Yuan Changming- Three Poems

Science Story: A Parallel Poem

I kayaked out of the bay on a Saturday evening

And was sucked there into a blue twirling ring

When I was nailed firm at the centre of a light stream

A pink snow falls though I wish to rise like the steam

My consciousness dissolves into heavenly waters

And I become present everywhere in the universe

I travelled afar to collect all my selves and assemble them together

And here I return to this moment, finding my old self a total stranger

Warnings from UFOs

1/ God is nobody

But a superman

Who has come among us

From an other civilization

That may have gone astray

In a different space of time

2/ The human face

On the Mars is meant

To tell that we have

Detracted ourselves

To see it crying afar

Beyond our own world

3/ Hollow as is, the moon

Is an alarm clock

Hanged closest to us, yet

It will never ring

If we fail to set it

At the right time

Humans & Nuclei

just like two nuclei

moving closer together

whose mutual electrostatic potential energy

becomes larger, more positive

yin and yang always try

to reach a higher balance

as they join each other

at a shaded corner

in a rented room

on a spinning disc, even

in a whole universe

Yuan Changming, 8-time Pushcart nominee and author of 5 chapbooks (including Kinship [2015] and The Origin of Letters [2015]), is the most widely published poetry author who speaks Chinese but writes English. Growing up in a remote village, Yuan began to learn the English alphabet at 19 and published monographs on translation before moving to Canada. With a PhD in English, Yuan currently co-edits Poetry Pacific with Allen Qing Yuan in Vancouver and, since mid-2005, has had poetry appearing  in 1049 literary journals/anthologies across 34 countries, including Best Canadian Poetry, BestNewPoemsOnline, Cincinnati Review and Threepenny Review.