{"id":427,"date":"2011-10-31T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2011-10-31T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ink.verticalplus.co.uk\/archive\/?p=427"},"modified":"2011-10-31T12:00:00","modified_gmt":"2011-10-31T12:00:00","slug":"a-halloween-offering-from-bobby-parker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/a-halloween-offering-from-bobby-parker\/","title":{"rendered":"A Halloween offering from Bobby Parker"},"content":{"rendered":"

No Screaming while the Bus is in Motion<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s true that I pulled a wardrobe door
\nfrom the firewood pile and painted
\na sign: Parker\u2019s Ghost-Hunting Agency <\/span>
\nin dripping red letters and nailed it
\nto the fence alongside our house
\nwhere passersby pointed and laughed.  
\nKids threw stones at our windows.
\nA boy they called Bad Dog
\nblacked my left eye for lying.
\nMy parents let the sign
\nstay up for a week
\nbefore my dad burned the fucking thing. 
\nIt was around this time I started
\nto think about death a lot, lying in
\nmy imaginary coffin on the sofa, arms
\ncrossed over my chest, holding my breath.
\nQuoting Freddy Krueger at the breakfast table.
\nMum cried. Dad slapped me and ripped
\nVincent Price off my bedroom wall.
\n                              Such horrors
\nbefore we moved up the hill
\nnext door to a girl with green eyes. <\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span>



<\/font>*Bobby Parker <\/span>was born in 1982. He lives in Kidderminster, England. His most recent collections are Ghost Town Music<\/span> and Comberton<\/span> (<\/font>knivesforksandspoonspress<\/a><\/font>), <\/span>Digging for Toys<\/span><\/a> and the limited edition chapbook <\/span>Building Murder with a Smile<\/a>.<\/span> <\/p>\n

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

No Screaming while the Bus is in Motion It\u2019s true that I pulled a wardrobe door from the firewood pile and painted a sign: Parker\u2019s Ghost-Hunting Agency in dripping red letters and nailed it to the fence alongside our house where passersby pointed and laughed.   Kids threw stones at our windows. A boy they called […]<\/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-427","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427","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=427"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}