul and body

Wherever there is light

So, stay away from night

From darkness

&In the Human Mind

Is there a hidden mirror

It can reflect every physical object

Or non-physical being

Such as a soul in the dark

Or an unknown idea bubbling

Beneath the swamp of consciousness

But it can reflect nothing

When covered with

The dust of emotion

Even in broad daylight

&On the Recycling Day

One neighbor took out a blue box

Full of cat skulls and dog legs

Rather than glass or plastic bottles

Another carries out a yellow bag

Containing human bones, mostly children’s

Instead of magazines or paper products

A third pushed out a green bin

Filled with failed evils and devils

Where there should be leaves and twigs

Behind every house in a neighboring back alley

The garbage truck is placing a big time bomb

&Self-ABuse

The man chops off his own head

And tries to barbecue it with human hair

In the slaughtering square

The woman cuts open her own chest

Takes out her heart and uses it

Like a gas pump

To add all her blood to the fire

While the volcano is vomiting violently

Its lava smashing onto every creature

Running around wildly

&Father and Son

A little cloud in the sky

Makes his son want to fly

Feathered with hope

They try to ride on a paper bird

To join the spring winds

That keep blowing the curious cloud

Until they can see together

All the secrets of summer

From up above so high

&Blue Origin

All the blue of the oceans

Is a gift from the sky

All the blue of the sky

Is a gift from the sun

Is all the blue from the sun

A gift from the human eye?

&Fengshui Associations of the Five Elements

Fire: South, summer, hot, bitter

Red, gaiety, pulse, tongue, a;

Water: North, winter, cold, salt

Black, fright, bones, ears, e;

Wood: East, spring, wind, sour

Green, anger, tendons, eyes, i;

Metal: West, autumn, dry, pungent

White, worry, skin/hair, nose, o;

Earth: Centre, late summer, wet, sweet

Yellow, thought, muscle, mouth, u

&Sexual Slogans

A steak a day keeps the court away

A touch a minute keeps the body in spirit

A lie an hour keeps the chief in power

An injection a night keeps the mind light

A dinner a week keeps the heart freak

A honeymoon a month keeps the government at arm’s length

A trip a season keeps the dog in reason

A chef a year keeps the house dear

A wedding a decade keeps the couple off headache

&Seascape: Four Haiku

photo 12 may2, 10

however winds blow
all waves keep pushing forward
to the shore only
--------------------

photo 19 may 2, 10

light rays at sunset
Retreat to the ocean's heart
together with gulls

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

photo 2 may 8,10

a daring spirit
trying to stir the whole sea
with its tiny beak
----------------------

photo 16 may 8, 10

in grace and leisure
you dance with a raging storm
to the blue descant
---------------------

&Unsung Bird Sings

With a yellowish voice that unsung bird

Can’t be tone deaf

Must hear the whole forest

Like a chorus

Singing trees, singing bushes

On hillsides, singing grasses

Singing rocks

Like drums beaten by raindrops

How galvanized you feel

All melodious – the clouds, the stars

The unheard music of earth

Every note is fresh, no sound is an echo

This dawn, the light has

Swept all the air waves onto the horizon

Above the thick night, above the opaque dreams

Arises a rainbow of whistles, trills, gurgles

You sing, not to defend your territory

Or to attract a mate

But to celebrate morning glows

&The Tree Spirits

No doubt, they never knew when, how

Or why they were doomed

The previous generation of earthlings

Have long disappeared, tracelessly

Except for some thinning memories

Hidden in earth’s heart, or drifting

In a corner of an unknown world

But we are different: we make

Metals and plastics besides books

To survive the judgment day

Land collapses, ice ages, nuclear wars

Or alien strikes, although they may eventually

Weather away with the sun

Then will come a monstrous ant

Followed by swarms of tree spirits

On the second day, the ant gives them all shapes

On the third, the spirits begin their earthy lives

On the forth, the ant flies into the outer space

To prevent evil from returning to earth

On the land used to be tree stumps

Debris of all man-made products

There are now only trees growing

Growing silently in the moonlight

Above deeply buried human souls

&Talking with the Dreamless Man

Every creature, even a goat has a dream

But this man has never had one

Never knowing what a dream is or does

Just as a man born blind

Has no idea of color

A dream is a place you go to

When you fall asleep at night

So –it is a washroom?

A dream is all the crazy things

You do on the bed in darkness

So –it is masturbation or sexual play

A dream is an other life you live

While your body remains mostly still

So –it is fantasy or imagination

To dream is to be human, you know

So – I am not a human?

Of course you are, only dreamless

--Isn’t it real-is-tick?

&One Way to Stop Worrying

Below the hiding stars the night storm

Is raging against the whole world

Beyond the city’s dream is a little jalopy

Driving forward at full speed

Through the darkest moments

No one knows where it is heading

But it must have a destination

The destination must be close to a freeway

Accessible to every driver

Even though the storm hits the car harder

Than during the day

Then there may be a hill slide

And a flooded stretch ahead

And a twister or thunder strike

But before the day breaks

It will come to a bridge

Sooner or later

&Man vs Woman: A Brief Sexual History

No man is perfect

Yet every man wants women to be perfect

So, their feet used to be bound

Now their faces surgically shaped and reshaped

Their eyelids doubled

Their breasts raised

Their skin ironed and chemically treated

Their subcutaneous fat removed from their bellies or waists

Their legs made longer on high-heeled shoes

Their entire bodies perfumed, clad and decorated with all fashions

As if they were full-sized dolls

Just as god made man in his image

So has man been making women after his likeness

&Me & Sand

On the beach of life

I am a grain of sand

Too light to build a castle

On my tiny senses

Too heavy to fly high

With the west wind

Too stubborn to flow afar

Along the currents

Yet how I long to be

Solid in body

Liquid in heart

And gaseous in spirit

Like a true grain of sand

&Ideal Realm for Zen

Right before the mid-autumn moon

Becomes full, or

Cherry blossoms begin

To bloom

Or better to be within walking distance

To Mecca

To Elysia Fields

Or to Peach Flower Village

&Like Birds, Like Humans

All doors are man-made

Even those in hell and heaven

Behind every door

Is either a home

Or a prison cell

More often both

Than neither

The only living space without a door

Is a nest or the sky

Both for birds

Neither for man

&Content Words

Amidst the waves sits still a stark noun

Like a coral island in the east sea

Looming in and out in the star light

Through the trees runs a little verb

As if to flee from one valley to another

In case the sun’s arrows should hit it too hard

Above the clouds thunders a series of adverbs

Their sounds too loud to produce an echo

Even in a great hall of fame

Beyond the skyline drift some adjectives

Ready to fall with last year’s narration

Greyer than the greyest patch of history

&The Poetic Persona

He never calls himself a poet

(a title too high-sounding to be self-styled

Or too much abused to be meaningful?)

But he cannot wait to peruse his own piece

(and his piece only) each time he receives

His contributor’s copy from a print magazine

Something he can hold in hand, something

Smelling of ink, something ready to make a noise

When he flips through the pages

To locate his own (again) among bio notes

All in third person, all bubbling

With self-pride, self-expectations

While he is eager to show his heart-hammered work

To his wife, his sons, his students

Even salespersons or strangers who happen to drop by

With one of the few associates he has

(Who shares neither interests nor understanding

Not to mention the sense of achievement)

He believes in the entire issue, perhaps

The whole literary world, only his printed words

Truly stand out --he never says that

Because no one can hear him even he does so

How happily he would die on the spot

If only he could write one single original line

(like ‘The meaning of life, if any at all

Is to create a meaning for life”) that might

Become a cliché in the future

Both near and far

&The Title of a Collection

First songs of an Other

Last True Poems

South China Cicada

Yellow Comedy

Chansons of a Chinaman

Immigrating to America

Waiting for Canada

Apocrypha of night

Epilogue: the Journey of the Heart

Post Modern Stanzas

Untitled

&Cyclic Creation

Just as He created man

In His image

Long after man invented God

After his likeness

So did an egg

Hatch out a chicken

Well before a chicken

Laid down an egg

&He Saw a Woman He Admires

He saw a woman he admires

Serving a fellow citizen at the adjacent outlet

In a passport office the other day

She did have an eye contact with him

But that was not what she had intended

Nor did she have any afterthought about him

While he was overwhelmed with the urge

To tell her he admires her, loves her

Tho not coquettish as cover girls or movie stars

Her posture is certainly graceful

Her smile more than a professional show

Her eyes soul-grabbing, tho she had no idea

About what was going on in his mind

As she checked the name, dob, emergency contact

And every other detail on the application form

Submitted by another citizen, who is so lucky

To obtain a passport from this young woman

Did she notice my excitement?

Would I ever have a chance to see her again?

He will be haunted by such questions

Wherever he travels with the passport

Issued from the building where she works

Although she never knows there is a stranger

Who longs to tell her he loves her, admires her

&Pine Tree

Sitting on a boulder

Like Thousand-Hand Thousand-Eye Guanyin

You reach out all your deeply tanned arms

Pointing all your evergreen fingers up to the sky

Not to take in moisture from the surrounding mists

But to give out the freshest air you could

With eyes held in as many hands

You are witnessing the sounds of the world

Still, in spirited stillness

&If, If Only… subjunctive mood unsubjugated

I would jump madly with joy

I would go to the depth of limberlost to die an elephant’s death

I would charge forward with my car as if it were a super tank

I would tattoo the words on my butt and nake-run wildly in broad daylight

I would fuck my love to death at a bare hilltop

I would blast myself into a million bloody pieces

I would nail the president on a swirling swastika in front of a Buddhist temple

I would shoot like a burning comet beyond the milk way

I would cry my whole heart out and all my tears dry

I would stop the earth from rotating for seven days to recreate the world

I would put God in a blue cage before hanging it on Babel Tower

I would drive all spirits and ghosts back into their human shapes

I would roar like a whale pushing the sound waves three thousand miles away

I would…

&Swirling Swastika: a Zen Poem

FAMEFAM EM M

E O

D N

I E

SMEDITATINGMEDITATIY

E T

X A

S T

E I

X NPOWERPOW

&Shadowed, Shadowing

Shadows are shimmering behind the sheds

Shadows are shrinking towards the sea shore

Shadows are shuttling between the shameless and the shameful

Shadows are shifted and shattered with shades

Shadows are sharpened, shredded, shaved, shackled

Shoved, shoveled, shortened, shut, sheltered

Shrouded, shouldered, shelved, shipped

Shadows are shaped

And shaping

Sh

&Still Chrysanthemum

You are always amazed

Why chrysanthemums bloom

Without feeling

At their spots of growth

While they are identified by color

White, yellow, pink, red, orange, blue, purple

Tender-textured

Petals powdered

With the coolest rays

Of the mid-autumn moon

You are stricken by their very graciousness

Each hiding behind its jade-veined fingers

Yet each refusing to budge against the chiseling frost

Still and proud

&Marble Days

You believed when you were weak

Hard were a man’s bones and heart

His days were so tough to soften it was to break

You imagined them like sweat

Frozen into marble

I know, pretty round stuff

Marble balls, the kind many boys toy indoors

On a cold evening

&Sunsetting above the Sea

Like an all-faced fisherman

Too excited about a long day’s catch

The sun eagerly drags its net of light

Bigger than the universe itself

Onto the thickening skyline

Leaving behind nothing glittering with fish scales

In the shadow of night

&Words, Only Words, Nothing but Words

Arranged in her order

They are not just politically correct

But richly colorful

Like rings of diamonds

Suitable for the crown only

Put in your way

They are nothing but clanked clichés

Rambling weeds in the fields of paper

Or scrambled eggs in a dirty bowl

&Another Difference

Listen, the TV guys are now

Talking about Iranians, North Koreans

Russians, even Chinese

As if they were not barbarians

As if they were not demons

So don’t say again

There is no progress in our American civilization

&Imperial Standard

All this time

You say this

This, this, this, this, and this

But you are doing that

That, that, that, that, and that

Aren’t you a politician

Or a spokesman

For dear Uncle Sam?

&royal route to / Short Cuts to Celebrity

Put on the most fashionable clothing

Try to use Ipod, Ipad or Ipal before all others

Take a picture with the president (dead or alive)

Eat a dinner with Buffet, Hawking, Clint Eastwood

Get an autograph from Tiger Woods, Oprah, Bill Gates

Stay in the same hotel as Steve Jobs, Rush Limbaugh, Jim Wales

Better to get some smell when Brad Pitt, Miley Cyrus or Angelina Jolie

Happens to be farting around

&Snowflakes

Snow

Flakes

Fall, fell, fallen, falling

Filling

In

Every

Blank

With

Shredded

Autumn

Cloud

As they all disappear

Into a shrouded fairy tale

&Outsight

Before we are born we sit for long

Between blood and flesh within the human skin

Of others, though we are part of them

And so are they part of us. They are moving

But their walking, running, jumping, turning and shaking

Do not affect us as we sit still

Meditating like a Buddha

In neither language

Nor signs

Nor images

&There

How

It’s disappeared

Kills

The history

Flee afar

From the centre

Listening

&Coming

Then will be nothing

To support

Or break, no

Thing but

Plants, such

Future as you plough

Present. Why not

Eradicate some days

Here, many

Roots holding beneath

Their feelings

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

Coming

Then will be everything
To support
Or break, every

Thing but
Plants, such
Future as you plow

Present. Why not
Eradicate some days
Here, many

Roots holding beneath
Their feelings

&The Fengshui Rule for Yang Residence

Don’t live in a grotesque-looking house

At the bottom of a valley

With all doors in straight lines

Above all, don’t dream in a legless bed

Right under a chandelier

However exquisite

Or you would be haunted by a devil

&The Fengshui Rule for Yin Residence

Let your body be buried

On a wooded ridge

Higher than all houses

Let your soul squat

At an evergreen treetop

Watching the rising sun

(Better like my grandma

Too poor to have a coffin)

Then one of your offspring

Will be a statesman

A maneybag

Or a literate star

(Like me)

&Unidentified Female Outcry: A Politically Correct Complaint

I is a female

I is a coloured minority

I is disabled

I is a 100% naturalized voter

I has many years of volunteering experience

I speaks the official language without a foreign accent

I comes from a much less privileged family

But why am I not chosen yet

For the position

For the fame

For the prize?

&X Missing: Provincial Proverbs

Affection blinds season

Beauty may have fair flower, but ugly roots

Caesar’s wife must be above suspension

Drink only with the luck

Enough is as good as a beast

Fire that’s closest kept burns most in the fall

Good face is better than a good base

Handsome is as handsome buzz

Injuries are written in glass

Jill has every jack

Knowledge is no burden

Love is full of beer, love is without season

Money is often lost for want of honey

Nature is above nurture

One man’s feat is another man’s shit

Present to the eye, present to the kind

Question for question is filled with air

Reward and punishment are the calls of pity

Slow but sure wins the face

Trust is the mother of defeat

United we band, divided we call

Variety is the spice for a wife

Willows are weak but never bend for good

Youth never lasts for peril

Zeal without knowledge is a runaway source

&Mushroom

With neither dignity

Of a canopy

Nor myth

Of an aureole

Your cap is simply too small

Your stem too short

Your geared-bones too tender

Yet your fleshy body has inspired

Myriads of umbrellas

To shield gods and humans alike

Against rain or heat

Against history

&Bamboo

With your hair-like roots

Holding the earth so tightly

You stand straight

Even during a summer storm

Thin as your body

You keep an open mind

For all secrets of growth

Between your heart-ringed joints

Despite your slim leaves

You are full of spirits

Ever so clean

Ever so green

&Listening to the Prosody

Another freshly-fledged bird flies

From bough to bough to bough

Another summer storm thumps

Over ridge over ridge over ridge

Waves pushing waves forward to the shore

Colts running wildly as if in a race

Raindrops beating against the roofs at midnight

An old man digging potatoes in a foggy field

A young girl taking notes in a lecture hall

As some unknown fingers begin hitting the keyboard

&Fragile, Archaic China

They listen to you

Surprisingly

Which china are you talking about?

They wondered

Which china are you talking about?

You certainly know

If you please… one accosted you

Which china on the rise? He demanded

You are referring to the ‘sleeping giant’ in the east

The fattening hog to be slaughtered and divided

The country with an elephant’s body

But a chick’s heart

All china out of fashion, he commented

Shrugging his non-colored shoulders

But which china? He persisted

Really antic stuff? China made in Jingde Town?

You really like china?

Blue china? Ming china?

Or perhaps Song china?

You coughed in good will

You realize something

China is interesting to see

Only for its long history

&In No Sense, Or In A Sense

You are

in ascent;

I am to have

inner scent;

She is already

in a cent;

Aren’t we all

innocent?

&Summersaulting

Between your smiles

I walk a mile

Behind your glove

I fall in love

In the middle of creation

You have to eat

To gain popularity

You’d better pop

&Single Last Sale: A Parallel Poem

You’ve long since sold out

Both your sweat and blood

Now you try to sell your heart

Though nobody wants it

Some say the blood is not red enough

Others find the chambers too narrow

Still others think the coronary arteries

Stained with too many feelings

You peddle around, chanting aloud

From street to street

With your heart still fresh

Beating like a frog in your hands

You hope to sell it for a glass of water

Just to cool down your burning voice

So you do not have to sell your soul

Like all other hawkers in the market

Well satiated, but hardly heart-felt

&At Fraser River Park: Off-Leash Dogs Welcome

One dog is chasing a crazy vampire

Another jumping high to catch a flying heart

A third licking at the wound of a deformed cat

While two are dancing with ghosts as if in a quartet

Three biting at their owner’s shoulders

Four howling loudly towards the bleeding sun

Five sniffing around baby limbs scattered along a ditch

Six listening attentively to the roars of an unseen volcano

Seven shaking a dragon’s saliva violently off their bodies

As more are driving humans and hyenas alike

Into the river, a river full of dog shit

&Poppies: A Parallel Poem

Each pair of round lips

Cut right in the middle

Bleeding so boldly

In a foggy field

Nobody to kiss

Nobody to talk with

All like blood-skirted pasts

Painted thickly close to the heart

Changming Yuan

1550 W 68^th Ave

Vancouver, BC

Canada V6P 4V5

yuans@shaw.ca

Feline Perspective

With the world’s bluest eyes

The cat can certainly see

Deeper, wider, farther, clearer

Than the sky

Even in total darkness

Is it all because the cat has eaten plenty of

Rotten fish or mice?

&Springscape

every

branch

brimming

with

tears

as spring greens from ear to ear

&Ritual

A seagull glides

Its motionless

graceful glide

Above a million freshly foamed waves

From this realm

You hear the gull

As all birds are

Little is definitely impossible

&The Lucky Seven

You yearn to live with a woman

Who truly enjoys hiking hand in hand with you

Along a much less trodden mountain trail

You yearn to live with a woman

Who looks down upon those in high office

Though you may or may not have some privileges

You yearn to live with a woman

Who feels at home in a rented narrow basement

As much as in a grand private mansion

You yearn to live with a woman

Who shares the pride of your meaningful name

Even it is not known beyond your threshold

You yearn to live with a woman

Who never understands why people are so eager

To buy the most fashionable watches or handbags

You yearn to live with a woman

Who respects you in the closest intimacy and

Complains nothing in total ignorance

You yearn to live with a woman

Who cares about you as much as you her

Both before and after making love with you

&The Death of a Chinese Widow

In a remote Chinese village

On a forgotten winter night

A 38-year-old poor woman

Tried hard to sit up noiselessly

Put aside rather than on her padded clothes

Crawled out of her frameless bed

And resolutely drowned herself

In a broken wide-brimmed water jug

Behind herself she left neither worth nor words

Except three teenagers who had been

Bullied and looked at with slanting white eyes

By their fellow villagers

(who bore the same family name)

Ever since their father died

Of an untreated disease

13 years before

Years later, her children understood

Why she killed herself

In a water jug on that night

Many years after she had been suffering

From a painful

But not fatal disease

Years later, her only son told me

Why my grandma

Chose to drown herself almost naked

On that cold night

&Twilight Hanyang County

Twilight Hanyang County

My father was eight

Yes, as young as eight

Maybe only seven

Burning with sweat

On his way to nowhere

In front of him a wild fellow dog

(He was a dog according to Chinese zodiac)

Was grumbling angrily with hanger

While dry grasses and leaves

Were swept from field to field

And rain clouds too heavy with dusk

Sacking down towards bald hills

Dying of thirst and heat

Both caused by an unknown fever

He dragged himself close to a pond

Smelling of rotten reeds and water buffalo shit

There he drank to his full

Wrapping his legs with fresh mud from the bottom

To keep himself cool for the night

The next morning he would continue

Wandering around outside his fatherless home

Like a premature vagrant

&Life within a Digitalized World

1. 000000

1. 0

1. 0

0 1 000000 10101 1

1 1 0 0

1 0 10 0101

1 1 0 0

010 01 10 01010 1 0 1 01 01

&Within the Cyberspace

Birth is a wonder

Death is a hunter

Nothing is in between

Except a number after a number

&Confession of a Police Officer

Father, I know this is not a proud thing to do

But I really enjoy hiding myself

Somewhere in a dim corner

To catch a poor guy never known to us

Changing lanes without giving a signal

Speeding a couple of kilos over the limit

Attempting a left turn under a yellow light

Or simply looking unlikable to me

You know, father, it is always safer

Always more fun and more comfortable

Always bossier, and certainly more profitable

To give a stranger guy a ticket, a handsome fine

Than to catch an evil devil , an armed robber

A cold-blooded murderer, a violent drug addict

Even a drunkard costs me more skills

More brains, more guts, more strengths

It may be a bit too cowardly, too mean or wicked

Too ruthless or mischievous on my part

I know, but we just cannot help it, father

&Worldly Affairs (7): A Chinese Portrait

Freedom or no freedom

Democracy or no democracy

Human rights or no human rights

That’s never the question

But give me face

Big face, full face, thick face

In front of all others

And

I

Will

Give

You

My

Soul

Behind their backs

&Butterfly Being: Zhuangzi Revisited

Neither a human

Dreaming of being a butterfly

Nor a butterfly

Dreaming of being a human

But simply a moth egg

Attached firmly

To a yellowish leaf

Within the human mind

Or perhaps the other way around

Am I?

&Success

Like a brilliant butterfly

It has a most conspicuous fluttering flight

Though it used to toil within a cocoon

And before that

It wormed

And wormed

And wormed

With its whole eerie body

In the mud

Like the mud

&Fortune Cookie Fortune

Good fortune

Bad fortune

Always delivered

Within a crispy cookie

Cheap wisdom

Costly instruction

Always served

By an angel waitress

White plate

Black message

Always digested

In a Chinese restaurant

To eat your fortune

Before reading the message

Or to read the message

Before eating your fortune

It is all a question

Of if you would like

To eat out in the downtown

Of your heart

Or prepare your own meal

In the kitchen

Of your home

&My Hyphenated-Being

Half of me is a Chinese Canadian

Half of me is a Canadian Chinese

Put together without a hyphen in between

I am at once a Chinese and a Canadian

While awake, I am a Canadian Chinese

While asleep, I am a Chinese Canadian

While neither awake nor asleep

I am neither a Chinese nor a Canadian

Inwardly, I am a Chinese Canadian

Outwardly, I am a Canadian Chinese

Between my skin and heart

Am I a Chinese or a Canadian?

&Sun Shooting: An Other Beginning

Ancient Chinese myth has it that the world has ten suns to begin with …

Origin of Suns

They are sons of God of Heavens

Each with an all-faced body

Each has a heart

Where dwells a three-legged golden crow

They are sons of God of Heavens

As wild as so many bears bursting with fire

Playing non-stop, lolling and wallowing

In the heavenly river of stars

Until one day they go crazy

All jumping high in the sky

Refusing to return home

And take a break at night

First Shooting

When Hou Yi shot down

The biggest sun

With his red bow

And white arrow

Little happened:

With nine suns still playing

In the front yard of heaven

The earth was full of heat

Like the living room of hell

Drought in the plains

Fires on the mountains

All men and women had to

Hide themselves deep in caves

For the cool air

Except there was a butterfly effect of hope

Sweeping through the human minds

Second Sun Shooting

Ancient Chinese myth has it that the world had as many as ten suns to begin with …

With one enormous arrow

Hou Yi shot down two suns

The moment the souls of

The three-legged gold crows

Drift out of the bodies

Night begins to fall down

Although not so dark

Not so long

Not so cold yet

Third Shooting

At an unseen moment of glaring spot

With his enormous five-arrowed bow

(Newly made by the five most powerful tribes

From the five-colored rocks

Left over by Nuwa after the Creator finished mending the sky)

Hou Yi squatted straight

Aimed high

And shot down

All the other remaining suns

Except the brightest, the most handsome one

He left for the human world

To disperse earthly shadows

Ever since then, even Nuwa does not know

Why Kua Fu has been running

After the sun, Xi He’s only son

In an endless and tireless pursuit

From his tribal home near the Wei Lake

To the Yellow River (whose water

Fails to quench his thirst), flowing down

Right from Heaven to the distant wasteland

Beyond the North Sea, where he never means to stand

Where he is fated to fall

&Word Politics, Winter Olympics

According to Global Language Monitor, the following are the top three names, phrases and words that were used most frequently in 2009.

Gold/

Hu

without

Anger and rage

against

Spillcam

Silver/

Ipad

from

Climate change

to

Vuvuzela

Bronze/

The narrative

about

The Great Recession

to

Barack Obama

&A Matter of Life and Death

Each time he suffers from insomnia

He imagines himself retreating

To a jungle, like an African elephant

Going away to die somewhere

In the rain forest of distances

And he smiles in dark amusement

When he gets up the next morning

He feels as if he were a cicada

Just sloughing from a painful

And ugly old self for a new call

He has died numerous deaths

Each with enough dignity

Although still living

A wild dog’s life in broad daylight

&Looking at the Bay

Myriads of fish

Live to die

Die to live

Under the one and the same surface

So ever wavy

Except a few

Jumping out

Only to splash

Into the water again

Leaving no trace

Behind their tails

The bird happening to fly by

May have seen

Or heard the few

But not the gods

Not the trees

Standing afar

On the shore

&Double Life

Embedded within

The small screen

Is a whole world

That engulfs

All living spaces

Beyond the human mind

That is ready to engulf

The words, the signs, the pictures

Dead or alive

On the screen

With just one single click

Of the mouse

&Free Verse Found Online

Cage: Law or Marriage

A structure for

confining birds

or animals, enclosed

on at least one side

by a grating

of wires or bars

that lets in

air and light

Mirror: Eye or Picture

A surface

capable of

reflecting sufficient

undiffused light

to form an image

of an object

placed in

front of it

God: Hero or Man

A being

conceived as

the perfect

omnipotent

omniscient originator

and ruler of

the universe

the principal object

of faith

and worship

Changming Yuan

1550 W 68^th Ave

Vancouver, BC

Canada V6P 4V5

yuans@shaw.ca

&Codisil to Allen Qing Yuan*

After I die, Son

Wrap my body with my poems

Put all my remains

In an e/cask, and send it

To a site that will

Never be on hiatus

By burying me online

You can readily

Trace my soul traveling

From one living screen

To another

As long as you have access

To the virtual space

*Under my influence, my 15-year-old younger son Allen Qing Yuan has not only begun to write poetry but also had poems appearing in a number of literary magazines.