Vancouver in Rain
Vancouver, how they sometimes hate you
Being so wet! You could leave all
Your lower content in dark & cold, with yesterday’s
Newspapers, flyers, flowers, leaves & even
Tales pickled in the pools or puddles full of vices & viruses
Among unseen ghosts & monsters
As love & pain flow along runaway rainwaters &
Every wing gets too heavy to flap with whims or wishes while
The whole city is taking a shower as if to prepare for a ritual, &
Me? I am just standing dry close to the window
Watching
~
Self-Addressing: A Bilinguacultural Poem
In English, the speaker always uses
A proper pronoun to address self
In Chinese, the speaker calls self
More than one hundred different names
In E, there is a distinction between
The subject and object case of self
In C, there is no change in writing
Be it a subject or an object
In E, the writer spells self with one
Single straight capitalized letter
In C, the writer adds to the character
‘Pursuit’ a stroke symbolizing something
In E, “I” ask for democracy, freedom
Individuality, rule of law, among others
In C, “我” is habitually avoided in making
A reply, either in writing or in speaking
~
What Softens: for Qi Hong
A human heart is
Neither money nor honey
Rather, it is a good natured smile of
Some dog playing with a cat, a bird
Feeding her young with her broken wings
Covering them against cold rain at noon
The whispering of a zephyr blowing
From nowhere, the mist flirting fitfully
With the copse at twilight, the flower
Trying to outlive its destiny, as well
As the few words you actually meant
To say to her but somehow you forgot
In the tender of last night
~
Screenshotting by a Weixin/Wechat Monitor: an Apolitical Poem
Now, exactly how did you
begin to have a crush on me?
Our city is the hardest hit
by covid-19 across Canada
During a school meeting
when you happened to sit before me
But the situation this side
of the Pacific is well under control
How come you actually
never confessed to me long back then?
That accounts for a major
sociopolitical gap between our two countries
I had a thief’s heart then
but not a thief’s guts as they often say
Say nothing about politics, or
my wechat account would be closed
Now you had both the heart &
the guts, but the thief is no more
Ok, I forget ‘no talking about state
affairs’ or a real country thief …
~
Chopstick Commandments
1. Avoid one chopstick longer than the other in a pair
That would recall what a coffin is made of
2. Don’t plant them in the middle of bowel of rice
Or dish, like a scent burning for the dead
3. Never use them to poke around in a dish
In the way a tomb raider works hard in dark
4. Put them strictly parallel to each other; or you
Would have yourself crossed out as a deplorable error
5. If you drop one or both of them on the ground, you
Will wake up and provoke your ancient ancestors
6. If you use them to beat containers like a drum player
You are fated to live a low and poor beggar’s life
7. When you make noises with them in your mouth
You betray your true self as a rude and rough pariah
8. Never point them towards any one if you
Do not really mean to swear at a fellow diner
9. Make sure not to pierce any food with them while eating
When you do not mean to raise your mid-finger to all around you
10. To use them in the wrong way is
To make yourself looked down by others
~
Yuan Changming edits Poetry Pacific with Allen Yuan in Vancouver. Credits include Pushcart nominations & publications in Best of the Best Canadian Poetry and BestNewPoemsOnline, among others. Recently Yuan served on the Jury for Canada’s 44th National Magazine Awards (poetry category).