{"id":1130,"date":"2007-12-21T11:02:00","date_gmt":"2007-12-21T11:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ink.verticalplus.co.uk\/archive\/?p=1130"},"modified":"2007-12-21T11:02:00","modified_gmt":"2007-12-21T11:02:00","slug":"jim-bennett-has-the-secret-city-blues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/jim-bennett-has-the-secret-city-blues\/","title":{"rendered":"Jim Bennett has the secret city blues"},"content":{"rendered":"

secret city blues<\/span>


when I came here I saw twelve men<\/span>
carve their way through the carbon night<\/span>
while outside the moon played on the walls<\/span>
a landscape fashioned after mountains<\/span>
a memory of caves that kept men safe<\/span>
hands held fingers twisted like rope<\/span>
two butchers fought with knives unstropped<\/span>
like an argument after Sunday lunch<\/span>
and in some backdrop lot of unseen movies<\/span>
wasted men drink from bottles in brown bags<\/span>

street corner gangs eye trash can sorters<\/span>
looking through you like you do them<\/span>
an old women recycling filth carrying bags<\/span>
pushing a pram full of cans and bottles<\/span>
secret doorways into other peoples lives<\/span>
open as she passes and close just as fast<\/span>
as she leaves her presence in a smell<\/span>
hanging like a memory in the air<\/span>
muttering as she does the unheard words<\/span>
from a conversation in her past<\/span>

the dogs in hunting packs<\/span>
haunt the alleyways pick over trash<\/span>
burrow in the organic mass<\/span>
of rotting food behind the restaurants<\/span>
ignore the screech of brakes<\/span>
and sirens from the road<\/span>
the shouts and screams and tears<\/span>
the brutal laughter from the bars<\/span>
the moaning sound of copulation<\/span>

the whore with her panties down<\/span>
and the man who falls to the ground<\/span>
dead drunk both pissing in the darkness<\/span>
as steam rises from the gutters and grills<\/span>
I splash between the pools of light<\/span>
street lights and flashing traffic lights<\/span>
cars taxis and buses scraping along<\/span>
clogging the air with tar gas<\/span>
painting buildings grey to black<\/span>
among the smiling signs<\/span>
and easy male and female<\/span>

backstreet buggary<\/span>
that is New York<\/span>

here I walk with ghosts<\/span>
Chandler Runyan and Ginsberg<\/span>
and listen to Lou Reed<\/span>
Dylan and ten million others<\/span>
as I mouth the words of the Secret City Blues<\/span>


\u2022 Jim Bennett is a poet, and he believes that he is still alive, living in a place that looks a bit like Merseyside.  <\/span>www.poetrykit.org<\/a>
<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

secret city blueswhen I came here I saw twelve mencarve their way through the carbon nightwhile outside the moon played on the wallsa landscape fashioned after mountainsa memory of caves that kept men safehands held fingers twisted like ropetwo butchers fought with knives unstroppedlike an argument after Sunday lunchand in some backdrop lot of unseen […]<\/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-1130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1130","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=1130"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1130\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}