{"id":1458,"date":"2008-11-10T11:38:12","date_gmt":"2008-11-10T11:38:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ink.verticalplus.co.uk\/archive\/?p=1458"},"modified":"2008-11-10T11:38:12","modified_gmt":"2008-11-10T11:38:12","slug":"ron-koertge-is-reading-an-elegy-for-a-thug","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/ron-koertge-is-reading-an-elegy-for-a-thug\/","title":{"rendered":"Ron Koertge is reading an elegy for a thug"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><font size=\"2\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; font-family: Courier New,Courier,mono;\">Thug\u2019s Elegy<\/span><br style=\"font-family: Courier New,Courier,mono;\"><br style=\"font-family: Courier New,Courier,mono;\"><br style=\"font-family: Courier New,Courier,mono;\"><span style=\"font-family: Courier New,Courier,mono;\">The news came with the smell of French fries, the only lunch I ever saw you eat. And then there you were&nbsp; in the yearbook, sitting at end of the bench like an angry package.&nbsp; You were the one who picked a fight after every game and when the coach told you to knock it off, you decked him.&nbsp; Here\u2019s a snap of you dancing with Linda Somerville, who was way out of your league. Girls said you couldn\u2019t keep your hands to yourself, and Marsha Birmingham got out of your truck and walked all the way home when you wouldn\u2019t stop.&nbsp; And now look \u2013 you\u2019re dead.&nbsp; Spitting in the Lethe, shoving past Charon\u2019s outstretched hand, sitting by yourself on that dark barge both arms outstretched to claim the seats on either side the way you did in the front row of that crummy theatre downtown while everybody else went up to the balcony to make out.<\/span><br style=\"font-family: Courier New,Courier,mono;\"><br style=\"font-family: Courier New,Courier,mono;\"><span style=\"font-family: Courier New,Courier,mono;\">There are sounds that wear<\/span><br style=\"font-family: Courier New,Courier,mono;\"><span style=\"font-family: Courier New,Courier,mono;\">the heart away \u2013 <\/span><span style=\"font-style: italic; font-family: Courier New,Courier,mono;\">not you, not<\/span><br style=\"font-style: italic; font-family: Courier New,Courier,mono;\"><span style=\"font-style: italic; font-family: Courier New,Courier,mono;\">you, you, but not you<\/span><span style=\"font-family: Courier New,Courier,mono;\">.<\/span><br style=\"font-family: Courier New,Courier,mono;\"><br style=\"font-family: Courier New,Courier,mono;\"><br style=\"font-family: Courier New,Courier,mono;\"><\/font><font style=\"font-family: Courier New,Courier,mono;\" size=\"2\">* Ron Koertge is a poet living in Southern California. His latest book is <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">FEVER<\/span> (Red Hen Press).<\/font><font size=\"2\"><br style=\"font-family: Courier New,Courier,mono;\"><br style=\"font-family: Courier New,Courier,mono;\"><\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Thug\u2019s ElegyThe news came with the smell of French fries, the only lunch I ever saw you eat. And then there you were&nbsp; in the yearbook, sitting at end of the bench like an angry package.&nbsp; You were the one who picked a fight after every game and when the coach told you to knock [&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":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1458","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-haibun-tanka-haiku-haiga"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1458","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=1458"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1458\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}