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On the Highway of Life
Sharp curve
Slippery
Danger
Detour
Road closed
Prepared to stop
Construction ahead
Yield
Yield
Yield
Memories, Your Hidden Memories
Are the wine you drank the other day
It can never get you
Really high, but only make you suffer
From another long sleepless night
If the Name Is Not Right
Says Confucius, the speech
Will carry no might, or something
To this effect, but I do not care
Nor will I put up any fight
If you call me chink, chinaman
Oriental, ching chong, dog-eater
Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan
Jeremy Lin, Yao Ming, Ling Ling
Even Jap or Gook while pulling
Your eyes back. Whatever name
You call me, my words do not
Go right, since English is never
My mother tongue, after all
[you vs us]
You cut meat with sharp knives
We poke grasses with bamboo sticks
You punch others with hard fists
We dance around you with taichi gestures
Your men fuck around everywhere outside your households
Our women lay babies right in your living rooms
You colonize every city with an English syntax
We decorate each street with Chinese signboards
You deploy aircraft carriers near our waters and coasts
We marry girls to your princes and paupers
You enjoy setting fires and blowing winds along our long walls
We have Chinese stomachs to digest all insults and injuries
You try every way to overthrow our government
We sell every artifact to help your people survive
You borrow money from us to build more weapons
We work hard to make more money for your banks
In the Forest of Life
He kept felling trees
One after another
Not to see whose ring is
The roundest, but to taste
Which cut offers the finest
And most fragrant sawdust
On the Painting Canvas
Wherever his brush pen goes, it
Becomes colorful, but even more so
Is the blank he leaves un-brushed
Just as the words uttered can be meaningful
But much more so are those unuttered
Perhaps even un-thought of
Bio:
Yuan Changming co-edits Poetry Pacific with Allen Yuan. Writing credits include 16 chapbooks, 12 Pushcart nominations for poetry and 3 for fiction besides appearances in Best of the Best Canadian Poetry (2008-17), BestNewPoemsOnline and 2129 other publications across 51 countries. A poetry judge for Canada's 44th National Magazine Awards, Yuan began writing and publishing fiction in 2022. His debut novel Detaching, 'silver romance' The Tuner and short story collection Flashbacks are all available at Amazon, his duology Edening due out in 2026.
