{"id":13699,"date":"2017-04-19T08:00:31","date_gmt":"2017-04-19T08:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ink.verticalplus.co.uk\/archive\/?p=13699"},"modified":"2020-12-09T15:25:00","modified_gmt":"2020-12-09T15:25:00","slug":"13699","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/13699\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Farley"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Gleaning<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Mother wears the vines of summer,<br \/>\nhawthorn hackles raised in grief.<br \/>\nShe\u2019s my father\u2019s stubborn mourner,<br \/>\npecking at his horehound leaves.<\/p>\n<p>Nurses scatter apple blossom,<br \/>\nbleach is masked in meadow scent.<br \/>\nFather burrows under holly,<br \/>\nglossy spines can\u2019t hide our shame.<\/p>\n<p>Mother left us boiling over.<br \/>\nVital organs steam soft pink.<br \/>\nArtificial thoughts of actors<br \/>\nwill pollute the zealot Sphinx.<\/p>\n<p>Sisters gather jars of dog blood.<br \/>\nLine them up to make a scene.<br \/>\nNeedled carers can\u2019t unpick her<br \/>\nthough she\u2019s limp and loosely sewn.<\/p>\n<p>Mother\u2019s scalp is cutthroat tangles.<br \/>\nStare her down with kitten-eyes.<br \/>\nFill the ward with speckled falcons.<br \/>\nThey&#8217;ll refuse to nest or lay.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mark Farley<\/strong> has been shortlisted and highly commended for the Bridport Prize. Find him on Twitter (@mumbletoes) or via his blog (<a href=\"http:\/\/mumbletoes.blogspot.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" data-saferedirecturl=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?hl=en&amp;q=http:\/\/mumbletoes.blogspot.com\/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1492434992215000&amp;usg=AFQjCNEYJ0VOEJ4LFakvX-KQMLXmY6H-iA\">http:\/\/mumbletoes.blogspot.co<wbr \/>m\/<\/a>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; Gleaning Mother wears the vines of summer, hawthorn hackles raised in grief. She\u2019s my father\u2019s stubborn mourner, pecking at his horehound leaves. Nurses scatter apple blossom, bleach is masked in meadow scent. Father burrows under holly, glossy spines can\u2019t hide our shame. Mother left us boiling over. Vital organs steam soft pink. Artificial thoughts [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"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":[136,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13699","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2017-poetry-picks","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13699","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\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13699"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13699\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13877,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13699\/revisions\/13877"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}