<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The Dice-box decrees that \u2018Mr Marsh\u2019 can cast only after calling six, he rolls eleven and throws out<\/em>, chequers of Baltic amber and Galician jet.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Matthew Paul<\/strong> was born in 1966 and lives and works in London. His first collection, The Evening Entertainment was published by Eyewear Publishing in 2017, and he is a participant on the Poetry Business Writing School programme 2017\/2018.<\/span> @MatthewPaulPoet<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Dice-box The list of Bartholomew Marsh\u2019s creditors encompasses several senior ministers of his Lordship Liverpool\u2019s government, an earl, a duke and two bishops. He places on the table for one last game of Hazard a walnut dice-box fashioned for his uncle, Charles James Fox, inlaid with chequers of vibrant Baltic amber […]<\/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-16949","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16949","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=16949"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16949\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16956,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16949\/revisions\/16956"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n<\/strong>
\nThe list of Bartholomew Marsh\u2019s creditors
\nencompasses several senior ministers
\nof his Lordship Liverpool\u2019s government, an earl,
\na duke and two bishops. He places on the table
\nfor one last game of Hazard<\/em> a walnut dice-box
\nfashioned for his uncle, Charles James Fox,
\ninlaid with chequers of vibrant Baltic amber
\nand Galician jet. The periwigged setter<\/em><\/p>\n
\nthe loutish coxcombs brazenly hooting for
\nhis ruin are spent. Bartholomew chooses
\n\u2018lucky seven\u2019 as his main<\/em>, as the chances
\nof its frequency are greater, albeit
\nby the merest margin, than five, six, eight
\nor nine, and he nicks<\/em> it<\/em>, taking guineas
\noff all-comers. But fortune must always cease:<\/p>\n
\nforfeiting winnings, exhausting his credit.
\nChagrined by ridicule, he edges towards
\nthe light of the pinkening midsummer dawn;
\nmetamorphoses, unremarked, into a Marsh
\nFritillary; zips out with a rapier\u2019s swish
\nabove Pall Mall Place, disregarding debt,
\nround and about like a spinning roulette:<\/p>\n