{"id":1066,"date":"2007-09-19T13:39:16","date_gmt":"2007-09-19T13:39:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ink.verticalplus.co.uk\/archive\/?p=1066"},"modified":"2007-09-19T13:39:16","modified_gmt":"2007-09-19T13:39:16","slug":"two-new-poems-by-matthew-friday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/two-new-poems-by-matthew-friday\/","title":{"rendered":"Two new poems by Matthew Friday"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rich Waters<\/span>

A Saturday evening in late August;<\/span>
the prolepsis of summer has begun.<\/span>
Under inky rain clouds stream ragged V\u2019s.<\/span>
of quiet seagulls, the first to probe inland.<\/span>
Why so early this year? Or are you lost,<\/span>
like me, looking for rich waters.<\/span>



Out of the Cave<\/span>

It was huge, like an alien <\/span>
from War of the Worlds.<\/span>
Its long spindly legs slapping <\/span>
the side of the shower <\/span>

for grip. The great grey bulk <\/span>
skidding in the damp, slowing <\/span>
down like a man fighting a tide,<\/span>
like a man giving up. I scooped<\/span>

it out. It weighed nothing,<\/span>
yet felt Prehistoric. I waited for the bite.<\/span>
House spiders don\u2019t bite.<\/span>
This one panted in my palm.<\/span>

I opened the window and eased it out. <\/span>
It stumbled out onto the ledge, <\/span>
blinded by the early august sun, the birdsong.<\/span>
He staggered forward and used his two<\/span>

largest legs to rear up and survey<\/span>
the bright world around him.<\/span>
Like Man coming out of the Cave.<\/span>
I forgot him for a moment, looked<\/span>

away, prepared to shower. A sudden<\/span>
scuffle. A bird on the window ledge. <\/span>
I looked out and saw the bird launch<\/span>
into the sky, the spider in its jaws.<\/span>


\u2022 Matthew Friday is a professional writer and graduate of the MA in Creative Writing at Goldsmith College, London. He has had poems accepted for publication in the following magazines: <\/span>Carillon, Earth Love, Finger Dance Festival, The New Writer, Pens on Fire, Pulsar<\/span> and <\/span>Red Ink<\/span>. He has also received a special mention in <\/span>Poetry News<\/span> and won 3rd prize in <\/span>Writing Magazine<\/span>'s Valentine Day poetry competition.<\/span>
<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rich WatersA Saturday evening in late August;the prolepsis of summer has begun.Under inky rain clouds stream ragged V\u2019s.of quiet seagulls, the first to probe inland.Why so early this year? Or are you lost,like me, looking for rich waters.Out of the CaveIt was huge, like an alien from War of the Worlds.Its long spindly legs slapping […]<\/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-1066","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1066","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=1066"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1066\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1066"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1066"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1066"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}