<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The One that Got Away<\/strong><\/p>\n They said it was a slow day in personal fitness. But when love walked in wearing his Tuesday suit They said it was office party syndrome; But you escaped the high fidelity of the computer\u2019s one green eye; They say you sold time shares in Lanzarote They say love woke up after a month Where you went we don\u2019t really know <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Although Simon Leonard<\/strong> has reached an age at which even his parents consider abandoning their ambition for him, he remains an inconsistently optimistic writer of poetry in English and at best an intermittently ambitious writer of short fiction in Spanish. He has had poetry published in Envoi<\/em> and has been shortlisted in two fiction competitions. He currently lives in the United Arab Emirates, where he teaches English Literature in a Secondary school. He is married with two children.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The One that Got Away They said it was a slow day in personal fitness. They said it was a lorry going by. But when love walked in wearing his Tuesday suit The photocopiers started reproducing, immaculately, Perfect versions of the same vacancy; The coffee machine anticipated its twenty minute whine Of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","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-5258","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5258","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=5258"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5258\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5261,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5258\/revisions\/5261"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nThey said it was a lorry going by.<\/p>\n
\nThe photocopiers started reproducing, immaculately,
\nPerfect versions of the same vacancy;
\nThe coffee machine anticipated its twenty minute whine
\nOf life by a temporary miracle
\nAnd the tinfoil ashtrays in the canteen
\nErupted in tremulous applause.<\/p>\n
\nThey said it couldn\u2019t outlast June.<\/p>\n
\nIf not scandal in the toilets
\nAnd you flew with love through factory land
\nDown the motorway in cloud like a car,
\nPast the service stations and the corrugated installations
\nAnd the giant models on hoardings inviting speculation
\nFrom semi-interest stirring by,
\nTowards the airport and a dream of release.<\/p>\n
\nThey say at least your tan\u2019s your own;
\nThese things were never meant to last —
\nA desperate confusion of needs and last chances
\nAnd they can only imagine how it damages the skin.<\/p>\n
\nAnd left you with the hotel bill
\nAnd Sangria stains on the memory.
\nOf course he went back to his wife.<\/p>\n
\nBut we\u2019re expecting a postcard.<\/p>\n