{"id":1199,"date":"2008-03-25T18:42:00","date_gmt":"2008-03-25T18:42:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ink.verticalplus.co.uk\/archive\/?p=1199"},"modified":"2008-03-25T18:42:00","modified_gmt":"2008-03-25T18:42:00","slug":"picture-in-grey-a-prose-poem-by-mandy-pannett","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/picture-in-grey-a-prose-poem-by-mandy-pannett\/","title":{"rendered":"Picture in Grey &#8211; a prose poem by Mandy Pannett"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><font size=\"2\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\">PICTURE IN GREY<\/span><br style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\"><br style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\"><br style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\"><span style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\">There\u2019s the sense of a river behind a low wall; footsteps on leaf-fall, grey light through the mist. There are hours ahead for the unshed rain. This is an island of pavements and derelict blocks; a low landscape, no colour here. Nothing to do but wait for the lamps to be lit. <\/span><br style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\"><span style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\">&nbsp;<\/span><br style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\"><span style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\"><span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Flies in the buttermilk<\/span> whispers the song. Something is scratching and digs. <\/span><span style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\">On the Embankment a stone lion is lost in the fog. His paw is upturned. He begs. <\/span><br style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\"><br style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\"><span style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\"><span style=\"font-style: italic;\">I detest my past and anyone else\u2019s<\/span> mutters Magritte as he sketches the lion. Thinks about gunfire and troops moving in. Adds a man by the parapet with his back to us; he is staring over the edge. Gives him black wings from the shoulder blades down to the ground. Considers a title: <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Pea soup, spleen of Paris, Philadelphia, mal du pays<\/span>\u2026 Thickens the fog. <\/span><br style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\"><br style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\"><span style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\">Bats scuttle out as old lamps are lit. There are gaps in the masonry and a chill wind. A pigeon lies dead in a scatter of leaves. There are hours ahead for the rain. <\/span><br \/><br style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\"><br style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\"><\/font><font style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\" size=\"2\">\u2022<br \/>\nMandy Pannett runs an arts cafe, supports two local writing groups and<br \/>\nenjoys giving readings and running writing workshops. She has two<br \/>\npoetry collections from Oversteps Books: <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Bee Purple<\/span> and <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Frost Hollow<\/span>.<\/font><font size=\"2\"><br style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\"><\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>PICTURE IN GREYThere\u2019s the sense of a river behind a low wall; footsteps on leaf-fall, grey light through the mist. There are hours ahead for the unshed rain. This is an island of pavements and derelict blocks; a low landscape, no colour here. Nothing to do but wait for the lamps to be lit. &nbsp;Flies [&hellip;]<\/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-1199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1199","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=1199"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1199\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}