Hedge Apple

Snow In, Snow Out

In the wild open west, flakes keep falling

Like myriad baby angels knocked down from Paradise

    Blurring the landscape behind the vision

Hunting each consonant trying to rise above

The ground. The day is brighter, lighter &

 Softer than the feel. Soon there will be

Dirty prints leading to everywhere (or nowhere)

& no one will care how the whole world will collapse

      In blasphemy. The missing cat won’t come to

     Trespass the lawn, nor will the daffodil bloom

To catch a flake drifting astray. Nobody bothers even to think

    About where the season is held up on its way back, how

       The fishes are agitating under the pressure of wintry

       Water, why people wish to see more and more snow

~~~

On My Birthday & Off

I don’t remember how many years old

I am, but I do care about my birthday, a time

When I can imagine getting good wishes

Or words. Rather than having a party

With a big cheese cake or a bowl of longevity

Noodles, I would prefer to leave home

For a lonely walk in the country, wandering

In a poetic wonderland, where I stop to reflect:

For more than a decade I have done what I could

By way of a poem, but since it is unlikely I can

Do anything with it, I find it the proper

Occasion to write one last stanza just

To commemorate my yearly visits to

Qucheng, Homerburgh, Dantefield

Shakespeareston, Goethestadt

Pushkingrad, Baudelaireville

Nerudastad, Frostdale, & Tagorerboro

~~~

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.  

Monody to the Murmuring Mountain

Twenty minimeters of pink petals.

Twenty minimetres of stretch and reach

Floral foil, twenty minimeters

Of soil, grass, dew, bush

Sitting in green meditation about

The balance between yin and yang

Myriad of leaves,

Falling down with mists

Of last night approaching – twenty minimeters

Of ethereal presence, kissing

The thick ridges – is the soul

The melody of equanimity?

Insects sloughing off

In chameleon-rhythms.

You stopped as you heard them

Twenty minimeters of dandelions rolling against

The vastness of sky and mountain

~~~

Clefting

Between two high notes

The melody gives a crack

Long enough

To allow my entire selfhood to enter

Like a fish jumping back

Into the night water

Both the fish and I leave no

Trace behind us, and the world

Remains undisturbed as we swim

Deeper and deeper in blue silence

Upon my return, I find the music

Still going on, while the fish has

Disappeared into the unknown

~~~

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.  

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.