{"id":964,"date":"2007-01-16T19:29:00","date_gmt":"2007-01-16T19:29:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ink.verticalplus.co.uk\/archive\/?p=964"},"modified":"2007-01-16T19:29:00","modified_gmt":"2007-01-16T19:29:00","slug":"two-new-prose-poems-by-davide-trame","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/two-new-prose-poems-by-davide-trame\/","title":{"rendered":"Two new prose poems by Davide Trame"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hinges<\/span>

A daily chore of yours<\/span>
in the cold winter dawn<\/span>
is dealing with the sliding doors<\/span>
of the boat's cabin.<\/span>
Broken for ages. Something<\/span>
we all take for granted by now,<\/span>
something we know we have<\/span>
to come across.<\/span>
They are out of their hinges,<\/span>
secured only at the top<\/span>
and stuck to each other all along<\/span>
and slightly dangling.<\/span>
So, in a cloud of breath, you get on board<\/span>
and it's your turn: you pull and fumble<\/span>
to get in, as if your hands<\/span>
had to tear the world apart,<\/span>
then, once in, you push and pant again<\/span>
to seal off the mouth of the crack,<\/span>
if you don't do it, being just lazy<\/span>
or not strong enough, you are sure<\/span>
you\u201all be stared at angrily by all<\/span>
your fellow-travellers, yes you would<\/span>
feel you have failed this round,<\/span>
rhythms securing rhythms,<\/span>
where hinges wait and gaze at you like gates,<\/span>
where swimming souls must know<\/span>
their routes and stations<\/span>
and the rootedness of thresholds.

<\/span>
<\/font><\/p>\n

– – – – – – – – –
<\/font><\/div>\n



The Stare<\/span>

The shallows along this narrow sandbar<\/span>
tell you about plain stillness,<\/span>
the spellbound tramadol online us pharmacy<\/a> time of salt and marshland.<\/span>
There's a half-sunk chair covered in marsh green<\/span>
and an old engine's rusty gears<\/span>
and the usual scattered tins and plastic bottles,<\/span>
the hard to avoid here-and-now, our dumped selves<\/span>
we can't get rid of.<\/span>
But almost unimaginable behind Torcello's<\/span>
bell tower, in that cleansing aloneness.<\/span>
The rubbish, you tell me, has always been there,<\/span>
one with that stretch of mud.<\/span>
For a reason, I think, for some unageing<\/span>
particular carelessness.<\/span>
Part of the picture by now, part of the quiet.<\/span>
Part of these mute outlines on the slippery path.<\/span>
Where long ago I saw a boatman walking towards me,<\/span>
wearing a grey muddied coat and clogs,<\/span>
retirement, isolation – I remember I thought,<\/span>
rowing in his early days along weeds<\/span>
that didn't hide the nakedness of the channels.<\/span>
The lapping. The still mud. The stare.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Davide Trame is an Italian teacher of English. He lives in Venice and has been writing exclusively in English since 1993. His collect Re-emerging<\/span> is published as an email book by Gatto Publishing. www.gattopublishing.com<\/a>
<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

HingesA daily chore of yoursin the cold winter dawnis dealing with the sliding doorsof the boat's cabin.Broken for ages. Somethingwe all take for granted by now,something we know we haveto come across.They are out of their hinges,secured only at the topand stuck to each other all alongand slightly dangling.So, in a cloud of breath, you […]<\/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-964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/964","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=964"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/964\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}