{"id":68,"date":"2012-02-01T20:07:00","date_gmt":"2012-02-01T20:07:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ink.verticalplus.co.uk\/archive\/?p=68"},"modified":"2012-02-01T20:07:00","modified_gmt":"2012-02-01T20:07:00","slug":"thomas-orszag-lands-jolly-joker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/thomas-orszag-lands-jolly-joker\/","title":{"rendered":"Thomas Orsz\u00e1g-Land's 'Jolly Joker'"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Jolly Joker of Jerusalem<\/span>
 <\/span>
First things first when <\/span>
the holy books burst<\/span>
and lime pits are planned<\/span>
in this thirsty, troubled <\/span>
land of passion<\/span>
and beauty and flavour,<\/span>
and the mind is mined<\/span>
for the Cruising craze<\/span>
and the neighbours pray<\/span>
and bray and fast <\/span>
for the festival roast…<\/span>
as, cool as a fool,<\/span>
I scribble this treble <\/span>
rhyme while I\u2019m able.<\/span>

 <\/span>
My first duty<\/span>
to myself and my host <\/span>
at this generous table<\/span>
is to test and taste <\/span>
and toast and savour<\/span>
and rejoice in my time, <\/span>
in the feast of this day <\/span>
I might have missed,<\/span>
even if I was born to burn<\/span>
at the end of this line…<\/span>
like a star, like the joker, <\/span>
in history's final feeble fable.<\/span>


*Thomas Orsz\u00e1g-Land <\/span> is a poet and award-winning foreign correspondent. His poetry has been published here and in The New York Times<\/span>, his  reviews and polemics here and The Times Literary Supplement<\/span>.<\/span>

\u3000<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Jolly Joker of Jerusalem First things first when the holy books burstand lime pits are plannedin this thirsty, troubled land of passionand beauty and flavour,and the mind is minedfor the Cruising crazeand the neighbours prayand bray and fast for the festival roast…as, cool as a fool,I scribble this treble rhyme while I\u2019m able. My first dutyto […]<\/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-68","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68","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=68"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}