{"id":291,"date":"2011-06-18T19:26:01","date_gmt":"2011-06-18T19:26:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ink.verticalplus.co.uk\/archive\/?p=291"},"modified":"2011-06-18T19:26:01","modified_gmt":"2011-06-18T19:26:01","slug":"two-poems-from-james-owens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/two-poems-from-james-owens\/","title":{"rendered":"Two poems from James Owens"},"content":{"rendered":"

Luggage<\/span>

For some of us death is a black leather suitcase.<\/span>
We carry it everywhere and savor<\/span>
the smell and texture while unpacking<\/span>
in motel rooms, hear the swish of underbrush<\/span>
against its sides, notice rainwater<\/span>
beading on the flat surfaces when we hitchhike.<\/span>
It is full, and we are always surprised —<\/span>
a suitcase like sleep, or like the third brother\u2019s<\/span>
pouch of wonders he got from an enchanted fox.<\/span>
Then one day, at the bottom of all the shirts<\/span>
and combs and guidebooks and underwear,<\/span>
we uncover a bright bird hiding,<\/span>
and it flies, looking neither right nor left,<\/span>
through the ceiling on the whistle of its wings.<\/span>



Marriage<\/span>

The flock of small bones in my hand<\/span>
have settled to sleep on your breast,<\/span>
chirping together as they sink back<\/span>
through the hours of this long day,<\/span>
back to the darkness around us and in us.<\/span>



*James Owens<\/span>\u2019s poems appear widely in literary journals. He maintains a blog for poetry and photography at <\/span>http:\/\/circumstanceandmagic.blogspot.com
<\/a><\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

LuggageFor some of us death is a black leather suitcase.We carry it everywhere and savorthe smell and texture while unpackingin motel rooms, hear the swish of underbrushagainst its sides, notice rainwaterbeading on the flat surfaces when we hitchhike.It is full, and we are always surprised —a suitcase like sleep, or like the third brother\u2019spouch of […]<\/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-291","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291","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=291"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}