{"id":266,"date":"2011-05-24T13:34:03","date_gmt":"2011-05-24T13:34:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ink.verticalplus.co.uk\/archive\/?p=266"},"modified":"2011-05-24T13:34:03","modified_gmt":"2011-05-24T13:34:03","slug":"pippa-chapmans-insomnia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/pippa-chapmans-insomnia\/","title":{"rendered":"Pippa Chapman's 'Insomnia'"},"content":{"rendered":"

Insomnia<\/span>

worst, the potassium flashes; <\/span>
electric questions crackle;<\/span>
numbered doubts on tickets, in chest-press black,<\/span>
Progress Papers for this pilgrim to solve before the bell; <\/span>
the invigilator\u2019s foot-steps will stop.<\/span>

It\u2019s the shutting out, short-circuiting news,<\/span>
the haunt of a child, a worm in his eye, <\/span>
this hollow-pot-bellied bone china boy<\/span>

There\u2019s the shutting out closer to home;<\/span>
the lark on the road, legs broken,<\/span>
he needed a truck, but his wings reached up;<\/span>
it\u2019s letters and numbers; my hanging head,<\/span>
my dread; the grey, the red painted black.  <\/span>

It\u2019s the pushing it back <\/span>
to before, then behind, <\/span>
the mad scramble, to panic-fill gaps <\/span>

And, all night, <\/span>
all night, there\u2019s a regular twist of a chalk-rock back, <\/span>
heavying  bone, scalding marrow, calves, <\/span>
calves, and joints red-wired. <\/span>

It\u2019s the shutting it out; <\/span>
the need to shove SHOUT out,<\/span>
to wake up my world, <\/span>
but I can\u2019t. <\/span>
There are chains, <\/span>
spies still alive <\/span>
and axes<\/span>



*Pippa Chapman<\/span> has attended Helen Ivory\u2019s class in Norwich for two years and Moniza Alvi\u2019s workshops for a year. During the long search for her hidden family history she started to use poetry to express and cope with emotion.  She found her imagination in Helen\u2019s handbag one morning at Dragon Hall.<\/span>
<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Insomniaworst, the potassium flashes; electric questions crackle;numbered doubts on tickets, in chest-press black,Progress Papers for this pilgrim to solve before the bell; the invigilator\u2019s foot-steps will stop.It\u2019s the shutting out, short-circuiting news,the haunt of a child, a worm in his eye, this hollow-pot-bellied bone china boyThere\u2019s the shutting out closer to home;the lark on the […]<\/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-266","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266","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=266"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}