[archived]: Metaphysical Poems by Changming Yuan ©

 

Mindscaping

 

 

                                                                  Changming Yuan

Table of Contents

1.      Directory of  Directions

2.      My Crow

3.      South China Cicada

4.      Bow and Arrow

5.      Fossil Fish

6.      My Crow, My Other Life

7.      Name Changing

8.      Dancing with Crane

9.      Sowing after ‘Digging’

10.    Ischemia

11.    Me and Them

12.    Single Last Sale

13.    Day & Night

14.    Uncertainty

15.    Light vs Shadow

16.    Butterfly Being: Zhuangzi Revisited

17.    Replacing

18.    White Calls

19.    The Worn Worm

20.    Chronometry

21.    Wintry Vision

22.    The Crow and the Butterfly

23.    Chameleon

24.    The Unseen

25.    Secret Spirit

26.    If U Can’t See Me, I Can’t See U

27.    Drawing the Dragon

28.    The Mouse, A Mouse

29.    Like Birds, Like Humans

30.    Within This Open Bottle

 Directory of Directions: A Module Poem

North: after the storm

            all dust hung up

            in the crowded air

            with his human face

            frozen into a dot of dust

            and a rising speckle of dust

            melted into his face

            to avoid this cold climate

            of his antarctic dream

            he relocated his naked soul

            at the dawn of summer

South:  like a raindrop

            on a small lotus leaf

            unable to find the spot

            to settle itself down

            in an early autumn shower

            my little canoe drifts around

near the horizon

            beyond the bare bay

West:   not unlike a giddy goat

            wandering among the ruins

            of a long lost civilization

            you keep searching

            in the central park

            a way out of the tall weeds

            as nature makes new york

            into a mummy blue

East:    in her beehive-like room

            so small that a yawning stretch

            would readily awaken

the whole apartment building

            she draws a picture on the wall

            of a tremendous tree

            that keeps growing

            until it shoots up

            from the cemented roof                  

My Crow

As an ancient Chinese saying goes

Crows everywhere are equally black

But this one in the backyard of my heart

Is as white as a summer cloud

I have fed him with fog and frost

Until his feathers, his flesh

His calls and even his spirit

All turned into white like winter washed

My crow’s wings will never melt

Even when flying close to the sun

South China Cicada

no human ear has ever heard of you

      cloistering yourself deep in the soil

silently sucking all sounds from roots

      for more than thirteen years in a row

      until high up on a summer painted twig

you slough off your earthly self

            pouring all your being in a single song

            before the sun sets for the yellow leaf

Bow and Arrow

           

For a whole decade of

Delays and detours

You have failed after all

To find the golden bow

Yet you still hold this arrow

Close to your heart

Ready to draw it

As straight as a day dream

At the setting summer sun

Fossil Fish

           

not every fish can

    transform into a fossil

not every fossil

    can be found fulfilled

yet unfortunately favored

    by the formidable fate

i am a fossil

that used to be a fish

to avoid being drowned

    in my own blue dreams

i swam, swum, and swimming

with the weeping wind

            against the sweeping waves

until at a hot moment of spot

    i became fossilized

my skeleton is my story

simple

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?

Name Changing

Confucius once said

If the name is not right

Language will carry no might

So my father created my name

By rearranging the sun and moon

Vertically and horizontally

To equip it with all

The forces of yin and yang

Dispersed in the universe

Since I became subject

To a totally different grammar

All people have complained

Or made fun of my name

So harsh and awkward

They conspire to seduce me

To adopt a familiar one

Like Michael in the powerful speech

But to retain the subtle balances

In the wild wild world I wander

To hold my father’s sunbeam

With my mother’s moonlight

I fiercely refuse to change it

Even though I often feel lost

When the sounds I hear

Do not sound like my name at all

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

Sowing After “Digging”

           

Above an empty sheet of paper

      With lines like the thin ridges

In an open fallow field

My snug pen squats

      As if waiting in ambush

Below my window, my father’s shaking shadow

      Is shrinking slowly but surely

Into a focus constantly adjusted

      By the noon sun of spring 

As he scatters some strange seeds

      Over the soil like salted brown rice

He has been preparing since last winter

By god, the old man enjoys sowing

Even more than his old man

My grandfather died at the age of 29

            In a hilly village in central china

He had cast every drop of his soiled sweat

      Onto a field not belonging to himself

It is said that he reaped little in autumn

Nor did he really care about reaping

Like a bridegroom planting his plump sperm deep

      In his bride’s virgin field on a mid-summer night

I am now sowing, with my pen

Ischemia

In my line of people, especially on my father’s side

There never seems to have been ample blood

Running within the arteries behind our Chinese chests

No matter how warm-hearted we actually are

As in the case of my father, who used to

Accuse me of being an ill-hearted teenager

My heart muscle is imbalanced

As one side is less infused with blood

Than the other, thus causing palpitation

Short breath, and a strong sense of

Tightness, heaviness or tiredness about life

To diagnose my cardiovascular defection

Neither an echo nor a stress test is needed

For I am keenly aware of my own doomed

Arteries that have been clotted  

With too many syllables

Voiced or voiceless 

And to make all these sounds flow out of my heart

Is already stressful enough

Nevertheless, I will keep pumping out these words

All so blood-soaked

Me & Them

First, they looked but without seeing

So, I began to yell in a yellow voice

Then, they listened but without hearing

So, I cooked according to a Chinese recipe

Still, they smelt but without tasting

So, I melt myself into spring water

Finally, they touched but without feeling

So, I began to tattoo words on my own heart

Single Last Sale

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

Day & Night

The day has no ears

The heart but a myriad

The noises glare

Where life’s grievance begins

The night has no eyes

The mind but a myriad

The shadows collide

When your spirit bites at the light

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?

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.

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 leave

Within the human mind

Or perhaps the other way around

Am I?

Replacing
Running short of bulbs
I planted some root words instead
Along the fence
In the backyard of my mind
All winter
They seemed dreaming under the frozen soil
When the last dews fly away
You will see certain three-colored tulips
Blooming aloud
Towards the early summer sun

White Calls

           

How many times

Have you lain in thick darkness

Imagining a white crow

That you wish to see

Or rather to be

Not until the other morning

Did you hear a wild bird crying

Like a persistent knock

At the door of your heart

Beyond your curtained window

Beyond your curtained dream

It was a crow hammering all its white yaws

Right into your soul

Resonating with your truer selfhood

The Worn Worm

This is a transparent creature

      Gnawing at the tiny roots

Of my withering senses

Before it becomes a chrysalis

      Buried deep in my heart’s soil

Then it tries to climb out

      Sucking all the fresh dews

Held long in my staring eyes

Before it begins to beat

      Its blue wings against the frog

Then it will fly away

On a cloudless day

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

Wintry Vision

Two little crows

Popping up

From nowhere 

Try to

Establish themselves:

Two truths

On the skeletal tree top

Yawing fiercely

Towards the sky, the wind, the buildings

The fields and the entire afternoon

All so fluffy white

In jade-toned snow

The Crow and the Butterfly

you like the crows in your backyard

other birds are much less plain

but they fly too high

or too far for your heart

stranded here

you envy the butterfly in your frontyard

The most beautiful

thought also most lonely

As the spring sets

under her floral wings

Chameleon

            -- when it looks in a mirror, what color does it have?

constantly

changing your skin color

with light

temperature

or emotion

they know it for sure

but isn’t it

their eyes

changing

with their minds

their hearts

their tongues

longer even than yours

we are actually colorless

aren’t we?                               

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  

Secret Spirit

for years I sought light in darkness
with my eyes open wide as my mouth
I called, I sang, I prayed, I pleaded
for rays that might come down from above

now I seek darkness in light instead
with my ears closed tight as my eyes
yet I cannot find a shred of my soul's

shadow, even in a midnight dream

If U Can’t See Me, I Can’t See U

            (sign at the back of a truck)

Outside the picture, if you can’t see me, I can’t see you

Under a pile of words, if you can’t see me, I can’t see you

Behind a big truck, if you can’t see me, I can’t see you

That is, since I drive in front of you

If you want to pass but can’t see me in

My driver’s seat, or in my front rear mirror, you are

In my blind spot, so don’t follow me too closely, don’t

Try to pass me, but stay calm behind my shadow

Otherwise you would kiss my big ass in a bloody way

And so, when you communicate

Wait and make sure you see the right person first –

That’s for your own safety, pal

When you are cursing, singing, dancing, playing or fighting

It’s best to have the real person in view:

If she can’t kiss you, you can’t kiss her

If you can’t put up with me, I can’t put up with you

If fame can’t grow out of you, you can’t grow out of fame

If money can’t find you, you can’t find money

If the politician can’t trust you really, you really can’t trust the politician

Look, what I point out is, if you can’t see me, I can’t see you

Whether it is in a book, at a cemetery, on a plane, or behind a truck

Drive safe, you asshole.

Drawing the Dragon 

There was a contest

Once

For the most faithful representation

Of loong

(Or the Chinese dragon)

In England

An inflated Satan 

Or was it Sua proper

Came to squat among

The letters

Then stroke by stroke, again

It rose right

Upon  

Each slate of white

Mind

The Mouse, A Mouse

if the little mouse became

as boundless as the sky as it wishes

the sky would become

as free as a cloud

the cloud

as powerful as a wind

and if the wind became

as unshakable as a wall

the wall would become

as penetrating as a mouse

and the little mouse

a mouse