{"id":12993,"date":"2017-01-06T15:37:43","date_gmt":"2017-01-06T15:37:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ink.verticalplus.co.uk\/archive\/?p=12993"},"modified":"2020-12-09T15:06:50","modified_gmt":"2020-12-09T15:06:50","slug":"stephen-daniels-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/stephen-daniels-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Stephen Daniels"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Time of goodwill<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The elf on the shelf won\u2019t stop staring<br \/>\nwe bought him from marks &amp; sparks<br \/>\nand he seems to turn<br \/>\na few degrees each evening<\/p>\n<p>I first noticed on the 5th December<br \/>\nwhen his glare moved<br \/>\ntowards the newly constructed tree<br \/>\nwe got from b&amp;q<\/p>\n<p>But lately he covets my oak furniture land coffee table<br \/>\nwhile we sleep he uses the dusters from waitrose<br \/>\nto slide around its surface<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ve noticed during the day<br \/>\nhow the sabatier kitchen knives<br \/>\nhave tiny hand prints on their blades<br \/>\nand wonder if he has been juggling them<br \/>\nor testing the edges for their sharpness<\/p>\n<p>It was just three days ago<br \/>\nexactly one week before Christmas<br \/>\nwe awoke to find him clinging<br \/>\nto our kenwood blender<br \/>\nthe kids said he was trying<br \/>\nto make a smoothie<br \/>\nbut I wonder<br \/>\nif his interests were more sinister<\/p>\n<p>He even surprised us one morning by cooking<br \/>\nusing our homer simpson donut maker<br \/>\nwhich we received last year from aunt carol<br \/>\nthe burning smell stirred us<\/p>\n<p>It is now only three days<br \/>\nuntil he leaves<br \/>\nAnd I can\u2019t sleep \u2013<br \/>\nI shall buy a sleep aid lamp<br \/>\nfrom lakeland tomorrow<br \/>\nthat will help<br \/>\nand some nice cushions<\/p>\n<p>maybe a new elf<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Stephen Daniels<\/strong> is the editor\u00a0the\u00a0<em>Amaryllis Poetry<\/em>\u00a0and <em>Strange Poetry<\/em> websites. His poetry has been published or is upcoming, in numerous \u00a0magazines and websites. You can find out more at\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/stephenkirkdaniels.com\/\">www.stephenkirkdaniels.com<\/a> Twitter:@stephendaniels<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Time of goodwill The elf on the shelf won\u2019t stop staring we bought him from marks &amp; sparks and he seems to turn a few degrees each evening I first noticed on the 5th December when his glare moved towards the newly constructed tree we got from b&amp;q But lately he covets my oak furniture [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[135],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12993","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2016-poetry-picks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12993","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\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12993"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12993\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12994,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12993\/revisions\/12994"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}