{"id":864,"date":"2010-10-28T09:27:00","date_gmt":"2010-10-28T09:27:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ink.verticalplus.co.uk\/archive\/?p=864"},"modified":"2010-10-28T09:27:00","modified_gmt":"2010-10-28T09:27:00","slug":"pam-thompson-has-wanderlust","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/pam-thompson-has-wanderlust\/","title":{"rendered":"Pam Thompson has wanderlust"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wanderlust<\/span>


I met her in a bar, a small woman, <\/span>
in a red sleeveless sweater <\/span>
and a Laplander's hat with strings hanging down;<\/span>
a hat that looked like yellow wax.<\/span>

We were different, yeah, but almost the same.<\/span>

She asked me for a light, didn't even smoke.<\/span>
Asked me for a light, whispered in my ear:<\/span>

Come with me to the harbour.<\/span>
Come with me to the wide open sea.<\/span>
I'll take you to the island.<\/span>
You can hear the sea-birds scream.<\/span>
I'll take you \u2026 to the island.<\/span>

Then sang a song that slashed at me<\/span>
like knives.  I looked into her eyes.<\/span>
She looked into my eyes. A song<\/span>
like glass mountains cracking.<\/span>

She wore a rucksack of mud.<\/span>
I turned to mud <\/span>
then she carried me on her back<\/span>
down a river of roots and veins.<\/span>

We were different, yeah, but almost the same.<\/span>

She carried me on a raft<\/span>
propped up by owls that looked like rocks<\/span>
with eyes and shoulders.<\/span>
Underwater owls.<\/span>
Yes, I clung with arms and thighs<\/span>
to another woman's back on a theme-park ride<\/span>
with glass mountains rushing past.<\/span>
A theme-park ride; a river howling.<\/span>

We never reached the island.<\/span>
The owls all died. The mountains turned<\/span>
to ice and melted , pitching us<\/span>
through falls of freezing water.<\/span>
We were different, yeah, but almost the same.<\/span>
One travelling: the other drowning.<\/span>



* Pam Thompson<\/span> has had poems published in a range of anthologies and magazines and has written to commission. Her pamphlets are Spin<\/span> (Waldean Press 1999), Parting the Ghosts of Salt<\/span> (Redbeck Press 2000) and Show Date and Time<\/span> (Smith-Doorstop 2006). Her recent collection The Japan Quiz<\/span> is published by Redbeck Press. Pam is one of the organisers of Word!<\/span> Leicester\u2019s longest running spoken-word open-mic night which takes place every month at The Y.
http:\/\/pamthompsonpoetry.wordpress.com<\/a>
<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>
<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WanderlustI met her in a bar, a small woman, in a red sleeveless sweater and a Laplander's hat with strings hanging down;a hat that looked like yellow wax.We were different, yeah, but almost the same.She asked me for a light, didn't even smoke.Asked me for a light, whispered in my ear:Come with me to the […]<\/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-864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/864","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=864"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/864\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}