On The Garbage Collection 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

At Fraser River Park, Vancouver West

(Entrance notice: 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

At Autumn Auction

(for all unappreciated true artists)

This pair of human hands used to belong to

Neither da Vinci, nor Mozart, nor Napoleon

Nor Newton, nor Van Gogh, nor Thomas Edison

Nor Shakespeare, nor Doug Henning, of course nor Li Bai

Look, the blood is still dripping!

But it once warmed the heart of a frozen crow

Opened the door to a stranger starving to death

Added a handful of soil to a withering rose

Waved to a breeze blowing from nowhere

Wouldn’t it be a big fool to buy these hands?

Most important, the hands carry with them authentic spirits

Inherited from gods though still unknown to us, and the owner

Has cut them off to donate to an honorable human cause

Our initial price is set at ten hundred thousand

200, 200? 300, 300? 350, 350? 400,400?

20 Imperial Imperatives

Come on

Let there be right

Don’t be afraid

This above all: to thine own self be true

Speak the devil

Watch your thoughts, your words, your actions, your habits and your character goods

Pee eight glasses of water every day to keep yourself fit

Never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by impotence

Don’t fart in front of her Majesty

Those who believe in telekinetics, praise my hand

Be the ex-change you wish to see in the world

Beware of hog

Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the men of bold

Say you love me

Do not dance with a pig – you’ll both get excited, but the pig will not enjoy it

sit

Forget yourself and write only for the public

Do not fuck with locals

Let a hundred flowers gloom

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

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

Fame Check

If you google your own name

and find millions of search results

You are already as well known as John Keats

If tens of millions of results prop up

You are comparable with Bill Gates, Isaac Newton

If hundreds of millions do

You are reputed like Tiger Woods, Shakespeare, Jesus Christ

If billions do

You are in the same rank as American President in office

If trillions or even zillions do

You must be someone called Allen George Michael John Smith

That is, more famous than USA

Manhood

When I was a little country boy

My father used to yell at me:

Men sow blood, not tears

And my mother would try to correct him:

Boys do not cry, but try to sweat

So I knew tears are never manly

But ever since I left my parents

I’ve never shed a single drop of blood

Not even much salty enough sweat

Indeed, holding a pen rather than a gun or spade

Most of my life, I have been busy

Copying, writing, copyediting

Observing with my naked eyes

Feeling with an ischemic heart

I’ve scattered more tears than sperms

With my own sons all growing taller than me

I begin to wonder if my parents are painfully

Disappointed as I am in myself about the way

I turn out to be neither a man nor even a boy

Voices: Active vs Passive

To say

Every man

Loves a woman

Is not to say

A woman is loved

By every man

Mustache Or No Mustache

Unable to attain a new birth

I tried to take a new look instead

By shaving off my mustache

The American standard that I have

Been wearing since teenager years

But my teenager son says I look funny

My wife finds me a weird stranger

Even I myself hate to see that ugly

Seeming-naked guy in the mirror

Making me feel eerie and disgusted

To all strangers I look a perfectly normal man

But to my associates I appear like a monster

So, I wait, for my features, to return, wondering

If a new look can never get reconciled

With an old self, or perhaps vice versa?

Changming Yuan grew up in a tenth century Chinese village. Teaching in Vancouver now, he has published 2 sons definitely greater than his two poetry books, and received 3 messages from Chan far stronger than nominations for the Pushcart Prize, with his soul wandering in Barrow Street, Best Canadian Poetry, BestNewPoemsOnline, Cortland Review, Exquisite Corpse, RHINO and others in 17 countries. http://bquest-yuan.blogspot.com/

Photo courtesy Marco Djermaghian

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