{"id":1164,"date":"2008-02-10T11:41:00","date_gmt":"2008-02-10T11:41:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ink.verticalplus.co.uk\/archive\/?p=1164"},"modified":"2020-12-14T13:45:25","modified_gmt":"2020-12-14T13:45:25","slug":"two-haibun-by-john-irvine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/two-haibun-by-john-irvine\/","title":{"rendered":"Two haibun by John Irvine"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sheep or donkey?<\/span>


Sitting here at my PC at 5:48am, the sun yet to roll over the eastern hills, composing an obsequious email to the editor of some obscure online poetry magazine. Editors can be pernickety buggers given to flamboyant rejections, so pandering to their egos is essential. Well, if you want to be published in their crummy magazines it is.<\/span>

Few offer payment, assuming that the privilege of appearing on their hallowed web page for a month is sufficient recompense for any poet.<\/span>

The rhetoric congeals in my mind\u2019s throat so I pause, gazing out my second story window across dawn-lit paddocks. I reconsider my submission, wondering if a three-line publication is worth prostituting myself to some faceless wannabe.<\/span>

decisions to make \u2013<\/span>
over the back fence<\/span>
the old donkey brays<\/p>\n

<\/span>Thorny business<\/span>

Heritage climbing roses adorn our deck. Pink and white, they attract thousands of bees. Heaven on a long stem. A couple of over-grown shoots offend my eye, so I fetch the secateurs to lop them. Two down, one more out there… I miss the top step and begin a short journey to the concrete paving. Half over the top railing I fling an arm around a bunch of rose stems, hug them to my chest. <\/span>

The thorns bite into my hand and bare arm, I teeter a moment, stop. A thousand nervous bees circle my head.<\/span><\/p>\n

on the thorns of a dilemma \u2013
all that bites
is not necessarily your enemy<\/p>\n

\u2022 <\/span>John Irvine writes… “John Irvine is an Old Aged Pensioner in New Zealand with delusions of immortal failure and a cynical view of life. He has a mole under his left arm, and a wife who hates pizza and tripe. He hopes to die painlessly one day without warning, and with a minimum of leakage.<\/span>

“He had a volume of poetry published in 2005 by Zenith Publishing Group \u2013  <\/span>www.zenithpublishing.co.nz<\/a>  \u2013 of New Zealand called <\/span>Man of Stone<\/span>. It has been positively reviewed in NZ's <\/span>Takahe<\/span> magazine by Raewyn Alexander, in <\/span>Valley Micropress<\/span> by Tony Chad and given a thorough pizzling by Sam Smith of <\/span>The Journal<\/span> in the UK. John's pathetically grateful for all of that. He also has a web site where you can waste some time <\/span>www.cooldragon.co.nz<\/a>  <\/span>

“He has been published in a number of print and online magazines, including <\/span>Australian Reader, Wicked Karnival, Black Ink Horror, Illuminations<\/span>, Sam Smith\u2019s <\/span>Select Six, Whispers of Wickedness, Scifaiku, Stylus<\/span>, the NZ Poetry Society's 2006 haiku anthology and NZ\u2019s own <\/span>Magazine<\/span>. And now he may be read in that truly amazing, splendiferous, astounding, heroic online magazine <\/span>Noneuclidean Caf\u00e9<\/span>. <\/span>

“Oh, yes… and Preshrunk Press has published a volume of meaningless poetry (by me) about rats some time in 2007, which has been cleverly illustrated by Australian self-confessed teabag squeezing genius Dave Freeman.”<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span>
<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sheep or donkey?Sitting here at my PC at 5:48am, the sun yet to roll over the eastern hills, composing an obsequious email to the editor of some obscure online poetry magazine. Editors can be pernickety buggers given to flamboyant rejections, so pandering to their egos is essential. Well, if you want to be published in […]<\/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":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1164","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-haibun-tanka-haiku-haiga"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1164","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=1164"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1164\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24112,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1164\/revisions\/24112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}