<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
At the Football<\/strong> The bar was hallmarked by its desolation. We cut down a footpath to the ground, Then, soundlessly, he was beside me, A trauma victim? Breakdown? Loss? I was never the one in whom he would confide. <\/p>\n At the Football Welsh League, Division Three The bar was hallmarked by its desolation. Our few selves, staccato barman and a guy by the far wall, wrapped in what seemed some personal cloud, over crisps and a half. We cut down a footpath to the ground, crossing an old and grassy railway track. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","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-16628","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16628","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\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16628"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16628\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16892,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16628\/revisions\/16892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nWelsh League, Division Three<\/p>\n
\nOur few selves, staccato barman and a guy
\nby the far wall, wrapped in what seemed
\nsome personal cloud, over crisps and a half.<\/p>\n
\ncrossing an old and grassy railway track.
\nSunshine, falling on to a squelchy pitch.
\nNo grandstand, just a few benches dotted.<\/p>\n
\nthe guy from the bar. For a while I thought
\nhe might be mute, but then our talk,
\nof games and players, limped to timid life.<\/p>\n
\nThe thought seemed irresistible
\nthat here was someone finding a way back,
\non a mild afternoon, beside a muddy pitch.<\/p>\n
\nThat day I was a simple milestone on his way.
\nI hoped it was like coming across such a stone,
\nalong a country road, sunlit, slow, unthreatening.<\/p>\n
\nRobert Nisbet<\/strong> is a Welsh poet whose work has been published widely in Britain and the USA, with occasional forays into Canada, Ireland, India and Mauritius.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"