{"id":1651,"date":"2009-04-03T18:19:00","date_gmt":"2009-04-03T18:19:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ink.verticalplus.co.uk\/archive\/?p=1651"},"modified":"2009-04-03T18:19:00","modified_gmt":"2009-04-03T18:19:00","slug":"alan-girling-has-a-bottle-of-suntory-kept-by","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/alan-girling-has-a-bottle-of-suntory-kept-by\/","title":{"rendered":"Alan Girling has a bottle of Suntory kept by"},"content":{"rendered":"


one lucky, caf\u00e9 Japonais<\/span>


in this city<\/span>
at any dinner hour<\/span>
I\u2019ll always have<\/span>
the rows of albums<\/span>
            these shelves <\/span>
this <\/span>one lucky<\/span> archive <\/span>
of the years <\/span>
where the master-san <\/span>
and his camera<\/span>
greet a new generation <\/span>
of regulars, and I <\/span>
of oceans and decades gone<\/span>
return once more <\/span>
flip the pages . . .<\/span>
to nam-vet bj<\/span>
       pakistani bobby and<\/span>
haight-ashbury joan:  she <\/span>
whom I tugged free <\/span>
of this city<\/span>
while another town <\/span>
pulled her free-<\/span>
love aching to leave <\/span>
me weary <\/span>
    sliding bleary <\/span>
          shirt to navel<\/span>
                    to the <\/span>
                         floor<\/span>

now once more<\/span>
to the master-san I say <\/span>
          what\u2019s love<\/span>
(you played it for her)<\/span>
         got to do with it<\/span>
(play it for me)<\/span>
that second-hand emotion <\/span>
scrawled long ago<\/span>
on the suntory bottle-keep <\/span>
which today\u2019s regulars know<\/span>
                   you can\u2019t <\/span>

not for very long<\/span>


* Alan Girling used to write short fiction. Now it's mainly poetry. However he has had a play produced and would be willing to write a novel if the right idea came along. He writes in Richmond, British Columbia. Alan adds “A <\/span>bottle-keep<\/span> refers an already paid for bottle of liquor that bars <\/span>keep<\/span> for customers with their names written on them, usually in black marker. It's common practice in Japan anyway.”<\/span>

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

one lucky, caf\u00e9 Japonaisin this cityat any dinner hourI\u2019ll always havethe rows of albums            these shelves this one lucky archive of the years where the master-san and his cameragreet a new generation of regulars, and I of oceans and decades gonereturn once more flip the pages . . .to nam-vet bj       pakistani bobby andhaight-ashbury joan:  […]<\/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-1651","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1651","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=1651"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1651\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}