{"id":3787,"date":"2012-12-30T09:00:16","date_gmt":"2012-12-30T09:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ink.verticalplus.co.uk\/archive\/?p=3787"},"modified":"2020-12-14T11:16:18","modified_gmt":"2020-12-14T11:16:18","slug":"the-sixth-day-of-christmas-penelope-shuttle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/the-sixth-day-of-christmas-penelope-shuttle\/","title":{"rendered":"The Sixth Day of Christmas: Penelope Shuttle"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>London, December<\/strong><br \/>\n<em><\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>I only love London in winter<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Monet<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Daybright city darts in<\/p>\n<p>for an evening paper,<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">comes out dark-savvy, neon-wise\u2026<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>trace the city<\/p>\n<p>in your tilting eye, river<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">cocking its snook through the post-codes,<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>idling past fiscal towers,<\/p>\n<p><strong>great \u00a0see-thru\u00a0 slabs \u00a0of executive toffee<\/strong>,<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">shrugging off this faff of a city without a second glance<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>as one rose-red bus<\/p>\n<p>half as old as time<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">wheedles its way down Threadneedle Street<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>and bridges lie low for fear of burning<\/p>\n<p>and a million mobiles raise<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">their home-bound voices<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>and forests of Xmas trees,<\/p>\n<p>chopped off at the root, encircle London,<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">closing in&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Once I knew a man<\/p>\n<p>who wished his house<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">had two magical doors,<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>one leading to London,<\/p>\n<p>one to Cornwall &#8211;<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">\u2018think of the travelling time we\u2019d save&#8230;\u2019<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>But London, my love,<\/p>\n<p>has so many doors<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">all hitting the nail on the head,<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>London in its mysterious cloak of dark<\/p>\n<p>not much darker than the light,<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">city where a painter<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>can only work on his \u2018Crucifixion\u2019 canvas<\/p>\n<p>when he\u2019s blind-drunk,<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">yes, that\u2019ll be London, I think<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Penelope Shuttle<\/strong>&#8216;s most recent publication is <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.co.uk\/dp\/1852249501\/ref=nosim?tag=inswte0f-21\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Unsent: New and Selected Poems 1980 &#8211; 2012<\/a><\/em>, from Bloodaxe Books. \u00a0She will be giving readings from <em>Unsent<\/em> next year at Bristol Poetry Festival, the Charles Causeley Festival and other venues. \u00a0She lives in Cornwall.<strong><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; London, December I only love London in winter Monet &nbsp; Daybright city darts in for an evening paper, comes out dark-savvy, neon-wise\u2026 &nbsp; trace the city in your tilting eye, river cocking its snook through the post-codes, &nbsp; idling past fiscal towers, great \u00a0see-thru\u00a0 slabs \u00a0of executive toffee, shrugging off this faff [&hellip;]<\/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":[33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3787","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-twelve-days-of-christmas-2012"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3787","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=3787"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3787\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23939,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3787\/revisions\/23939"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}