{"id":6862,"date":"2014-05-30T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-05-30T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ink.verticalplus.co.uk\/archive\/?p=6862"},"modified":"2014-05-06T13:23:32","modified_gmt":"2014-05-06T13:23:32","slug":"brett-evans-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/brett-evans-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Brett Evans"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Reading Sean O\u2019Brien in the Bath<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>On the first floor of an ex-council house<br \/>\nthis fat, pink alkie reads O&#8217;Brien in the bath.<br \/>\nAt his shoulder the pint glass of cider mocks<\/p>\n<p>his sweating face. The cold tap drips &#8211; he lifts<br \/>\nhis eyes from the book &#8211; for how long<br \/>\nit&#8217;s dripped he&#8217;s not clear. Each drop<\/p>\n<p>a year: he counts through teens and twenties,<br \/>\nstops at mid-thirties, leans and halts the drops<br \/>\nwith one twist. I could write a poem, he thinks,<\/p>\n<p>if I could break habits, routines, totter<br \/>\nforward, baby-like and lift a title to work from.<br \/>\nHe&#8217;s kidding himself of course; a day off the sauce<\/p>\n<p>is a year on a chain gang &#8211; the hammer<br \/>\nchipping away. His reverie is smashed<br \/>\nas our hero wakes to the fact<\/p>\n<p>that something is amiss; had he hauled his bulk<br \/>\nout from the tub just to take a piss?<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brett Evans<\/strong> lives, writes and drinks in his native north Wales. His poems have appeared in various magazines and he was a runner up in the 2012 Cardiff International Poetry Competition. He co-edits <a href=\"http:\/\/www.prolebooks.co.uk\/\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Prole.<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; Reading Sean O\u2019Brien in the Bath On the first floor of an ex-council house this fat, pink alkie reads O&#8217;Brien in the bath. At his shoulder the pint glass of cider mocks his sweating face. The cold tap drips &#8211; he lifts his eyes from the book &#8211; for how long it&#8217;s [&hellip;]<\/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-6862","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6862","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=6862"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6862\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6865,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6862\/revisions\/6865"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}