{"id":2672,"date":"2012-06-12T12:00:03","date_gmt":"2012-06-12T12:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ink.verticalplus.co.uk\/archive\/?p=2672"},"modified":"2012-06-12T11:09:59","modified_gmt":"2012-06-12T11:09:59","slug":"brian-johnstone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/brian-johnstone\/","title":{"rendered":"Brian Johnstone"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Whip Hand<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Believing in the possibility of showtime<\/p>\n

on the move,<\/p>\n

that the sound of circus music blaring<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

from the speakers on the roof<\/p>\n

means more<\/p>\n

than silver in my pocket, pegs to hammer home,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I stake out another pitch and flatten grass:<\/p>\n

for what?<\/p>\n

The cheers, the hollow gasps, the silence<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

as I place my head inside each<\/p>\n

lion’s mouth.<\/p>\n

It’s not the teeth, the jaws I fear but seeing<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

deep into their eyes, each pupil blank<\/p>\n

as every pitch<\/p>\n

we quit, lifeless as the ground we pack so hard.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Brian Johnstone<\/strong>\u2019s latest collection is The Book of Belongings<\/a> <\/em>(Arc, 2009). His work has appeared throughout Scotland and in the UK, America and Europe. He is a co-founder of StAnza: Scotland\u2019s International Poetry Festival and was Festival Director from 2001-2010.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

The Whip Hand   Believing in the possibility of showtime on the move, that the sound of circus music blaring   from the speakers on the roof means more than silver in my pocket, pegs to hammer home,   I stake out another pitch and flatten grass: for what? The cheers, the hollow gasps, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"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-2672","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2672","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=2672"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2672\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2676,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2672\/revisions\/2676"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}