https://www.albany.edu/offcourse
http://offcourse.org
ISSN 1556-4975
Poems, by ChangMing Yuan.
In Handan/
In their fondest hope to walk as gracefully as handsomely as the residents of Handan
People swarm in from every part of the country to learn and practice the ‘capital steps’
But many have failed to learn the new steps while others forgot their old ways
So they all have to crawl back on their fours to where they originally came from
Bell Stealing/
To prevent the sound from being heard
As he tries to steal the only bell in the village
The thief stops his own ears with thick cotton
Believing that no one would find him out
Loss of the horse/
On a snowy evening a poor old frontier tribesman
Lost his horse, the only means of living he had
While everybody still felt sorry for him a week later
The horse returned home with another one wild
The Clay Tripod
Close to the bank of the Yangtze River
Sits an unearthed tripod
That has embraced
Spring water
Burning incense
Sesame oil
Rice wine
Persian perfume
And British opium
The tripod is none other than you
But what is the tripod?
Bio notes:
ChangMing Yuan grew up in rural China and authored three books before moving to Canada. Currently he teaches writing in Vancouver. His poetry was published (or is forthcoming) in Barnwood, Canadian Lit, Drunken Boat, Exquisite Corpse, Iodine, Literary Review of Canada, London Magazine, Mad Bunkers, Nthposition, Offcourse, Sentence and The Windsor Review, among other journals.
ChangMing Yuan's poems appeared in Offcourse #31, Summer 2007.