4 Poems by Changming Yuan
Genuine Genesis
Created in holy His image
Adam was in fact a gay
Who loved Satan more than himself
While Eve’s sexual partner was also
The handsome serpent, the real
Father of all her children
Equally noteworthy, it was not
Satan who seduced the woman
To taste the apple, but the first man who
Forced her to eat a whole onion
Because he admired its layers
Of layers of skin, so inspiring
As clothes and masques he would like
Each and all of them three to wear
To explore, even to die with
Y for Yowl
Yipping, yelping, yapping
Yelling, yukking yoicking
Yawping, yackety-yakking
Yammering, yodeling, yahooing
Yup, yummy, between and beyond
Yin/yang, yetis/yuppies
Yankees/yamatos
Yeomen/ymirs
Yowl!
Cybersburg Address: A Free Sonnet
In the 1950s, our uncles brought forth
A civilization, conceived in electronics
And dedicated to the cause that all
Machines were created to be equally apathetic
To humans when a message was sent
From a lab at some campus, which can
Think logically, but not respond emotionally:
Whether you like it or not
This semi-being would never speed up
A moment even though you are dying
Nor will it slow down when it is to crash
Neither a smallest smile to hear
The great news, nor a smattering of
Sadness over the loss of your dearest
It keeps working at the pre-determined pace
Always indifferent of the people
By the people and for the people
Until we all perish with the earth
N. E. W. S .: A Rotating 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
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
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
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
Changming Yuan, 6-time Pushcart nominee and author of Chansons of a Chinaman (2009) and Landscaping (2013), grew up in rural China but currently tutors in Vancouver, where he co-publishes Poetry Pacific with Allen Qing Yuan and operates PP Press. With a PhD in English, Yuan has recently been interviewed by [PANK], and had poetry appearing in Best Canadian Poetry, BestNewPoemsOnline, Exquisite Corpse, London Magazine, Threepenny Review and 759 other literary journals/anthologies across 28 countries.
