3 Poems – Bob Bradshaw (USA)

Old Li Po

Draining a tankard of wine, adrift in a small boat,
I grow content with the world’s beauty,
no longer a man labouring at the oars.

.

So Hong Kong

The garden is small, mostly vines
tethered to strings of yarn.
A lion watches from a back wall,
water cupped in his terra cotta paws.

“You need more space,”
my daughter says. “Your garden’s
little larger than a cocoon. Move in with me
and we can shop together.”

“It just needs more trellises,
I answer. “That’s so Hong Kong,”
she complains, “The answer
to everything is to go vertical.”

She is upset, having travelled
far to see me.
“What’s wrong with New Territories?

Besides, this apartment’s no bigger
than my attic. You can find something bigger.”

Cushioning her for disappointment,
I shrug, lifting a ficus leaf for inspection.
Moving would traumatize my plants, and me.

She sighs, glances at her watch.
She’s so Hong Kong, on the go…

My parrot, its voice as brash as its red
and green feathers, flies out my window
to roost in a stunted loquat tree,

the flutter of wings like the sudden
dropping of venetian blinds on the matter.

.

Conducting a Garden

Before every spring my wife
rearranges the garden.
Sandy is like a conductor
with a sotto voce voice

who encourages the French horns
to move to the back,

for the strings to pack
their belongings and move stage front.

If it were an outdoors performance
she would have the clarinets
shift left a bit, where the sun

slants filtered through the foaming branches
of our Japanese pear tree.

Some days it is enough to sprawl
near the fountain, listening
to water, the sun like a lover’s
warm hands on my face.

Sandy always interrupts my holiday.
The azaleas need to be uprooted,
the blue potato bush needs to be staked.

The white collared daisies,
always eager for a sunnier spot,
demand attention.

Sandy pauses, to gaze at her garden, happy.
She stands with terrific posture
like a conductor looking out
on her well prepared orchestra.

The season is about

to begin

.

Bob Bradshaw hails from Florida, where he had the great pleasure of taking classes under novelist Wyatt Wyatt and poet David Posner. He defected from Florida decades ago and now lives in California. Bradshaw has published in Eclectica, Apple Valley Review, Mississippi Review, Paumonok Review, Pedestal Magazine, Loch Raven Review, Cha: An Asian Literary Journal and many other publications. He is currently working on a poetry manuscript titled Van Gogh in Love.

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