Five Poems By Yuan Changming

Yuan Changming, 9-time Pushcart nominee and author of 7 chapbooks (including Wordscaping [2016]), published monographs on translation before moving out of China. Currently, Yuan edits Poetry Pacific with Allen Yuan in Vancouver, and has poetry appearing in Best Canadian Poetry, BestNewPoemsOnline, Threepenny Review and 1159 others across 38 countries.


Chinglish vs Americhina 

Under our great gunvernment
Which now hates z-turning most
Our society is a true socialist democrazy
Full of shitizens (and stupigs)

While many a department and its head
Are trying to pursue propoorpty
As well as a fine sexretary
Most other chinsumers love to 

Demonstrate their amimale 
In front of circumseers
Like those who enjoy living togayther
In smilence


I Think; Therefore, I Am

But of course being what I am
Does not always require thinking

Being what I am is actually sufficient

Or requires nothing but eating, drinking
Fucking, farting, pissing, pooing and sleeping

Often, being what I am doesn’t even require
Feeling, besides making money by selling

All that I have and/or I am. Indeed

Being what I am requires neither thinking
Nor feeling, now except perhaps writing 

I write; therefore, I am
Though I am not what I think


Temptation 

Some often say it takes a million
Years to convert an animal
Into a human, but I say
What few say is seldom what
You say: it takes only a fraction
Of a second to change a man
Back into an animal, or even
Less than a wild chimpanzee
When a young guy hits an old woman 
For a piece of bread, chops
His seatmate’s head and bites
It in a greyhound, or guns down
A host of humans with an AK-47
Indeed, as some say what you
Never say: it takes only a whim
Or no more than an ism to throw
The whole civilization back into a 
Barbarian age if some would only do 
What you say that is never said



To Be The Good Time

Wikipedia statistics show 
The most frequently used
Words in English today are
Respectively for each class:
The preposition ‘to,’ the verb
‘Be,’ the adjective ‘good,’ the
Noun ‘time’ and ‘the’ among 
All other words. So, as long as we
Keep using English as a system of symbols
For human communication, we would 
Sooner or later learn the truth, and the only
Truth about ourselves: we all expect it
To Be The Good Time… 


Tree Scars

With your fingers, hands
And even arms cut off

You have scars all over
Your body, which first

You used to protest against all human pain 
And injury in deafening silence, then

Your mouths became eyes staring still
At each evil knife, each inhuman act

Now you are looking forward, and beyond
Without a wink, without a tear drop