<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Background Noise in the Aquarium<\/strong><\/p>\n Along the carriage a range of headsets and earplugs A closed loop within might be full of harmony \u2013 These fish can be quite gregarious in their own way, The rest of us hear one side only of these accounts, Out here, we enjoy the noise of living traffic, the option As outsiders, we may be detached and uninitiated, <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Oliver Comins<\/strong> lives and works in West London.\u00a0 Early work collected in a Mandeville Press pamphlet and Anvil New Poets Two<\/em>.\u00a0 Poems are being published this year in Ink Sweat & Tears, Meniscus<\/em> and The Echo Room<\/em> plus The Emma Press Anthology of Fatherhood<\/em> and Choclit<\/em> from Happenstance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Background Noise in the Aquarium Along the carriage a range of headsets and earplugs with bright wires, each one connected to some piece of electronic equipment hidden beneath the supra-epidermal layers of these creatures who are also travelling into town at this time. A closed loop within might be full of harmony […]<\/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-7513","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7513","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=7513"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7513\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7515,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7513\/revisions\/7515"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nwith bright wires, each one connected to some piece
\nof electronic equipment hidden beneath
\nthe supra-epidermal layers of these creatures
\nwho are also travelling into town at this time.<\/p>\n
\nanthems, perhaps, of a favourite artist or band.
\nOr something faintly experimental recommended
\nby a friend, whose tastes are more inclusive
\nthan their own – but surprisingly accessible.<\/p>\n
\nspeaking to one another over huge distances
\nabout things which did or might or shouldn\u2019t occur.
\nThey use a blur of tense and place which makes them feel
\nat home and alone and almost completely fulfilled.<\/p>\n
\nend up being variously tantalised, bored or subdued
\nby events whose locations are always somewhere else.
\nPlaces we might have visited at the wrong time
\nor streets in suburbs we\u2019ve only ever heard about.<\/p>\n
\nof passing the time of day with someone we can see.
\nOr just drifting through those intermittent silences
\nthat are inevitably lost on the more intensely connected
\nof our shoal, their shimmering fins and faraway eyes.<\/p>\n
\nbut we are joined to one another by sharing the same air.
\nArriving at our destination we hear the name announced,
\nstep lightly into a crowd whose speech is almost touch,
\nwhose words are nearly kisses landing on our cheeks.<\/p>\n