~ Delta Poetry Review ~

Yuan Changming

Skylight on a Summer Night

Not really the rain

Tapping it aloud

Like sparrows’ beaks

But all the stars

From the outer space

Splashing down

Into a Bai Juyi’s

Plate for the dancing

Pearls that I am

Trying hard to catch

And embed within

This foreign stanza

East vs West: A Synoptic Cultural Comparison

During the great flood

Noah hid himself in the ark

While Dayu tried to contain it

With his bare hands 

Prometheus stole fire

From Olympian gods

While Sui Ren got it

By drilling wood hard

Smart Daedalus crafted wings

To fly away from his prison-tower

While Old Fool removed the whole

Mountain blocking his way

Helios enjoyed driving his chariot

All along in the sky

While Kuafu chased the sun

To take it down & tame it

Sisyphus rolls the boulder uphill

Because of his deceitfulness, while

Wu Gang cuts the laurel as a punishment

For distractions in learning

Yuan Changming holds a Canadian PhD in English and edits Poetry Pacific with Allen Yuan in Vancouver. Credits include 15 chapbooks, 12 Pushcart nominations for poetry and 2 for fiction, besides appearances in Best of the Best Canadian Poetry (2008-17), BestNewPoemsOnline, and 2,119 other publications across 51 countries. A poetry judge for Canada’s 44th National Magazine Awards, Yuan began writing and publishing fiction in 2022 with his first (hybrid) novel, Detaching.