{"id":1428,"date":"2008-10-21T08:48:00","date_gmt":"2008-10-21T08:48:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ink.verticalplus.co.uk\/archive\/?p=1428"},"modified":"2008-10-21T08:48:00","modified_gmt":"2008-10-21T08:48:00","slug":"two-works-by-nigel-pickard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/two-works-by-nigel-pickard\/","title":{"rendered":"Two works by Nigel Pickard"},"content":{"rendered":"

We've a choice of styles for you today \u2013 verse poetry and a prose poem \u2013 enjoy…<\/span>


YOU\u2019VE PROBABLY SAID<\/span>

something funny:<\/span>
that\u2019s your usual way.<\/span>

She\u2019s thrown her head back<\/span>
and laughed. You like her<\/span>

because she\u2019s not afraid<\/span>
to do this. You like her<\/span>

because she laughs<\/span>
at your jokes, your asides:<\/span>

she\u2019d be next to you<\/span>
to get those, and give them<\/span>

back herself, she\u2019d <\/span>
always be next to you.<\/span>

You\u2019re both bright, unlined;<\/span>
just the creases<\/span>

of laughter around<\/span>
your mouths, your eyes;<\/span>

and light in whorls<\/span>
on the wall behind.<\/span>


~ ~ ~ ~ ~<\/span>


RETAIL PARK<\/span>

Another Sunday, and traffic\u2019s beached up. Stores cliff the tides, their chattering shores, the day breathing fire in our familiar faces, prodding us under our ribs. There\u2019s fag ends scattering the tarmac like crabs\u2019 legs, and families keen to bury each other. The temperature gets even higher: we lean into it like a brick wall. Some kids splash in a small forecourt of shadows, Olympic with ice-cream. We buy a fridge, to live inside. Stores cliff the tides, their chattering shores. Men with metal detectors mourn. The sky breaks, like teeth.<\/span>


* Nigel Pickard is a regular IS&T contributor. His first collection <\/span>Making Sense<\/span> was published by Shoestring (2003) and his first novel <\/span>One<\/span> was published by Bookcase (2005). <\/span>
<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We've a choice of styles for you today \u2013 verse poetry and a prose poem \u2013 enjoy…YOU\u2019VE PROBABLY SAIDsomething funny:that\u2019s your usual way.She\u2019s thrown her head backand laughed. You like herbecause she\u2019s not afraidto do this. You like herbecause she laughsat your jokes, your asides:she\u2019d be next to youto get those, and give themback herself, […]<\/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-1428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1428","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=1428"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1428\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}