{"id":438,"date":"2011-11-12T13:30:00","date_gmt":"2011-11-12T13:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ink.verticalplus.co.uk\/archive\/?p=438"},"modified":"2011-11-12T13:30:00","modified_gmt":"2011-11-12T13:30:00","slug":"dan-wykes-days-of-march","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/dan-wykes-days-of-march\/","title":{"rendered":"Dan Wyke's 'Days of March'"},"content":{"rendered":"

Days of March<\/span><\/p>\n

1<\/p>\n

Cycling home from work, I followed a pink grapefruit
rolling slowly down New England Road.
It kept reappearing from under the cars queuing at the lights.
At the bottom of the hill I turned right and lost sight of its progress.<\/p>\n

3<\/p>\n

I text you about vegetables and immediately feel sorry
for not making a more romantic gesture.
Courgettes, aubergines and the humble swede
stand in for all the inarticulate power of my heart.<\/p>\n

7<\/p>\n

This morning my badly bruised big toenail finally fell off,
revealing a second, softer nail growing underneath.
Healing, regeneration; not the life we think we live.
When one heart breaks, another starts beating.<\/p>\n

8<\/p>\n

I open my eyes and see an orange balloon on the floor.
It looks so light I feel myself lift slightly.
I can see it isn\u2019t the same as the concept I have of it,
but I find it difficult to accept the freedom it so evidently desires.<\/p>\n

12<\/p>\n

Poor, persistent words, nibbling away at the inscrutability of human experience.
Being is inarticulate, pre-verbal. An Everest of indifference, Niagara of bliss.
This morning, I was struck speechless by spring sunlight.
After six years of therapy, I realised: I don\u2019t know what I\u2019m talking about.<\/p>\n

15<\/p>\n

On a bitter, blue Sunday we walk to the beach.
Daffodils and sunlight between winter trees.
Offshore sailboats and patches of turquoise sea.
All day I feel absent and unable to connect.<\/p>\n

17<\/p>\n

Walking to the post office to renew my passport, I find a box
of Trivial Pursuit someone has thrown out with an old TV.
Were they planning a life of austerity, of wisdom over knowledge?
I stand there for an age questioning myself in the sunlight.
19<\/p>\n

When I dive out of the rain into the toddlers\u2019 group in the church hall
we are welcomed by three young women who feed us cake and tea.
After a while, they ask me, nervously, if I know about the Sunday service.
How comforting to find someone else concerned for the state of my soul!<\/p>\n

21<\/p>\n

Our Christmas tree stands in the front yard
with a pile of dead leaves swept up around it.
I keep returning to the bathroom window to look out at it.
We have neglected something that lit up our lives.<\/p>\n

26<\/p>\n

After sex last night I thought, \u2018Christ, why am I
so hard on myself? There\u2019s only this life;
go and buy James Tate\u2019s Selected Poems
and stop waiting for the price to go down.\u2019<\/p>\n

28<\/p>\n

I feed news on Facebook that a blackbird is singing in my ear.
David Wheatley follows with something abusive and funny overheard in A&E.
It is true the pastoral is sometimes an escape from reality.
David, I hope that you are alright.<\/p>\n

29<\/p>\n

Monday morning: viral, unresponsive; my life is passing.
The sky is blue, unfathomably beautiful. A toddler in a pushchair
tilts back his head and lets out long, loud vowel-sounds.
His mother does not understand and tries to stop him.<\/p>\n

<\/font>
* Dan Wyke<\/span> is a winner of a Gregory Award<\/span> for poetry and a collection Waiting for the Sky to Fall<\/span> is available now from Waterloo Press at www.waterloopresshove.co.uk<\/a><\/font>
<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Days of March 1 Cycling home from work, I followed a pink grapefruitrolling slowly down New England Road.It kept reappearing from under the cars queuing at the lights.At the bottom of the hill I turned right and lost sight of its progress. 3 I text you about vegetables and immediately feel sorryfor not making a […]<\/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-438","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438","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=438"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}