{"id":332,"date":"2011-07-30T17:00:00","date_gmt":"2011-07-30T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ink.verticalplus.co.uk\/archive\/?p=332"},"modified":"2012-03-31T13:23:15","modified_gmt":"2012-03-31T13:23:15","slug":"ben-rasnics-puppet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/ben-rasnics-puppet\/","title":{"rendered":"Ben Rasnic&#8217;s &#8216;Puppet&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-family: Courier New,Courier,mono; font-size: x-small;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Puppet<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The instant<br \/>\nof absolute helplessness<br \/>\nwhen the flash<br \/>\nof revolving lights<br \/>\nappears in the rear view mirror<\/p>\n<p>or when you\u2019re lying naked<br \/>\non the white sanitized tissue<br \/>\nstretched across the green exam table<br \/>\nand the doctor commands you<br \/>\nto roll over on your side,<\/p>\n<p>knees bent, facing the wall<br \/>\nand you comply<br \/>\nlike a well-trained dog<br \/>\nfollowed by the uncomfortable pause,<br \/>\nthat blatant hesitation<\/p>\n<p>as if time had suddenly frozen<br \/>\nor this was the day<br \/>\nwhen the earth actually stood still<br \/>\nuntil the smack of latex<br \/>\nagainst the fisted hand<\/p>\n<p>snaps you back to reality<br \/>\nand alerts you to what is coming<br \/>\nyet still you are not prepared<br \/>\nfor the lubricating jelly<br \/>\nthat feels like cold dog slobber<\/p>\n<p>as you clench your gluteal muscles,<br \/>\nmuscles you never realized existed<br \/>\nuntil this very moment<br \/>\nwhen you sense that<br \/>\nthe very hand of God<br \/>\nhas reached up inside you<\/p>\n<p>and it is then you realize<br \/>\nyour life is not yours to control;<br \/>\nhalfway expect<br \/>\nto hear yourself<br \/>\nspeaking in tongues.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">*Ben Rasnic<\/span> crunches numbers for money; words for contrition.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Puppet The instant of absolute helplessness when the flash of revolving lights appears in the rear view mirror or when you\u2019re lying naked on the white sanitized tissue stretched across the green exam table and the doctor commands you to roll over on your side, knees bent, facing the wall and you comply like a [&hellip;]<\/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-332","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332","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=332"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1951,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332\/revisions\/1951"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}