{"id":944,"date":"2010-12-29T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2010-12-29T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ink.verticalplus.co.uk\/archive\/?p=944"},"modified":"2020-12-14T11:14:53","modified_gmt":"2020-12-14T11:14:53","slug":"the-fifth-day-of-christmas-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/the-fifth-day-of-christmas-2\/","title":{"rendered":"The Fifth Day of Christmas"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bad Quarto<\/span>

It seems my Folio\u2019s out of joint<\/span>
with the version that you scribbled down<\/span>
while sub-plots drew the spot from kings<\/span>
and courtiers waltzed on from the wings<\/span>
or were bottled off by groundlings.<\/span>

My favourite scene? The woodland spree<\/span>
when, sappily, I carved your name<\/span>
into the bark of every tree<\/span>
and vowed I\u2019d never love again<\/span>
if love were sundered by Act III.<\/span>

But in the Quarto that you stage<\/span>
you leave the bloody business on the page:<\/span>
of how I called the surgeons round<\/span>
to hack the lumber to the ground,<\/span>
revealing five pale rings per trunk,<\/span>
scorching the salted earth\u2019s black stumps.<\/span>


Simon Barraclough<\/span>



An everyday liturgy<\/span>
 <\/span>
I wouldn\u2019t want to be you now, not even now<\/span>
At this festive time of year, when you hit the headlines<\/span>
In glitter and guilt, and with our sins of omission we trudge<\/span>
Into dank stone gatherings of the annually faithful.<\/span>
I wouldn\u2019t want to see all this through your eyes, this life <\/span>
Of shoppers, sinners, squanderers, and savers (but few saviours;<\/span>
It\u2019s not a well\u2013paying position these days and we tend<\/span>
To hack at the clay feet of former gods and nearly all idols).<\/span>
I wouldn\u2019t want to feel what you feel, or what you ever felt, <\/span>
That height of altruism being beyond me, my days mostly spent<\/span>
Keeping heads above water and wolves from the door,<\/span>
Making ends meet and not meeting my maker just yet, but<\/span>
Wondering all the same if you are somewhere, still, like me, <\/span>
Clinging to a cross and hurling imprecations at the sky.<\/span>

Brett Hardman<\/span>


<\/span>

* Simon Barraclough<\/span><\/a> is the author of the Forward-shortlisted <\/span>Los Alamos Mon Amour<\/span> (Salt Publishing, 2008) and the limited edition boxed mini-book, <\/span>Bonjour Tetris <\/span>(Penned in the Margins, 2010). Bad Quarto'  is published in 'Bonjour Tetris' <\/span>

*Brett Hardman<\/span> is a
\nBritish-Canadian. She recently completed the Bath Spa MA Creative
\nWriting, lives in Wiltshire with her husband, and is writing a
\ncollection of short stories based on her experiences working at
\nracetracks in North America.<\/span>
<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bad QuartoIt seems my Folio\u2019s out of jointwith the version that you scribbled downwhile sub-plots drew the spot from kingsand courtiers waltzed on from the wingsor were bottled off by groundlings.My favourite scene? The woodland spreewhen, sappily, I carved your nameinto the bark of every treeand vowed I\u2019d never love againif love were sundered by […]<\/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":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-944","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-twelve-days-of-christmas-2010"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/944","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=944"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/944\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23920,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/944\/revisions\/23920"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}