{"id":1033,"date":"2007-07-29T10:46:13","date_gmt":"2007-07-29T10:46:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ink.verticalplus.co.uk\/archive\/?p=1033"},"modified":"2007-07-29T10:46:13","modified_gmt":"2007-07-29T10:46:13","slug":"two-new-poems-by-geoff-stevens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/two-new-poems-by-geoff-stevens\/","title":{"rendered":"Two new poems by Geoff Stevens"},"content":{"rendered":"

SELF-INVESTIGATION<\/span>
INTRUSIVE & OTHERWISE<\/span>

Thickening pan of beef stew hallucinations<\/span>
brain-clouded thermal mud<\/span>
spluttering to let methane out<\/span>
a bulb in bakelite holder<\/span>
hung from a faulty flex<\/span>
immersed in its stickiness<\/span>
and glowering like a cyclops<\/span>
while winking recognition to a diet<\/span>
of light meals only<\/span>
until the barium meal test comes back<\/span>
and then who knows<\/span>
it could be consomme through a straw<\/span>
breath sucked in cold<\/span>
a sudden sharp blow to the solar plexus.<\/span>



DISILLUSIONED 1<\/span>

Marjorie's got one of those<\/span>
white nylon-fur fireside rugs<\/span>
and an imitation log fire<\/span>
he thought to himself<\/span>
as he sipped a fine sherry<\/span>
broke open a packet of cigs.<\/span>
He had fourteen quid in his pocket<\/span>
which was more than the toolsetters get.<\/span>
Why had she stood him up?<\/span>
Why couldn't she have said no<\/span>
instead of having him wait<\/span>
twenty-five minutes for nothing?<\/span>
Everything seemed fine last time<\/span>
with her pressing her body<\/span>
soft and scented against him<\/span>
but she had said that you can't<\/span>
get everything you want at once<\/span>
and he remembered that.<\/span>

Make that a double whisky.<\/span>


\u2022 West Bromwich-based Geoff Stevens is a poet and publishes the <\/span>Purple Patch<\/span> poetry magazine.<\/span>
<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SELF-INVESTIGATIONINTRUSIVE & OTHERWISEThickening pan of beef stew hallucinationsbrain-clouded thermal mudspluttering to let methane outa bulb in bakelite holderhung from a faulty fleximmersed in its stickinessand glowering like a cyclopswhile winking recognition to a dietof light meals onlyuntil the barium meal test comes backand then who knowsit could be consomme through a strawbreath sucked in colda […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1033","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1033","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1033"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1033\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1033"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1033"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1033"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}