These two poems are the first of a series we received from Changming. We’ll be publishing the rest of our cache over the next few days. Enjoy!
~~~
Infinitival Infinities: A Sonnet in Fragments
To be a matter when there’s no question
Or not to be a question when nothing really matters
To sing with a frog squatting straight
On a lotus leaf in the Honghu Lake near Jingzhou
To recollect all the pasts, and mix them
Together like a glass of cocktail
To build a nest of meaning
Between two broken branches on Ygdrasil
To strive for deity
Longevity and
Even happiness
To come on and off line every other while
To compress consciousness into a file, and upload it
Onto a nomochip
To be dying, to die
~~~
My Crows
1/
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
2/
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
~~~
Yuan Changming published monographs on translation before leaving China. Currently, Yuan lives in Vancouver, where he edits Poetry Pacific with Allen Qing Yuan. Credits include ten Pushcart nominations, Best of the Best Canadian Poetry (2008-17) and BestNewPoemsOnline among others.