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.