.

 

You are just a tiny pinpointing dot

But you can pin an end onto

Anything, anybody, even the entire cosmos

 

From the strongest statement

In the most powerful discourse

To the weakest form

Of the representation of life

 

A solid full stop

A minimal black hole

 

,

 

Among all punctuation marks

You have the most uses:

 

In ancient Greek you were meant

To cut off everything as if to show

All the continuity in modern English

 

Even in Chinese, or Babelangue

Word’s Worth: Wisdom in Nominal Formations  

 

Art should be a work able to startle the heart

Belief is impossible with a lie in it, while

Business never goes well without sin in between

 

Fact cannot be produced in a factory

Issue is anything that can lead you to sue, while

Life, like your wife, is always a matter of if

 

Recovery always implies something that’s over

Signature reveals the nature of the signer, while the

White have a hidden agenda to hit; by the way

 

Forget what you may wish to get:

Passion is the emotion of an ass

*******

Yuan Changming, 8-time Pushcart nominee and author of 4 chapbooks (including Mindscaping [2014]), is the most widely published poetry author who speaks Mandarin but writes English. Growing up in rural China and starting to learn the English alphabet at 19, Yuan currently co-edits Poetry Pacific with Allen Qing Yuan in Vancouver, Since mid-2005, Changming’ poetry has appeared in 997 literary publications across 31 countries, including Best Canadian Poetry (2009,12,14), BestNewPoemsOnline  and  Threepenny Review.