{"id":169,"date":"2011-02-16T17:50:17","date_gmt":"2011-02-16T17:50:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ink.verticalplus.co.uk\/archive\/?p=169"},"modified":"2012-03-31T12:54:27","modified_gmt":"2012-03-31T12:54:27","slug":"isobel-dixon-is-the-only-brunette-on-the-beach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/isobel-dixon-is-the-only-brunette-on-the-beach\/","title":{"rendered":"Isobel Dixon is the only brunette on the beach"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Only Brunette on the Beach<\/span>

The only brunette on the beach,<\/span>
I keep a safe distance from the sun,<\/span>
my eye on the smalt-blue sea<\/span>
where the Kraken sleeps.<\/span>
Adamastor holds his stormy breath.<\/span>
The Flying Dutchman lies becalmed.<\/span>

Perhaps he has no wish for harbour <\/span>
here, now, after all those years<\/span>
under full press of sail, cursing<\/span>
this Cape of Storms. <\/span>
O brave new world, after the deluge,<\/span>
to escape, so narrowly, unharmed \u2013 <\/span>
\u00a0<\/span>
my tide-swept landing without Indiaman, <\/span>
or ark.\u00a0 On the old battleground <\/span>
of Bloubergstrand I lie and track<\/span>
the ferny singe of lightning flowers,<\/span>
but know, as lost as one of Nonqawuse\u2019s <\/span>
wretched cows, I have the drowning mark.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n




*<\/span>Isobel Dixon<\/a> grew up in South Africa, and now lives in Cambridge, England. Her collection A Fold in the Map is published by Salt.\u00a0 Her next collection, <\/span>The Tempest Prognosticator<\/span>, comes out from Salt in July 2011.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>

This poem first appeared in <\/span>The Warwick Review<\/span> and will be published in the forthcoming collection <\/span>The Tempest Prognosticator<\/span> (Salt, July 2011) <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Note:<\/span>

\nThe mythical Adamastor was a symbol of the forces of nature in Luis de Camoes\u2019s 16th Century Portuguese epic poem <\/span>Os Lusiadas. Nonqawuse<\/span>
\nwas a 19th century Xhosa girl whose prophecies led many in the nation
\nto kill their cattle, believing that the ancestor spirits would arise to
\ndrive the British settlers into the sea.<\/span>

\n<\/span><\/span>



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

The Only Brunette on the BeachThe only brunette on the beach,I keep a safe distance from the sun,my eye on the smalt-blue seawhere the Kraken sleeps.Adamastor holds his stormy breath.The Flying Dutchman lies becalmed.Perhaps he has no wish for harbour here, now, after all those yearsunder full press of sail, cursingthis Cape of Storms. O […]<\/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-169","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169","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=169"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1879,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169\/revisions\/1879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}