yuanspoetry©: [archived]: yuan's animal poetry ©

Animal Aesthetics

Yuan Changming

Table of Contents

Beyond the Zoo /3

Fossil Fish /4

Four Frogs /5

Looking at the Bay /6

Fish /7

South China Cicada /8

Within This Open Bottle /9

Dytiscus Larvae: A Social Tragicomedy /10

Worn Worm /11

Temporarily Floating /12

Natural Confrontations (1) /13

Chameleon /14

Truncated Truths (2): Butterfly /15

Some Butterflies Never Fly /16

Being: Zhuangzi Revisited /17

The Mouse, a Mouse /18

Out of Memoriam /19

Cock-A-Doodle-Doo /20

Snakeland /21

The Confession of a Cat /22

Two haiku Left in a Hotel /23

Strolling in the Fraser River Park /24

Across the Vast Open Ranch /25

History Reviewed: the Secret of the Mongolian Empire /26

Drawing the Dragon /27

Selected East idioms /28

Chinese Chimes: the Confession of a Calendar /29

My Crow /30

The Crow Cornered /31

Wintry Vision /32

Winterscaping: Crow vs Snow /33

Truncated Truths (5): the Crow /34

The Black Bird /35

Dancing with Crane /36

The Moving Spirit /37

Wild Geese /38

Above the Water /39

The White Goose /40

Oriental Metaphysics /41

Birds of Varied Feathers: a Confucian Call /42

Natural Confrontations (2) /43

Visualizing /44

The Human-Headed Bird /45

Unsung Bird Sings /46

Like Birds, Like Humans /47

Ritual /48

The Gull Haiku /49

Long Time No Hear /50

Would Or Wouldn’t: the Variations of the wing /51

Birdkeeping: a One-Act Play Poem /52

Beyond the Zoo

A hen party is held

Around a sitting duck

While there is a bull meeting

Where you can see the elephant

Getting the goose when it tries to tell

The difference between the sheep and the goats

Farther away, a black snake falls down

Neither fish, flesh nor fowl

Smelling a rat somewhere

As you are being showed the lions

Ready to take the bull by the horns

Until the cows come home

While learning about birds and bees

I feel ants in my pants

The cat’s got my tongue

Hey, I do not mean to chicken out

Or clam up on these dog days

Rather, I would try to be an eager beaver

Hold my horses

When I have a cow

That’s what a little bird told me

About how they made a beeline for

Pigging out

Before it rains dogs and cats

Aquarium

Rather than a queen

Bathed in my own tears

While worshipped

Before glass walls

I would be

A tiny shrimp

At the bottom

Of the food chain

Even to be

Eaten alive

While swimming

Freely

The Calm Clam

with a bow-wow mouth

as big as my bald body

both lips thin and hard

carved in full eloquence

with my tongue grown right

out of my heart and soul

i am surely meant

to be a voice empowered

for all around me

either silt or sediments

shining dull and dark

with soiled secrets

i often imagine myself

like a free seagull

singing at the top tip

of a tall coral tree

as myriads of grains

of yellowish sand

are panned or sifted out

from the wild waves

galloping ahead

yet color-blind and tone-deaf

i am deeply oppressed

under the heavy water

where sharks and squids

keep yelling towards the sky

above my blue musings

as i withhold my tongue

waiting for a sunny spell

to translate my loud pain

into a muted pearl

At the Kitslano Beach

i spot and pick up a clam

whose flimsy lips fairly open

and her tongue keeps reaching out

as if to reveal

the saltiness of seawater

the sad face of sand

and anecdotes about certain fishes

whose narration i really do not understand

though my younger son assures me

he can

For Morland

You listen to a trout in the sea. Its fins

Are flapping.

And the whale that swims

As it charges into God’s fishing net

Like a moth bumping into a glass window

Gradually together

Without the currents approaching afar

You find too many shrimps and sharks

You hate to see

The animal scene. And I depart

So noisily that the trout turns frantic

And you spot an eel’s shuttle

Amidst waves.

So finitely vast

Yet few

Fish at the Moonset

To get some fresh air

Or to escape from dark pressure

That’s not the question

But you must jump high

With all your strengths

Above the horizon

For an illuminating spell

Or an ethereal realm

Even though for a single moment

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

Octopus

To escape

From your predator

You eject a wet night

Into the seawater

As if to dye the whole ocean

Into darkness

Boyhood Buoys (2): Frogmeat Sale

To earn a couple of yuan to buy some

Kerosene oil for our lamp in the house

I followed my neighbor, an older boy

To catch frogs in the middle of night

It was always a sure thing to do: where-

Ever we heard a frog sing, we would

Stealthily approach it, illuminate it

With torchlight, and pick it up with

All the ease we could enjoy. Sometimes

I did feel sorry for the frog: its eyes were

Shining bright under the summer stars

But why did it fail to escape from danger?

Early next morning, we would skin our catch

And went to the nearest town, shouting aloud

‘Fresh frog meat !’ like the frogs singing at the

Top of their voice, after dusk, in the rice fields

Four Frogs

For the past half century, I have never seen

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

But there are four big-mouthed frogs leaping around

Afar in a ricefield of my native village, four frogs

Squatting under the rotten bridge on the way leading

To an unknown town, four frogs playing on a big

Lotus leaf in my heart, four frogs calling constantly

From the dark pages of history invisible at midnight

Four frogs meditating under a puti tree transplanted

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

Like bloated tadpoles, the same four frogs whose

Monotoned songs resonating aloud in different tongues

With different pitches, yes, the four frogs still there

In the English Bay

the waves surging towards the seashore

not unlike my spirits

the seashore embracing the waves

not unlike your arms

a whale seems trying to jump above the water

like what is not supposed to be unlike

Looking at the Bay

Myriads of fish

Live to die, or

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

Pet Fish

like three sparrows

cutting winds in the spring sky

the angels are often so agitated

for no reason

they try desperately to charge out

of the little aquarium

sitting high on my granite fireplace

but now one is biting at my thought

another swimming with all leisure behind a fake rockery

and the third just floating in the mid-water

staring at nothing

Petting

in my little living room i keep two pets:

one is a tropical angel

shaking its sparrow-like tail constantly

in the aquarium of my mind

the other is a white-winged crow

cawing from time to time

close to my pen and a blank sheet of paper

while one needs minimum care

i have to feed the other regularly, like my inner self

Fish

If you could, would you become a fish

That can swim, freely in the water, but without

Being able to touch the horizon? --I don’t know

If you could, would you become a whale

The king of the ocean, the ocean of words

For instance, the most powerful? --How powerful?

You wait for all other words to feed you

Like planktons, or swallow other fishes like similes

Metaphors, because you are big. –Yes, very big

If you could, would you become a blue whale

Whose calls and songs can reach afar, far

Beyond a civilization? –Who can hear me then?

Song of the Salmon

deep in ever deafening waters

of the pacific never really pacific

you speak a highly salty dialogue

too unique to be readily translatable

painted with shiny eloquence

your language has no tattooed taboos

under every spot of your silver skin

is hidden a richly pink secret

within your little body shorter than a meter

spurts out a strength of three thousand kilo

you keep swimming in bluish solitudes

against the waves of an entire ocean

your heroic journey back to your birth stream

is nothing less than a pilgrim to immortality

along your single long line writ in water

you have striven, for a tiny egg of after-life

Mandarins

Although belonging to the some grove, the husband and the wife will fly like birds in different directions when the trees fall down. –Chinese Proverb

like common-laws living on land

you’ve never gone through a ceremony

but you share privacy and publicity alike

in the minimal space of time, and

at the maximum moment of space

after days of months of years

of playing intimately in the water

beside the reeds and duckweeds

you have begun to look like each other

in almost every physical feature

now, as a violent storm rises above the lake

do you feel enough limerence to stay here?

Whale

deep from the heart of the sea

your have been singing, singing aloud

above and below the horizon

your voice reaches afar

far beyond an entire continent

though no human ear hears you

what are you singing about, whale?

-- only another whale might catch a blue note

traveling astray from your saline melody

in another universe

Fat Facts about Wonder Whales: A Wild Wish

1. As the biggest animal in the world, you have the loudest voice in the living universe;

2. It is your roar rather than your song that can be heard even three thousand kilometers away;

3. The most devoted mammal, you never leave blue waters, except when trying to catch a dream above the sea;

4. With the biggest mouth in the animal world, you can swallow 50 tons of water, tears or sweat.

5. Your songs are made up of long low notes; you reserve your short and high notes for making an uproar;

6. Some of you can hold your breath well over an hour to dive a depth of 2 or 3 kilometers just to touch the sea floor;

7. With the heaviest brain among all creatures, are you destined to be the ultimate ruler of the living world?

Shark

i was using my little spear

you were using your mighty jaw

and prey was the prize of our pride

i missed mine, you missed yours

but neither of us could stop

within the range of another range

like a satellite far beyond, far above

along its orbit

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

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

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?

Dytiscus Larvae: A Social Tragicomedy

One most ferocious robber in the pond

World, observes a zoologist, is a slim,

Streamlined insect called the Dytiscus larvae:

Lying in ambush on a water grass

He suddenly shoots at lightning speed

To his prey (or anything moving or smelling

Of ‘animal’ in any way, a fat tadpole, for

Instance), darts underneath it, then quickly

Jerks up his head, grabs it in his jaws

Injects his poisonous glandular secretion into it

Dissolves its entire inside into a liquid soup

And sucks as it swells up first, and then gradually

Shrinks to a limp bundle of skin until it finally falls

From his fatal kiss. Very few animals

According to the observer

Even when starved to death would attack

Let alone eat an equal-sized animal

Of their own species

But the Dytiscus does, just as man does

Within or without a pond

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

Temporarily Floating

I am the little creature

He put on his hook

To be kissed or swallowed

By an unknown fish

Many trout are swimming around

I have no idea which one of them

He intends to take out of the stream

The only thing I hear is His laughter

Echoing along the tightened line

Natural Confrontations (1)

Firefly

Burst with courage

You try to use

Your little light

Like a sharp scissor tip

To rip off the curtain

Of all summer darkness

Ant

Stretching its hair-like limbs

As far as it can

The ant embracing

The tallest Douglas tree

In the forest

Attempts to shake off

All its leaves

Branches, and even

To uproot it

Squirrel

With a thin line of blood

Dripping along

From its new wound

A squirrel runs rapidly

Across the street

Wishing to melt, or warm up

The whole icy winter

The Confession of a Worker Bee

We make two kinds of trips

One to suck nectar from flowers

The other to gather pollen

When we try to produce honey

We transfer our loads to each other

Mouth to mouth

In an endless process

To add enzymes to what eventually

Gives honey its ‘shelf life’

Yes, for the sake of honey’s shelf life

We are happy to live only a month to die

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 Cycle of A Life

The Egg: roundish, yellowish

Like a morning dewdrop

Hanging on the east side of

An unknown leaf, ready

To be hatched out

By the warm sunlight

Of late spring

The Larva: with stripes and patches

So fashionable as a fancy garment

You keep wriggling, wriggling

Towards the heat of south

As if to display your pride

Over your colored being

The Pupa: Unlike a south China cicada

Trying to slough off its old self

For a different song of the west wind

You wrap up your outer life

With your innermost thoughts

About reaping sorghum

In the far fields of autumn

The Imago: As colored snowflakes

Beat their wings

Against northern dreams

You forget whether you

Are the butterfly, or the

Butterfly is you among

White wintry wishes

Truncated Truths (2): Butterfly

From the darkest corner of his heart

Flapping out a giant butterfly

Three-legged, tailless

Like the crow in the sun

As a Chinese myth has it

Shadow slowly measuring

Every inch of the ground route

The highway of human souls

It flies surely towards the rising sun

Like a cadaver dog trying desperately

To find the decomposed body

Of a murdered history

Two Butterflies

From the darkest corner of his heart

Flapping out a giant butterfly

Three-legged, tailless

Like the crow in the sun

As a Chinese myth has it

Shadow slowly measuring

Every inch of the ground route

The highway of human souls

It flies surely towards the rising sun

Like a cadaver dog trying desperately

To find the decomposed body

Of a murdered history

As if to light the candle

Reached out from the dark window

A white butterfly keeps beating its wings

Against evening, trespassing

Upon every front yard, trying to deliver

The same message

To the local residents

Though they do not seem to like it

You will never forget this single butterfly

Mono-coloured, yet karma-led

Butterflies at Night

Some prefer to perch on withered twigs

As if to add a little color to the dark tree

Some dwelling under the leaves of plants

Trying to hide from the chilly moonlight

Some attaching themselves to steep cliffs

Hoping to keep in line with summer stars

Others simply squatting on the bare ground

Fearing neither animal feet nor heavy mists

While many like to roost together

Most love to sleep or dream alone

During the day they all fly around like public figures

Yet at night they become as solitary as private thinkers

Some Butterflies Never Fly

Their wings are gracefully colored

With patterns just as beautiful as any

But they can never fly out of your

Dream, my heart, or her inner space

Like an invisible chrysalis, even if

They can move high up and down

Between time and space, even if they

Can move close enough around our souls

They can never flap their wings

And fly into the human vision

My Butterfly

as if to light the candle

reached out from the dark window

a white butterfly keeps beating its wings

against evening, trespassing

upon every frontyard, trying to deliver

the same message

to the local residents

though they do not seem to

like it

you will never forget this single butterfly

mono-coloured, yet karma-led

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?

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

The President and the Mouse

Nothing went wrong to begin with:

The president had made a speech

As powerful as penetrating as ever

Which was televised nation wide

But some of his diction so infuriated

Jake’s boss in their imposing building

He gave Jake a huge pile of bullshit

The first thing in the very morning

For obvious reasons Jake could

Not throw out it back at his boss

So he passed the whole shit to Jane

After returning home from his work

And so Jane passed it to little John

And so John to his bulldog

And so the bulldog translated it

Into much more dog shit and

Passed it to a mouse in the storeroom

Usually on the high alert against

A neighbor’s cat…

Out of Memoriam

in a quiet corner

a squirrel jumped up

onto the thickest tree in the backyard

of my heart

it’s up there no more, but its movements

remain visible among the leaves

the tenderly broken branches

still holding its weight

Cock-A-Doodle-Doo

Born in a year of the rooster

You were fated to crow

But not so high in the sky

Like any other bird flying fast by

Rather, you perch low

Low on a broken fence

(Still reserved for ghosts and spirits)

Crowing as aloud as you can

To welcome every sun

Looming above the dawn

Yes, you are vociferous, both because of

Your breed, and your personality

Golden Pheasant

Showiest, you most brilliant bird

Feathered with richest

Boldest whims and wishes

Though unable to fly higher than a tree

Or farther than an arrow’s range

Spending most of your time aground

You would rather run, stalking

In the heart of the forest

Roosting on treetops, never intending

To show off your glaring beauty

To any watching eye in the distance

With a metallic voice, you are simply too proud

To call attention from a different species

Snakeland

Probably in one of your dreams

Probably at a relocated zoo

Probably on a less trodden trail

Probably between two words

Probably behind the shadow of an arrow

Probably before making a u-turn

Probably after entering an office

Probably from a moving picture

Probably under the morning glows

Probably beyond the autumn lake

Probably near the melodies of spring birds

You may be bitten by a snake

Poisonous or otherwise, and

Since then, you would be

Strangled to a slow death

Like me or her

Boyhood Buoys (3): The Most Memorable Science Class

We didn’t know how or why, but we came to be

Convinced that swallowing a fresh snake gall

Would give us a more insightful pair of eyes

So, after catching a three-foot long grass snake

We skinned it off carefully, and cooked a big

Pot of soup with its old chicken-like meat

(O boy, how delicious it tastes! But my mom

Dare not go to the kitchen for a whole week)

The next morning, I blew enough air into the

Slough, made it into a vivid staff dragon, went

To school early and put it in the top-open desk

Closest to the podium. When the lid is raided,

The fully wound dragon threw the whole class

Into shriek. That’s our only field science class

Boyhood Buoys (5): Waterbuffalo-Boy

How I envied Doggie when his little hunchbacked

Father was appointed the caretaker of the tallest

Water buffalo in our communist commune:

Every day, after school, he would ride her

For his father, plodding along from one

Grass spot to another. While I had to dig

All kinds of obscure plants for our ever-stunted

Pig and collect chicken shit from every household

For the collective, he could take a sightseeing

Ride around the whole village (and even enjoy

Fucking the handsome creature with his arm

And fist as he liked), until one day, I tried to bribe

Him into allowing me to play my flute on her

Moving back and thus fulfill this idyllic dream

But he barked back with a broken voice: No way!

The Confession of a Cat

like a pile of compressed fog

caught on a twig at the mountainwaist

the cat hunches on the sofa's shoulder

where i see the whole house of life

genetically domesticated behind the doors

that most hateful human invention

yes, i am a bimental being

as my feline friend has revealed

i can readily detect the moods

of my human family members

often switching my personality

with my drifting kittenhood

as i tease or avoid them behind doors

who know i enjoy solitary stalking

and respect my rented privacy

but none of them was born in the year of my day

since my ancestor was cheated shamefully

out of a ridiculous race in chinese zodiac

the inside doors are ajar or unlocked

but the one facing the free spirits of nature

is always tightly closed, separating me

from my other self born to prefer

to stroll in the wild than sit in the house

once i sneak out of the threshold

i will never give a backward glance

yet I will keep my grooming habit

by using my long tongue to clean the dirtiest

and most private parts of my authentic being

somewhere in the wildness

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?

Two Haiku Left in a Hotel

The Cat

Dyed with the dark night

Your black pupils can see through

The sunlight’s secrets

The Dog

Although newly grown

Your teeth are strong enough to chew

All the hardest days

Strolling in the Fraser River Park

(Entrance Notice: Unleashed Dogs Welcome)

In this territory, every dog is free

Though the leash is never too far behind

In its owner’s hand

While the dogs make love

Without even knowing each other’s names

Their masters remain standing far apart

Each fiercely guarding his pride and privacy

Without a dog, you will find yourself even less

Than an animal, as your human rights

Are blatantly violated by running dogs

None of them ever barks here though

Either with humor or at any human

But one of them could go crazy

And bite your head off

All before you know it

Fuck the Guard Dog

But beware of the frog

Fuck the Shakespearean sonnet

But beware of the poetry scribbler

Fuck the inner party

But beware of the politician

Fuck the mid-summer sky

But beware of the west wind

Fuck the red red rose

But beware of the thorny stem

Fuck the trendy concept

But beware of the coinage

What I wanna say is

Feel free to fuck, pal

But beware of the hug

Across the Vast Open Ranch

as if to demonstrate

his roping talents

the cowpuncher looses up his lasso

and throws it afar and straight

dropping it right over

nouns like grizzly bears

verbs like coyotes

adjectives like eagles

adverbs like rattlesnakes

and other function words

like buzzards

before the snowstorm sweeps all

the creatures from the prairies

Animal Virtue

in the big mouth

of an african alligator

open wide as broad daylight

a little nameless bird

is pecking joyfully

with leisure and pleasure

at his tooth slit

as if flirting with her bulky lover

trying to protect her

against the sun

burning flesh and earth

around the old

weak, sick and disabled

as well as innocent colts

the zebras get ready to build

a circle of wall

with their naked bodies

each time a lion looms

and waits for his first chance

to prey on one of the unlucky

alone and quietly

the doomed elephant

the once strongest of the rain forest

retreats deeper and deeper

into the limberlost of distances

struggling to die somewhere

in an unknown corner

far beyond the tusking territory

of his silent survivors

to keep their hope alive

Autumn Dew Purple

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

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

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

And capable generals; more than a thousand years later

Long since your demise, your beauty and spirit have helped

Your stone relief survive all human wars and natural disasters

Now standing still in Penn Museum, you are never to

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

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

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

History Reviewed: the Secret of the Mongolian Empire

As killing Mongolians swept

Both China and Russia

Form East Asia to West Europe

They moved swiftly on an animal

No bigger than a stubborn donkey

A 4-legged creature so holy to them

They had dozens of ways to refer to it

(like bor, har, khongor, or tsagaan)

Indirectly as we address our emperors

Kings, queens as your majesty, but they

Were never impious enough

To invent a proper noun or

To give it a proper name

No, unlike the car that has carried the white peril

Even to Mars, the horse had no name in the heart

Of yellow peril
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

Seeing the Dragon: a Parallel Poem

Did you see

Some creature seeming to loom

Somewhere above the jungle?

You find only part of the picture

Like an eerie-shaped piece

For a huge jigsaw puzzle

Or you never bother to look for the pieces

And put them into a whole

It is neither a boa nor a serpent

Nor a phoenix

Certainly not an eel

But a strange dragon rising up

Beyond the bluish bay

How come it turns out a dragon?

You feel it disgusting to the bone. Monstrousness

Is particularly despicable

At the side door of your mind

A heavy metal voice is knocking

Constantly:

So unthinkable!

So hatefully unthinkable

To see a real damned dragon!

Allenian Dragonmania

my younger son is the greatest fun
of dragons i've ever known as a chinaman
he could lecture hours nonstop
on various dragons' magic talents
he often insists that in his own room
everything is transformed from a dragon
once he asked me in loud resentment
why he was not born in the year of dragon

on a shiny night with his little might
allen shrieked all his way to my dream
confused, confounded and horrified
before he told me a fantastic tale:
a real living dragon in its authentic form
had thrown a visit through his window
confessing behind his mind's curtain
it had been deeply touched
by the tremendous tenders of affection
my son had made to him in private

Selected East Idioms

hujiahuwei/

All the animals of the jungle

Flee in fright from the little fox

As it carefully stalks behind

In the tiger’s shadow

feiquanfeisheng/

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

huashetianzu/

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

saiwengshima/

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

qiannujiqiong/

The first of its kind that had ever appeared in the mountains of Guizhou, the donkey gave a deep impression to all local animals at the beginning. Terror-stricken, even the tiger came to pay his respect and offer his kingship to the newcomer, since he had such an imposing statue as well as such a high-pitched voice. Later, the tiger found the donkey capable of doing nothing other than kicking to defend himself or offend his enemy. With this happy realization, the tiger tore the new king into pieces and ate him up the third time he passed by.

Chinese Chimes: the Confession of a Calendar

it all began with an animal race Emperor Jade called to amuse himself and his earthly subjects...

Rat: yes, i admit betraying the cat as my only close friend

but i won the race, with my head rather than my legs

Ox: to honor my contract with the yellow sun

i eat green grass, yet give red meat to man

Tiger: as the only feared king of the thick jungle

i am afraid and tired of my own timidness

Rabbit: with my cagey ears held so high

i will not miss a sound of peace

Dragon: although my portraits hung lively above the clouds

no human eyes have ever seen my authentic being

Snake: the moment i sloughed off my old slim self

i forgot ever seducing any manhood in heaven

Horse: my body looks more masculine than a strong man

and my heart feels more feminine than a tender girl

Goat: when i bleat towards the passers-by

i never mean to speak in an other voice

Monkey: each time i try to find any lice in the corner of my mind

i act like the humans outside the fence with barbed wire

Rooster: with my wings plumed with the feathers of night

i can not fly but to crow loudly towards dawn

Dog: given my canine camaraderie and pack mentality

i feel at home before, among or behind soldiers

Pig: i spend all my lifetime wisely

to guard this single moment

We Are All Bats

Self-confined in a huge cave

Walled with our own ignorance, and

Blind as we are, we navigate in darkness

Detecting directions with our sonar of shriek

While trying to fly like real birds

Although we are earth-bound mammals

Although there is a whole open sky outside

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

My Inner Crow

after so many years

the white crow

i had been keeping as a pet

finally flew away

without a single moment

of hesitation

through the back window

blown open

by a gust of wild wind

last night

into the storm of

black snowflakes

falling down

right from heaven

The Crow Cornered

Still, still hidden

Behind old shirts and pants

Like an inflated sock

Hung on a slanting coat hanger

With a prophecy stuck in its throat

Probably too dark or ominous

To yaw, even to breathe

No one knows when or how

It will fly out of the closet, and call

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

Winterscaping: Crow vs Snow

Like billions of dark butterflies
Beating their wings
Against nightmares, rather

Like myriads of
Spirited coal-flakes

Spread from the sky
Of another world

A heavy black snow
Falls, falling, fallen
Down towards the horizon

Of my mind, where a little crow

White as a lost patch

Of autumn fog

Is trying to fly, flapping
From bough to bough

Truncated Truths (5): the Crow

Each crow you have seen

Has a quasi white soul

That used to dwell in the body

Of one of your closest ancestors

He comes down all the way just to tell you

His little secret, the way he has flown out

Of darkness, the fact both his body and heart

Are filled with shadows, the truth about

Being a dissident, that unwanted color

Hidden in your own heart is there also a crow

Not blacker than his spirits

But much more so than his feathers

The Black Bird

so little triggers

off

a black bird

the nexus of antithesis

foiled with snow

light

to fly into the vast history of

gray

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

The Dove

never does the dove remember his ancestor

once by chance brought back a fresh branch

to an ancient man after a universal flood

nor is the dove aware he is the white dove

the subject painted with piety and prayers

devoted to a great and impossible human cause

when we admire or worship his invented virtues

he is busy cooing or beaking on the ground

no larger or smaller than another distant dove

sometimes more like an unknowing wanton

the dove cannot help fighting with his playmate

over a blue spot tinged with human blood

The Moving Spirit

the bird is flying

so high in the sky, its wings

become as blue as heaven

its belly grey

as a cloud

the blue bird

vanishes soon into heaven

but the grey forgets

it is part

of a presence

embedded in the scene

then nothing could occupy

that space, and

remain there forever

Cuckoo

alas! you sensitive secretive songster

knowing every secret spirit of the forest

and all the spirit’s secrets in the mists

you keep calling and singing blindly

until your throat becomes all blood-blocked

you never care, nor are you aware

how many ears have heard your sounds

how many eyes will see your figure proper

except some casual hikers going astray

or a couple of local firewood gatherers

you just keep singing and calling blindly

you singular solitary singing species

The Calls of the Cuckoo

every sound of your song

is a rung of the ladder

standing straight

against the wall of my heart

along which I climb

to see more and farther

until I could touch the rainbow

the morning glow

or the summer thunder

even though I might fall down

like a broken raindrop

The Art of Origami

Each time I run short of inspirations

I would try to fold the dull season

Not into a decoration

But into a magpie

I always hang it high

Above my head

Like my own spirit, where I

Can hear the droning complaints of

Each creature over its pain

The pity is, my senses are often too soft

To hold the shape firm

Above the Water

the goose has been floating

so long in the lake

its body above the water

becomes a picture, the rest

a rotten stick

the goose above the water

is more graceful than a swan

the goose under the water

is fossilized

in the heart of that lake

there is nothing

but a picture

of a goose-like figure

ever so bold and vivid

The Wild Goose’s Will

Those who know me not

Find me a kite tied to the skyline

Those who know me well

See in me a true sunshine chaser

I have never traveled high

As the reputed American bald eagle

Nor am I attached to the ground

Like the pigeons on Tiananmen Square

Plumed with the feathers of disappointment

My wings of hope may melt like Pegasus

Yet following my heart along the horizon

I have never lagged behind my shadow

Let me keep flying all the way to my death

Despite the cold clouds watching in silence

The White Goose

My grandfather was younger than my son

When he died of an undiagnosed disease

Somewhere in the Mid-South of China

So we have been told since childhood:

He did nothing memorable or forgettable

Left no picture of his or any handwriting

Not even one impression on my father’s senses

Since he was born after he passed away)

But he had bought a big white goose

To protect his infant son in his place

And a single-syllabled family name

Copyrighting every little poem

I have composed

In a foreign tongue

Those Wild Geese

Little clouds of fossilized sunshine

Now flying mute

And leaving behind their shadows

All the songs of the morning

Until they are shot down

Like flute dots

The last calls they make

Their only songs

The Eagle

The eagle is carved

In deep relief of

The marble; the marble

Is perching quietly

Under its wings, both

Squatting heavily

On my whims

The eagle murmurs

To me: Give me

A patch of sky, and

I can fly really high

Be it even a spot

Of painted space

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

Pair Bond

In the heyday of the Song dynasty

Lin used to have two renowned

Soulmates: one is a Chinese plum

Tree, the other a yellow crane

Living far beyond Mount Lonely

I have but only one, an albatross

Not because of its widest wings or

Because of its large size and flying

Power, but because of its loyalty

That lasts until death departs the pair

Yes, married to a bird for better or for worse

My innerself can fly far and high like the Peng

From Zhuanzi’s sky, never having to worry it will

Follow my wife to pursue her girlish romanticisms

Early Birds

When I heard that bold cawing

Knocking at my double-glazed window

A sound in the mind echoed

From an unknown voice

Louder

And louder

As if to wake my spirit

Still sleeping like a winter stone

Outside my dream, far away

Oriental Metaphysics

No, it was

It is

Not a crow

That has just flown by

In stillness

But a spectre

(in a crow’s shape?)

A whim

(about a crane?)

Or a glyph

(standing for a cuckoo?)

That can actually

Flap away

Neither from your agitated heart

Nor from my meditating mind

Like the butterfly

In a Zhuangzian dream

Birds of Varied Feathers: a Confucian Vision

Come, come

You peng from the Zhuangzian northern darkness

You swan from the Horacean meadows

You pheasant from under Li Bo’s cold moon

You oriole from Dufu’s green willow

You dove from the Dantean inferno

You phoenix from Shakespeare’s urn

You swallow from the Goethe oak or

The Nerudan dense blue air, you cuckoo

From the Wordsworthian vale, you albatross

From the Coleridgean fog, you nightingale

From the Keatsian plum tree, you skylark

Form the Shalleyean heaven, you owl

From under the Baudelairen overhanging years

You unnamed creature from the Pushkinian alien lands

You raven from near Poe’s chamber door

You parrot from the Tagorean topmost twig

And you crows from among my cawing words

Come, all of you, more than 100 kinds of

Birds from every time spot or spot moment

Come, with your light but strong skeletons

Come, with your hard but toothless beaks

Come, with your colored feathers, and flap your wings

Against Su dongpo’s painting brush strokes

Come, all you free spirits of nature

Let’s join one another and flock together

High, higher up towards mabakoola

Natural Confrontations (2)

Seagull

As if right from heaven

A snowy seagull charges down

Trying to pick up the entire ocean

With its bold beak

As the tsunami raises

All its fierce fists

In sweeping protection

Against earth’s agitation

In foamy darkness

Crow

A baby raven

Popping up from nowhere

Tries to

Establish itself:
one dark truth
On the skeletal tree top
Yawing fiercely
Towards the sky, the wind, the buildings
The fields and the entire afternoon
All so fluffily white
In jade-toned snow

Cuckoo

With a thin

Blood-throated voice

You call out aloud

Trying to wake up

Millions of millions

Of trees and rocks

All deeply lost in

Their cold dreams

Of last winter

Visualizing

Above the water

The swan looks so elegant

Pure and noble

Beneath the surface

Its feet are paddling hard

Like an ugly duck

But invisible as they are

You can also imagine them

Like the wings of a white eagle

The wings that are flapping

Fiercely against currents

Ready to fly into the depth of season

Lifestyle of a Bird

Instead of pecking around on the ground

For grain or gold to satisfy your hunger

You keep flying all day long, trying

To fetch feathers stuck in muddy history

Twigs far beyond Adam’s continent, and

Rice stems from summer fields, with which

You long to build a permanent nest

High on the top of the tallest Douglas fir

Where you can live closest to heaven

But you may be shot down by a hunter

When flapping towards divinity

The Human-Headed Bird

(An ancient artifact displayed in Jinzhou Museum)

That human-headed bird

Flapping its wings against

Foreign visitations must have been

Either possessed by the spirit of

My previous life

Or winged by the body of

My next being; otherwise

It would never bother to

Look up at me

As it flies into the same legend

About the yellow crane

All its feathers fall down

On my sandy mind, like meteorites

With all their secrets hardened

From an other universe

The Birds and the Mountaineer

in their glaring voices

unseen birds are singing

unaware of strangers

approaching them step by step

from the foothills

while one lonely climber

keeps breathing quietly

for fear of awakening

the immortals dozing off

right above his spirits

Birds at Risk

your songs and calls all recorded

your body vividly stuffed

your genes being digitalized

your species already cloned

now we seem living a posthumous life

we have become shadows of ourselves

among so much bustling and hustling

we are dying, birds, dying

In the Forest of Life

like an open cage

like a free hotel

my balcony has become a home

to many wild city birds

pigeons philosophizing in private

seagulls stalking with arrogance

crows beaking at unseen seeds

sparrows quarrelling non-stop

on the branched-out railings

behind the dusk dyed wall

sometimes all alone

more often in company

looking out of my wingless window

i find myself to be one of them

coming to perch here by chance

but ready to flee by need

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 Bird above the English Bay

Sometimes, you prefer to swim alone

In the blue, where

You have the whole ocean

Beneath your wings

Other times, you enjoy gliding

On the blue, where you

Have all the sky

Above you head;

Occasionally, you dive

Long and deep,

As if into your own thought

Where you seem to be trying

To catch a fish, or a wave foam

More as a game than for a meal

You never care about my loneliness

As I struggled

To share your joy of solitude

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

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 Gull Haiku

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

Bird's View

you like to hide your pupils

in the blue of the autumn sky

when clouds collide with each other

you enjoy shining down

like a pair of invisible suns, seeing

the gliding birds above corn fields

the moving shadows of hills

the reflections in the water of an unknown lake

a wild flower blooming by the river bank

a colony of ants busy transporting foods beside an oak tree

a lilac seed blown out of a metal fence

and a vision drifting around a human head

you saw, you see, you are seeing

even though your eyes are closed

Long Time No Hear

I never knew the names of

These birds, but their voices are far

More familiar than my late playmates’

One sounds like a soprano

Though with only one high-pitched note

Another like a three-toned frog

And a third like five-fold whistling

After nearly half a century, this is the first

And very last time I return to

My native village, in the right season

Would Or Wouldn’t: the Variations of the Wing

If every human had a pair of wings

(Made of strong mussels and broad feathers

Rather than wax like Icarus’)

Who wouldn’t jump high or become eager to fly

Either towards the setting sun

Or against the rising wind?

Who wouldn’t migrate afar with sunshine

And glide most straight to a warmer spot

In the open space? Indeed

Who would continue to confine himself

Within the thick walls of a small rented room?

Who would willingly take a detour

Bump into a stranger, or stumble down

Along the way? More important

Who would remain fixed here

At the same corner all her life

Like a rotten stump, hopeless

Of a new green growth?

Birdkeeping: a One-Act Play Poem

scene i

A [in front of a detached house, trying to repair his fence while talking to himself]: Fucking hell, why does there have to be winds all the time? Without these wicked winds I would never have to worry about my fence, and the whole universe would have been much more peaceful.

B [passing by, with a bunch of empty birdcages behind his shoulder]: A nice day to do some repairing, eh? You know you’ve got a pretty solid house here.

A: Yeah, but it has cost me a lifetime, though, and I can never pay off my mortgage.

B: You know what I would do? I would hung a bird cage and keep it open. They say it will make you feel happy at least.

A: Really?! Wish to have one then.

B [giving one of his empty birdcages to A]: Here happens to be one for you. Happy or not happy, you will keep a bird.

A [taking over the cage and trying to hung it somewhere]: How come? But we’ll wait and see! [aside] Me to keep a fool bird in this cage? No way!

scene ii

A [receiving a guest in his living room]: So, how’s everything going, pal?

C [looking at the bird cage]: When did you begin to have a bird? What’s happened to your bird?

A: My bird? oh, I never keep a bird, but just …

C: ?

scene iii

A: [talking to himself before trying to answer a phone call]: Me to keep a bird? No way!

D: [at the other end of the phone]: I almost forget to say I am sorry for your late birdie, but didn’t you take good care of it? Perhaps you did not know how to keep a tender songster to begin with? I’ll lend you many really helpful books; perhaps I can give you some good tips right now?

A: Oh no! I never keep a bird except…

D: Come on, and cheer up! A bird is just a bird.

scene iv

A [in front of his house, trying to repair his fence again while talking to himself]: Dogfart, why does there have to be wicked winds so often? Without them I would never have to worry about my fence, and the whole universe could have been much more peaceful.

E [trying to sell a new product to A]: This time I remember bringing a beautiful bird as a little present to you. Here you go [putting a pink parrot into the cage].

A: Thanks very much, but…

E: Don’t mention it. This bird belongs just as much to your cage as your cage to this bird.

scene v

A [standing in the middle of his living room and yelling loudly at the parrot in the cage]: Me be a bird in cage? Oh no, me keep a bird in cage? N--

[the parrot mimicking]: mi-bi-bir-din-kei; mi-ki-pir-din-kei; mi-bi-bir-din-kei; mi-ki-pir-din-kei…

Animal Farm Revisited

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

Sneaking into this fairy farm, where it was constantly bullying

Pigs and goats into flight, torturing ducks and roasters

For having wings feathered with similar dreams

Pecking the bear because of its claws just as powerful, and

Conspiring with bulls, elephants and walking dogs

Against the dragon for trying to fly just as high, threatening

All others for emptying their bowels through their own ass holes

Just as it does in the sky

Did you honestly see that?

yuanspoetry©

Monday, 15 January 2018

[archived]: yuan's animal poetry ©

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