{"id":220,"date":"2011-04-12T08:46:21","date_gmt":"2011-04-12T08:46:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ink.verticalplus.co.uk\/archive\/?p=220"},"modified":"2011-04-12T08:46:21","modified_gmt":"2011-04-12T08:46:21","slug":"joanna-boulter-enters-a-land-of-pagodas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/joanna-boulter-enters-a-land-of-pagodas\/","title":{"rendered":"Joanna Boulter enters A Land of Pagodas"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Land of Pagodas<\/span>

This is a land of pagodas. Everywhere<\/span>
you turn, you\u2019re faced with another.<\/span>
They are where the gods live, just handy<\/span>
for the bazaar, so that they can come down<\/span>
from their high places to fetch bananas<\/span>
and coconut milk. They do not have to pay.<\/span>

For who would dare to ask a six-armed god<\/span>
to delve with one of those many hands<\/span>
into his garments and pull out a coin?<\/span>
You could not give him change. That gold <\/span>
six-sided token, discomfiting <\/span>
your ordinary brass takings,<\/span>

would have its currency nowhere in this world.<\/span>
But when you die, make sure that coin is placed<\/span>
with your burial meal of coconut milk<\/span>
and bananas. Take it with your last strength<\/span>
into your cold hand, grasp it tight.<\/span>
It is your entry to the high pagodas.<\/span>



*Joanna Boulter<\/span>, shortlisted for Forward First Collection Prize 2007 with<\/span> Twenty Four Preludes And Fugues On Dmitri Shostakovich<\/a> <\/span>(Arc Publications)<\/span>has been extending her dual interest in words and music further by<\/span> collaborating with composer Andrew Webb-Mitchell on a symphonic <\/span>song-cycle.<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Land of PagodasThis is a land of pagodas. Everywhereyou turn, you\u2019re faced with another.They are where the gods live, just handyfor the bazaar, so that they can come downfrom their high places to fetch bananasand coconut milk. They do not have to pay.For who would dare to ask a six-armed godto delve with one […]<\/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-220","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220","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=220"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}