{"id":1753,"date":"2009-06-24T17:16:00","date_gmt":"2009-06-24T17:16:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ink.verticalplus.co.uk\/archive\/?p=1753"},"modified":"2009-06-24T17:16:00","modified_gmt":"2009-06-24T17:16:00","slug":"ian-hunter-is-wary-of-an-unexploded-poem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/ian-hunter-is-wary-of-an-unexploded-poem\/","title":{"rendered":"Ian Hunter is wary of an unexploded poem"},"content":{"rendered":"

DANGER UNEXPLODED POEM <\/span>

 <\/span>
Of course,<\/span>
we shouldn\u2019t have gone,<\/span>
but there was the lure<\/span>
of abandoned buildings.<\/span>
Barricades.<\/span>
Signs which said<\/span>
DANGER UXP.<\/span>
Unexploded poem,<\/span>
I explained to the others.<\/span>
 <\/span>
Three of us ran the shadows down.<\/span>
Peeking into the smouldering crater<\/span>
to see the pulsing star of invention.<\/span>
Colours, ideas, and images,<\/span>
rhymes and reason,<\/span>
comparisons and truths,<\/span>
all residing in a crackling ball of energy<\/span>
 <\/span>
Which died before us.<\/span>
Pulse slowing.<\/span>
Colours merging into bright red,<\/span>
then collapsing to black.<\/span>
Hearts in our mouths, we ran.<\/span>
Trying to get away<\/span>
before the unexploded poem exploded<\/span>
 <\/span>
Now Pauline seems snooty, aloof.<\/span>
Always talking in short, clipped sentences<\/span>
that end in a surprising haiku moment.<\/span>
 <\/span>
While Joey stands below <\/span>
yet another bedroom window.<\/span>
Using sonnets to praise<\/span>
the beauty inside,<\/span>
until the latest court order moves him on.<\/span>
 <\/span>
And as if cursed or under a spell,<\/span>
I find that I can speak in rhyme.<\/span>
Just by touching this shrapnel,<\/span>
without fail, every, single, time.<\/span>


* Ian Hunter<\/span> is a director of the Scottish writer\u2019s collective known as Read Raw. His poems have appeared in various places in the UK, the USA and Canada.<\/span>

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

DANGER UNEXPLODED POEM  Of course,we shouldn\u2019t have gone,but there was the lureof abandoned buildings.Barricades.Signs which saidDANGER UXP.Unexploded poem,I explained to the others. Three of us ran the shadows down.Peeking into the smouldering craterto see the pulsing star of invention.Colours, ideas, and images,rhymes and reason,comparisons and truths,all residing in a crackling ball of energy Which died before us.Pulse […]<\/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-1753","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1753","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=1753"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1753\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}