{"id":1429,"date":"2008-10-22T10:05:55","date_gmt":"2008-10-22T10:05:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ink.verticalplus.co.uk\/archive\/?p=1429"},"modified":"2008-10-22T10:05:55","modified_gmt":"2008-10-22T10:05:55","slug":"pat-jourdans-listening-to-the-fishermans-wife","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/pat-jourdans-listening-to-the-fishermans-wife\/","title":{"rendered":"Pat Jourdan's listening to the fisherman's wife"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Fisherman's Wife Speaks<\/span>


There's not a silver dish left<\/span>
in all this town.<\/span>
The fish have vanished now,<\/span>
all boats sliding into scrap.<\/span>
We see closed shipyards, clanking empty chains<\/span>
on documentaries on TV.<\/span>
Trawlermen congregate outside the bookies<\/span>
casting about trying to net horses.<\/span>
The harbour's edge crumbles into the sea;<\/span>
we are embarrassed, don't walk there any more.<\/span>
Your father has fierce rows down at the dole,<\/span>
his muscles deteriorating into loose flab,<\/span>
his oilskins left hanging on the backdoor peg.<\/span>
Thumbed tide-tables lose their relevance,<\/span>
the sea is left to lap and smash as it wants \u2013<\/span>
we stay indoors muttering.<\/span>
Instead of Wednesday's shoals of fish<\/span>
we live on tinned sardines from Portugal<\/span>
eked out with chips and mushy peas<\/span>
kidding us it's still the old times.<\/span>
There's not one silver dish left<\/span>
in all this town.<\/span>
Dance to tha' daddy now.<\/span>
Dance for me.<\/span>


* <\/span><\/font>Pat Jourdan's latest collection is The Cast Iron Shore<\/span> from Erbacce Press. Trained as an artist in Liverpool, she has spent many years in Ireland<\/font>

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

The Fisherman's Wife SpeaksThere's not a silver dish leftin all this town.The fish have vanished now,all boats sliding into scrap.We see closed shipyards, clanking empty chainson documentaries on TV.Trawlermen congregate outside the bookiescasting about trying to net horses.The harbour's edge crumbles into the sea;we are embarrassed, don't walk there any more.Your father has fierce rows […]<\/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-1429","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1429","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=1429"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1429\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}