{"id":388,"date":"2011-09-24T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2011-09-24T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ink.verticalplus.co.uk\/archive\/?p=388"},"modified":"2011-09-24T11:00:00","modified_gmt":"2011-09-24T11:00:00","slug":"andrew-mcdonnells-anatomy-of-a-headache","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/andrew-mcdonnells-anatomy-of-a-headache\/","title":{"rendered":"Andrew McDonnell's 'Anatomy of a Headache'"},"content":{"rendered":"

Anatomy of a Headache<\/span>

I\u2019ve tried everything else;<\/span>
the blister packs, the fizzing orange juice,<\/span>
the pressure points between the thumbs,<\/span>
now I will ask poetry to help:<\/span>

    Please come and papercut<\/span>
        my face apart<\/span>
and have a look about.<\/span>

         *    *    *<\/span>

The poem as an endoscope:<\/span>
    let words fill the asyndeton<\/span>
of passageways linking nose to eye to ear<\/span>
    let the page show <\/span>
what should not be there,<\/span>
    that which wants to escape.<\/span>

         *    *    *<\/span>
We can see rooms within rooms<\/span>
    strip-lit and a-buzz<\/span>
        with someone laughing<\/span>
            for a thousand years<\/span>
and if those years were sped up<\/span>
    and crammed into one day;<\/span>
       played back at full volume<\/span>
           through headphones<\/span>
              to the centre<\/span>
                of the head,<\/span>
then, would we be getting close?    <\/span>
             Would we be tapping on the window?<\/span>

         *    *    *<\/span>

Headaches can take on human form –<\/span>
    the light bleeding across the face<\/span>
of someone on the edge of a family photo;<\/span>
    the half-form of an old lady<\/span>
in the back seat <\/span>
         of a Ford;<\/span>
a man poking out of the corn;<\/span>
       a ghost baby in the scan;<\/span>
the extra in our midst <\/span>
       in census figures,<\/span>
heavy breathing <\/span>
       on the phone.<\/span>
        <\/span>
         *    *    *<\/span>

You can pull a duvet from the throat,<\/span>
    start with the corners and pull.<\/span>
Whereas a headache <\/span>
    is a bubble in a spirit gauge.<\/span>
             (if you break it, <\/span>
              it\u2019s as if it was never<\/span>
              there at all.)<\/span>

         *    *    *<\/span>

I\u2019ve lost track of the days <\/span>
        under a smog of heavy felt.<\/span>
        \u201cRoll invisible bandages around the head<\/span>
        dispensed from a cold can of coke\u201d<\/span>

(I follow the instructions through the undergrowth)<\/span>

    \u201cwhilst slowly removing the endoscope.\u201d<\/span>

         *    *    *<\/span>

        The headache is becoming shy,<\/span>
slipping back to its own shadows,<\/span>
rustling as it moves, like someone opening tin foil <\/span>
                         during a film.<\/span>

         *    *    *<\/span>

                  It\u2019s Tuesday.<\/span>




*Andrew McDonnell<\/span> (b.1977) is a poet who is (creatively) interested in gaps and elisions. He lives in Norwich. <\/span>
<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Anatomy of a HeadacheI\u2019ve tried everything else;the blister packs, the fizzing orange juice,the pressure points between the thumbs,now I will ask poetry to help:    Please come and papercut        my face apartand have a look about.         *    *    *The poem as an endoscope:    let words fill the asyndetonof passageways linking nose to eye to […]<\/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-388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388","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=388"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}