by Neil Flowers

Song of the Wagons
     after Du Fu, 712–770

Wagons rumble grumble. Horses whinny neigh.
Yeomen, bows and arrows strapped to waist,
parents wives children barring the way
pulling at their clothes blubbering goodbye goodbye
stamping their feet cloaking Xianyang bridge
in swirling dust. And the wailing, weeping
shouts assail black anvil clouds.

On the road’s shoulder a citizen cries, Why? Why?
A conscript calls out: The draft snares us all.
At fifteen, he mutters, many quit north to guard the river,
at forty, forced to till fields in the west.
When we departed, elders blessed our heads
back now, snow–capped, once more we’re shipped to the border.
Those frontier posts are a sea of blood:
The martial emperor’s endless dream of empire.
East o’ the mountains: Two hundred districts, have you ’scried ’em?
Thorns and brambles o’ergrow the countless hamlets.
True enough, strong women wield a hoe, steer a plough
raise crops, but fields wax all willy–nilly
while we Qin grunts contest battles bitter
driven ever on. We’re dogs and Langshans.
Yet one two–toothed venerable vexed me thus:

Durst thou, a soldier, carp and whine?
Even though it’s winter
hostile troops flood in through Western Pass.
The ravenous magistrate rapes us by tax tax tax.
We can’t shell out another dime. We’re broke.
We know now to birth a boy means grief
birthing girls is good. At least
they can be married to a neighbour.
Sons on sons rot beneath the sod.

Hast thou seen on the border of Qinghai
the heap o’ bleached bones all unheralded?
Old ghosts weep. Wrongs drive new to rage.
Rain from dark heaven teems on their howlings.

by Neil Flowers

Lost in the night
each other
left arm over
the solid weight
of her breathing
solid weight of her
Left hand on her breast
her hands cupped
around mine
Just that much
more than all
the politics of
the broken world

Small scallop
of her skin
between her neck
and flowered nightshirt

cool
soft
skin

I don’t know what love is
I do not know I swear
but I kiss her there
small showering kisses
on her soft brown skin
now while we can
a hundred two hundred
Who keeps count?
Fools for gossip rags
Next day a little chime at noon
from my cell and her text:
“Ah, your arms around me,”
with an exclamation mark,
then: “See you Sunday, mi amor.”

by Neil Flowers

     Her bed
     scattered with
     many fluffy
     pillows to which he
     strongly objects
     aforesaid
     pillows being
     in aggregate
     contrary to
     his Zen
     allegiances /
     innate male
     resistance to
     soft fluffy
     (zafu okay)

     dry laconic being
     his preferred mode
     the Western say
     creak
     of saddle leather
     showdown
     on Main Street
     and add
     to that mix
     of objection
     bubble baths
     and poodles

     all the which
     by her
     curvations and
     demonstrations
     wins him

     over to these
     her various
     arrangements

     So that:
     he scratches behind
     the poodle’s
     ears

by Neil Flowers

          We’re eighteen
          just bought my first motorcycle
          still waiting for my first kiss
          was over by the church, St George’s
          somehow Julie’s there
          We know each other vaguely
          had met sometime earlier, kids
          from roughly the same neighbourhood
          she was plump then, still growing,
          as a fifteen–year–old girl would be
          Then we didn’t see each other
          for the longest time but someone
          told me how she’d fallen
          out of a skiboat up at her cottage
          been struck by the outboard’s prop
          right along the bridge of her nose
          on the cheek, too, but miracle, the blade
          had missed her eye by a micron
          not blinded her, so when we met
          at St. George’s she was all healed
          scar running along the left side
          of her face from mid forehead down
          along the bridge grazing the eye socket into her cheek
          thick white line a lightning bolt
          She’s lost all her baby fat
          body solid now, face beautiful, only the scar
          to mar her. So I said, nervous,
          You want to ride?
          She climbed onto the pillion seat
          and we stormed down Dundas Street
          over the hill there onto the highway
          her arms around me hands on my belly
          me winding out the Vincent past 100 mph
          no helmets back then and we could have
          gone on to the stars, some romantic dream,

          never returning. But she whispers
          in my ear. So I cross the overpass
          back down the highway back to her house
          She dismounts, leans in kisses me
          on the lips, her cheek touching mine
          Fifty years ago it was
          We never met again
          I still feel her kiss
          hard line of the scar