{"id":650,"date":"2010-04-26T11:37:17","date_gmt":"2010-04-26T11:37:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ink.verticalplus.co.uk\/archive\/?p=650"},"modified":"2010-04-26T11:37:17","modified_gmt":"2010-04-26T11:37:17","slug":"vincent-turner-has-a-bin-bag-of-redundant-teddy-bears","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/vincent-turner-has-a-bin-bag-of-redundant-teddy-bears\/","title":{"rendered":"Vincent Turner has a bin-bag of redundant teddy bears"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/span>
A Black Bag of Redundant Teddy Bears<\/span>
 <\/span>

Each father\u2019s day we\u2019d hand to him<\/span>
three cards and a <\/span>Worlds Best Dad<\/span> teddy bear.<\/span>
An award we never believed.<\/span>
It was mother fulfilling her role-<\/span>
ever dutiful, eternally damned-<\/span>
maybe hoping one day<\/span>
he\u2019d wake, untangled<\/span>
from the nights boozy stupor<\/span>
and with clear eye<\/span>
suddenly decide to live true<\/span>
the words bold typed across<\/span>
The teddy\u2019s tummy.<\/span>
And rise from the bed<\/span>
swallowing us with large<\/span>
hungry arms<\/span>
a happy, hairy, ogre of love. <\/span>

We asked her once<\/span>
whilst trawling the aisles<\/span>
columned by novelty cards<\/span>
why we had to buy a lie<\/span>
she bit lemons<\/span>
and gave us <\/span>the<\/span> face.<\/span>
Telling us to be grateful.<\/span>
To accept our lot.<\/span>
That there were some little kiddies<\/span>
with no dad at all.<\/span>

This never made no sense.<\/span>
We saw the fatherless kids in school<\/span>
they bound the playground<\/span>
like lambs.<\/span>
Free to spend the day of their fathers<\/span>
playing hide-and-seek<\/span>
in the park<\/span>
to then come home<\/span>
embraced by a mother<\/span>
unbound by the needs of a brutish drunk,<\/span>
who only ever wanted her love<\/span>
once she appeared to him in threes.<\/span>



<\/font>* Vincent Turner<\/span> lives in South East
\nLondon, he is the father of two young boys and is a drug and alcohol
\nworker. Vincent has recently had his first chapbook <\/font>Envying Harry <\/span><\/font>published by Erbacce
\nPress. Vincent's work as featured in undergroundvoices,
\nreadthismagazine, Full of Crow, Shootsandvines<\/span> and the others he has
\nforgot.
<\/font>
<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

 A Black Bag of Redundant Teddy Bears Each father\u2019s day we\u2019d hand to himthree cards and a Worlds Best Dad teddy bear.An award we never believed.It was mother fulfilling her role-ever dutiful, eternally damned-maybe hoping one dayhe\u2019d wake, untangledfrom the nights boozy stuporand with clear eyesuddenly decide to live truethe words bold typed acrossThe teddy\u2019s tummy.And […]<\/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-650","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650","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=650"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}