write this, effable and ineffable both

write this

emmer effer

a pretend genius broadsuction

some days are better than none

the message board

Changming Yuan

Summer: in her beehive-like room

so small that a yawning stretch

would readily awaken

the whole apartment building

she draws a picture on the wall

of a tremendous tree

that keeps growing

until it shoots up

from the cemented roof

Autumn: not unlike a giddy goat

wandering among the ruins

of a long lost civilization

you keep searching

in the central park

a way out of the tall weeds

as nature makes new york

into a mummy blue

Winter: after the storm

all dust hung up

in the crowded air

with his human face

frozen into a dot of dust

and a rising speckle of dust

melted into his face

to avoid this cold climate

of his antarctic dream

he relocated his naked soul

at the dawn of summer

Spring: like a raindrop

on a small lotus leaf

unable to find the spot

to settle itself down

in an early autumn shower

my little canoe drifts around

near the horizon

beyond the bare bay

---

Changming Yuan, author of Chansons of a Chinaman (2009), is a three-time Pushcart nominee who grew up in rural China and published several books before moving to Canada. Currently Yuan teaches in Vancouver and has poetry appearing in Barrow Street, Best Canadian Poetry, BestNewPoemsOnline, Exquisite Corpse, London Magazine and more than 350 other literary journals/anthologies worldwide.

writeThis.com, pretendgenius.com, cafehopeless.com and author.