<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Two Benches Away<\/strong><\/p>\n Screaming to a halt, I held the phone so you could hear voices you said Care and Residential, <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Terry Quinn<\/strong> was a Medical Engineer before retiring in 2012. His collection The Amen of Knowledge<\/em> won the Geoff Steven\u2019s Memorial Prize in 2013. He hosts the Arts Scene<\/em> programme on Preston fm.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Two Benches Away Screaming to a halt, and I mean screaming, they fell onto the bench the wheel chair not suited to the steep slopes of Criccieth. They were still laughing when the rest of them arrived, residents and carers, out for more than a stroll on a promenade flatter than accents. […]<\/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-7635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7635","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=7635"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7635\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7637,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7635\/revisions\/7637"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nand I mean screaming,
\nthey fell onto the bench
\nthe wheel chair not suited
\nto the steep slopes of Criccieth.
\nThey were still laughing
\nwhen the rest of them arrived,
\nresidents and carers,
\nout for more than a stroll
\non a promenade flatter than accents.<\/p>\n
\nfull of castles and laughter,
\nand you said something that surprised me,
\nsomething about words,
\nabout the naming of things,
\nand for a second I was lost,<\/p>\n
\nand it brought back homes,
\nthe Nursing Homes where my brief visits
\nwould interrupt the routine,
\nwhere the armchairs were benches
\nand the patients were boulders
\nsurrounded by crisps, fag ends
\nand pools drying in the afternoon sun
\nwith big screen views of Arizona
\nor a game show from Pebble Mill.
\nBut I did nothing, I did my job,
\nchased up an extra biscuit,
\ntalked about holidays
\nand looked the other way.<\/p>\n