The other night, we were still imagining
How to grow old together, wondering what Else to do besides making love in bed But now, both of us have become really old Older than our parents when we were young Younger than our children who are getting old While you feel wind-dried inside out, I find Myself softened at both ends. Indeed In a cold night like this, isn’t it nice To have someone to stay close enough with And keep each other warm on this bed? Urban Portraits (3): The Pigeon Feeder No one knows When the old man started to do this But every evening he would prop up From nowhere, coming To the foot of a statue at the square With a dusk-painted container To feed the pigeons Cooing and flapping around Like wantons retuning home for supper Each time he would take extra care Making sure each bird got its fair share Whether it was warm or chilly Windy or rainy until one day He finally failed to appear Then another day, a third… Later, he was found stone dead On his lonely bed, in a rented room Definitely bigger than a cage But containing no other furniture Even a desk, a chair Except some bird food Left on the window ledge Two small paper boxes Full of receipts from pawn shops And a note To Whom It May Concern: Please continue feeding the pigeons Urban Portraits (5): The Bench Lady On each sunny Saturday afternoon The elderly woman would be seen All dressed up From head to toe Sitting all by herself In her very best On that same park bench Both her face and clothing shinier Than the daylight She would gaze long Beyond the bay At the tall trees On a distant mountain Like a proud queen Reviewing her guards of honor Until at a cloudy moment, her head fell down On her shrunk shoulder, once and for ever January 2: For Yuan Hongqi That was the day when my father died Before finishing the longevity noodles Mom’s trying to feed him below our feet On the other face of the planet, where He had persisted long enough to allow Us to celebrate another new year’s day In Jingzhou as well as in Vancouver When my brother’s only son managed to Travel all the way to Grandpa’s dying bed To report how he was doing in New York This was also the time when I and Hengxiang Felt like making love again after another Cold war, when Iran successfully testfired Two long-range missiles in the Persian Gulf To deter the invasion to be led by Uncle Sam And his running dogs, when the very first Plymouth Neon was made in 2000, when JFK Became a senator in 1960, when a stamped Took 66 human lives after a soccer game At the Ibrox Park Stadium in Scotland Even earlier, and when God was taking A long overdue nap, since he knew All was well with this wild wild world On that day, I became the oldest male In my entire family, ready to take my turn To deal with death in a masculine manner Getting Newly Old you can only talk about what you used to do and do what you used to talk about you shrink in both ways and both ways are the only way to shrink what's supposed to be hard softens like a boiled noodle what's supposed to be tender hardens like a winter stone one attempt on top of another or, one attemptable night after another Converting to Vegetarianism now eating nothing but tomatoes, potatoes carrots, cabbages, apples, watermelons cherries, strawberries sorghum, pepper i recognize them all like true communists either in appearance or in heart while their lycopene may contribute to the well-being of my ischemic heart i can only draw bloody memories from them about summer fields about all my red pasts in China Waiting to Exit Not to overstate this But for hundreds of times I have imagined myself Leaving for an African Forest like a dying elephant So that I can bury myself there In total obscurity and oblivion As if I had never come to this World. Yes, I am really haunted By this suicidal whim Not because I am tired of Suffering from this unbearable Loneliness, anxiety That makes me a living dead But because I long For that ultimate dignity Yuan Changming published monographs on translation before leaving China. With a Canadian PhD in English, Yuan currently edits Poetry Pacific with Allen Yuan in Vancouver; credits include ten Pushcart nominations, the Naji Naaman's Literary Prize 2018, Best of the Best Canadian Poetry, BestNewPoemsOnline, Threepenny Review and 1,449 others worldwide.
yuan changming @ Poetry Pacific https://poetrypacific.blogspot.ca https://happyyangsheng.blogspot.ca Lotus Image & License: Depositphotos_32738103_s-2015 |
Copyright © 1998 - 2024 Mystic Living Today All rights, including copyright, in the content of these Mystic Living Today web pages are owned or controlled for these purposes by Planet Starz, Inc. Terms of Service Disclaimer and Legal Information For questions or comment, contact Starzcast@mysticlivingtoday.com. Reproduction of this page in any form is not allowed without permission of the author and the owner of this site. All material on this web site, including text, photographs, graphics, code and/or software, are protected by international copyright and trademark laws. Unauthorized use is not permitted. You may not modify, copy, reproduce, republish, upload, post, transmit or distribute, in any manner, the material on this web site. Unless permissions is granted. If you have any questions or problems regarding this site, please e-mail Webmaster. Web site design by: Creative Net FX |