Semantics of Selfhood: a Bilinguacultural Poem

1/ I vs 我: Denotations

The first person singular pronoun, or this very
Writing subject in English is I , an only-letter
Word, standing straight like a pole, always
Capitalized, but in Chinese, it is written with
Lucky seven strokes as 我 , with at least 108
Variations, all of which can be the object case
At the same time.
     Originally, it’s formed from
The character 找, meaning ‘pursuing’, with one
Stroke added on the top, which may well stand for
Anything you would like to have, such as money
Power, fame, sex, food, or nothing if you prove
Yourself to be a Buddhist practitioner inside out 

2/ Human & 人: Connotations

Since I am a direct descendant of Homo Erectus, let me
Stand straight as a human/人, rather than kneel down 

When two humans walk side by side, why to coerce one
Into obeying the other like a slave fated to follow/从? 

Since three humans can live together, do we really need
A leader or ruler on top of us all as a group/众? 

Given all the freedom I was born with, why
Just why cage me within walls like a prisoner/囚？

Fragmentizing: a Sonnet in Infinitives

To be [a matter when there’s no question
Or not to be [a question when nothing really matters

To sing                  with a frog squatting straight
On a lotus leaf in the Honghu Lake near Jingzhou

To recollect               all the pasts, and mix them
Together like a glass of                   cocktail
To build                   a nest of meaning
Between two broken branches on             Ygdrasil

To strive           for deity
Longevity               and
Even happiness

To come on and off line every other while

To compress consciousness into a file, and upload it
Onto a nanochip. To be          daying, to         die

Horse in the Rain

Standing still on a huge rock
The pale horse holds its head high
As if it had been running at full speed
On a wild range, looking up afar

To the most distant mountain
Its eyes glittering as raindrops
Keep falling from heaven
Straightly down to hell, &
Water-carving its paleness
Into a demonic statue of history

Homescaping

Tired of doing nothing in self-isolation
I kill time by looking at a traditional
Chinese painting on my iPad

Much enlarged, it appears like
A plain sheet of rice paper
Smeared with ink. I view it

In the presence of bonsai; I
Drop several thick strokes to the floor
Of history, leaving a few fine lines

Behind the sofa, & failing
To catch a colorless corner
Between black and white

It is a landscape newly relocated
Into my heart’s backyard. Then I sit
On my legs, meditating about there

Being no light in the picture, no
Shadow of anything, no perspective
As in hell. Isn’t this the art of seeing?

Yuan Changming edits Poetry Pacific with Allen Yuan in Vancouver. Credits include eleven Pushcart nominations, eleven chapbooks (most recently LIMERENCE) and publications in Best of the Best Canadian Poetry (2008-17), & BestNewPoemsOnline, among 1,879 others worldwide. Moreover, Yuan served on the jury for Canada’s 44thNational Magazine Award (poetry category).