Tenancy & Nostalgia: Siamese Stanzas

Changming Yuan

 

 

 

Tenancy

 

                    when we lose

                    the keys to our rooms

                    in his huge mansion

                    would our landlord

                    cut us more copies

                    as

each                                                   hope

one of us                                            builds

strives to own                                    our own house

a patch                                               haunted

of the blue sky                                   where we keep

though barely                                     each other’s company

breakable                                           for doorknocks

 

 

 

 

Nostalgia

 

 

that snowman                                    bigger than our childhood

we piled                                             at the vague foreground

has melted                                         as we try

into sunlight                                      to find the fine figures

before summer comes                       in a vast landscape

                         where a crystal glass

                         of rich red wine

                         reaches out

                         in its effort

                         to return

                         as a cluster

                         of emerald grapes

                         to the rambling vine

 

 

 

~~~~~

Changming Yuan, author of Chansons of a Chinaman (2009) and Politics and Poetics (2009), is a three-time Pushcart nominee who grew up in a remote Chinese village and authored several books before emigrating out of China. Currently Yuan works in Vancouver and has poetry appearing in Best Canadian Poetry, BestNewPoemsOnline, Exquisite Corpse, London Magazine and nearly 350 other journals/anthologies in 15 countries.