Yuan Changming
Creating: An Ode to Queer
Towards the summer sky
I make a shape of heart
With my clumsy hands
This is the feel of life
I tell the season
This is to illuminate the dark
Dreamland like a search light
I tell the crow stalking behind
Like the spirit of my late
Father. This is to gather all
The positive energy in the world &
Send it to the future. I tell my
Unborn grandson. This is the cycle
Of life & the philosopher’s stone
I tell the greening copse. This is
The circle to fill in with cries
& laughs.
I tell my other self
Beyond the cosmic wall, as if
To balance yin and yang
In a sexless universe
Past vs Present: A Sinnet Sonnet
Divided first in language || & life style; || divorced
From harmony || with nature; || developed
Into a new level || of being; || demanded by
The collective; || desired; || deformed; || deflated
Decentralised; || deprived of all rights; || defined
In terms || of quantum metaphysics; || determined
By an other way || of looking at || every dimension
Unfolding events…rolling stones…barking dogs
Sinking ships…rebuilding the station…dwelling
In two bodies…sighing…trying to get out…
Waiting for Godot…pointing towards…punning
Joining in the long march…celebrating…avoiding
Uprising…meditating…communicating in symbols
Organizing ourselves …to desex God …or Nature
Sonnet in Prepositions: Yes, It Is Right
Among the buds ready to stretch out
Beneath the mid-autumn moon
Circa 50 BC; down a rugged trail
Except when He needed a pen to draw
From hilltop to hilltop; in an alphabetic
List where neither g nor h can be
Found; like j and k; minus all masks &
Sloughs; near the end of twilight; on the day
When frogs had just lost their voices
Per sight; qua art; re: immigration to
Asgardia; since the breaking up of the soil
Than the matrimony of two snow geese
Under the lowest cloud; via Styx
Within the queer absence of x, y & z
M/F
To masturbate or to fuck
To masculinize or to feminize
To mock or to fake
To manipulate or to facilitate
To mother or to father
To move down or to fill in
That is the question:
Whether it’s more accurate to declare
My biophysical (or spiritual) identity by ticking
M/F in this tightly enclosed box, since I was born
With a willy, but have lost it in my mind. Hesitating
To pick my sexuality or humanity, I wonder
How it is relevant to male fantasy or female modernity?
My Crows
1/ Know My Crow
Crows everywhere is as black as one another. –Chinese Proverb
Like the shadow of my shadow
Is the crow stalking constantly behind me
No other than the soul of your other self
Visiting me from a quasi parallel universe?
Winged with the feathers of benighted spirits
Throated with nightly darkness, it caws aloud
As if to summon every bit of my inner being
In the name of Raum or Jingwei
2/ My Other Self
Ture, as a Chinese saying goes
Crows everywhere are equally black
But this one in the backyard of my heart
Is as white as a summer cloud
I have fed him with fog and frost
Until his feathers, his flesh
His calls and even his spirit
All turned into white like winter washed
My crow’s wings will never melt
Even when flying close to the sun
Poet Biography
Yuan Changming edits Poetry Pacific (poetrypacific.blogspot.ca) with Allen Yuan in Vancouver. Credits include ten Pushcart nominations, Jodi Stutz Award in Poetry (2020) & publications in Best of the Best Canadian Poetry (2008-17) & BestNewPoemsOnline, among others across 45 countries.