Changming Yuan’s most recent poem to appear here was Outside the Zoo (April 2014).

N.E.W.S.: A Rotating Poem
By Changming Yuan

North:….after the storm
………….all dust hung up
………….in the crowded air
………….with his human face
………….frozen into a dot of dust
………….and a rising spectacle 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

East:……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

West:…..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

South:….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