Prose Poems

      

By Yuan Changming

Evolution towards Dataism: A Proem   More advanced in evolution   than     their human masters are     chickens               as they     outnumber the     stars in the whole universe,    and     occupy     every corner of         the entire         planet,                        but as in-dividuals,         no chicken can fly higher than a low       fence, make love within                 its confinement           or live           together     with its children. The     only    thing     they do besides     laying eggs    and         growing meat is standing     there, day and night,     as if  meditating about the meaning of evolution:   It took hundreds… of thousands …of years for …homo erectus to evolve …into sapiens and longer …for chimpanzees to …erectus, but …engineering ourselves …by way of biochemistry… cyborg and… AI, we are upgrading …ourselves into… godlings – all it takes… will be just half a century …where science beats gods …and devils, saints and ghosts alike… at only …a fraction of second, when a whim …pops up for a human …to go back …to a wild animal, again…   Now given   each organism  as a biochemical  algorithm,     your life          is a programed process      proving           your consciousness     is actually far      less       valuable than a fucking               Frankenstein’s AI Re || Membering || Laozhi   Hiking along || a less trodden trail || in the Pacific Spirit Forest, I almost || have to stop to find my || Way || out, because all roads || have led me to || nowhere, but I keep || walking until it is almost || Laozhi himself || pointing his fossilized fingers towards ||Dao || (Which he says is no ordinary ||Way|| if it can be ||named ||. Similarly, if I can find || it on my own, it’s not the || real or the right || one.) Like a tour guide who seems to know every || path to and from the destiny||, He || began to lead || me like a dog ||, sometimes running well || before him, sometimes || beside him, more often going astray || by myself among the low bushes. I cannot help || but follow him because the leash is getting so tightened I want || to protest aloud: you claim the great || Way || is no way, but just follow || Nature ||. Then why keep me with a rope? Like every other domesticated || dog I || have a delicious bone right || above my mouth, which makes me keep || running to my death, but never || allowing me to have a || bite. Why No More Super-Sapiens, Saintly or Satanic: Another Proem   It was all via Columbus It was right from the New World It was simply because of his unintended introduction That a shepherd named Syphilis began to lead an increasingly large flock of innocent lambs, including Franz Shubert, Arthur Schopenhauer, Edouard Manet, Charles Baudelaire, Guy de Maupassant, Friedrich Nietzsche, Fan Goh, Mozart, Beethoven, Gustave Flaubert, Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin, A Bing; other suspects including Oscar Wilde, Emperor Tongzhi, the Lincoln couple, Hitler, Lenin, Darwin, Edgar Allen Poe, Starlin, Einstein, Hugo, Napolean, Albrecht Dürer, Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Robert Alexander Schumann, Jean Nicolas Arthur Rimbaud, Alphonse Daudet, Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes, Christian Johann Heinrich Heine, as well as Dr. John Hunter himself, to march from the ditches of obscurity to the grand hall of fame…   Until even you and I wish to join them to become a super master in our own right, but alas, we have now to stop dreaming about becoming super-sapiens, wicked or wrecked, as a side-result of the invention of penicillin?! D-Dreaming   When I was a dream child, I dreamed of all that was dreamable, including a remarkable ancestor in particular, whom I wished to have so that I could brag about to my playmates. However, as I grew older, I learned that my grandfather had left us nothing but an unknown family name, while my father was no more outstanding than any other in the street. So, I began to dream about attaining enough fame, wealth and/or power to become someone in my own right.   Alas, despite a thousand weeks of psychological and physiological hardships in the past, I have come only to prove myself as ordinary as my father and grandfather, whom I have been striving so hard to emulate and, to my greater dismay, that my sons are even lesser.   Now I still dream from time to time. In the most memorable one, I come to good terms with my mediocrity. After all, being no body is a standard form of human being, perhaps no less than a form of nirvana. If U Can’t See Me, I Can’t See U: A Parallel Proem             (sign at the back of a truck)   Outside the picture, if you can’t see me, I can’t see you; under a pile of words, if you can’t see me, I can’t see you; behind a big truck, if you can’t see me, I can’t see you; that is, since I drive in front of you, if you want to pass but can’t see me in my driver’s seat, or in my front rear mirror, you are in my blind spot, so don’t follow me too closely, don’t try to pass me, but stay calm behind my shadow; otherwise, you would kiss my big ass in a bloody way   And so, when you communicate, wait and make sure you see the right person first –that’s for your own safety, pal. When you are cursing, singing, dancing, playing or fighting, it’s best to have the real person in view: if she can’t kiss you, you can’t kiss her; if you can’t put up with me, I can’t put up with you; if fame can’t grow out of you, you can’t grow out of fame; if money can’t find you, you can’t find money; if the politician can’t trust you really, you really can’t trust the politician.   Look, what I point out is, if you can’t see me, I can’t see you, whether it is in a book, at a cemetery, on a plane, or behind a truck. Drive safe, you asshole.     Yuan Changming grew up in an isolated village, started to learn the English alphabet in Shanghai at age 19 and published monoragpohs on translation before leaving China. With a Canadian PhD in English, Yuan edits Poetry Pacific with Allen Yuan in Vancouver. Credits include 12 Pushcart nominations for poetry and 2 for fiction as well as 16 chapbooks and appearances in Best of the Best Canadian Poetry (2008-17), among 2,019 others across 49 countries. A poetry judge for Canada's 44th National Magazine Awards, Yuan began to write and publish fiction in 2022, with his first (hybrid) novel Bamakoola: Paradise Regained forthcoming in 2025.