{"id":1518,"date":"2008-12-17T16:36:00","date_gmt":"2008-12-17T16:36:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ink.verticalplus.co.uk\/archive\/?p=1518"},"modified":"2008-12-17T16:36:00","modified_gmt":"2008-12-17T16:36:00","slug":"gwilym-williams-has-gone-christmas-shopping-and-he-still-has-the-scars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/gwilym-williams-has-gone-christmas-shopping-and-he-still-has-the-scars\/","title":{"rendered":"Gwilym Williams has gone Christmas shopping – and he still has the scars"},"content":{"rendered":"

Christmas Shopping<\/span>


Again today it's a moving pizza parlour Xmas shopping spree;<\/span>
and I'm squeezed in the steamed-up 37 and the seasonal sneezing<\/span>
amid floppy wedges of undercooked white pastry<\/span>
and waxy cheese in round child-mouths; the stench is nauseating.<\/span>
But I must be tolerant. It's Xmas after all.<\/span>
 <\/span>
There's a blind girl with a beautifully sad face like a soft moon<\/span>
to fall in love with. Unfortunately she gets off at the next stop.<\/span>
 <\/span>
I get out my latest Duffy. A couple gets on. She, an old bear<\/span>
in mink's clothing with kid gloves sits vis-a-vis. He,<\/span>
in his trench-coat, stands swan-necking over my shoulder.<\/span>
Bored with his eyes in my book; I can almost feel his warm<\/span>
unpleasant breath on my nape, I snap <\/span>The World's Wife<\/span> shut.<\/span>
 <\/span>
Now he's pushing up to the front; berating the driver; it's a real<\/span>
Xmas shopping brainstorm. They've missed the stop.<\/span>


* <\/span><\/font>Gwilym Williams is a regular contributor to IS&T \u2013 this is a seasonal offering from his recent collection Genteel Messages<\/span>
<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Christmas ShoppingAgain today it's a moving pizza parlour Xmas shopping spree;and I'm squeezed in the steamed-up 37 and the seasonal sneezingamid floppy wedges of undercooked white pastryand waxy cheese in round child-mouths; the stench is nauseating.But I must be tolerant. It's Xmas after all. There's a blind girl with a beautifully sad face like a soft […]<\/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-1518","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1518","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=1518"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1518\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}