{"id":972,"date":"2007-02-14T09:52:00","date_gmt":"2007-02-14T09:52:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ink.verticalplus.co.uk\/archive\/?p=972"},"modified":"2007-02-14T09:52:00","modified_gmt":"2007-02-14T09:52:00","slug":"two-new-poems-by-matthew-howard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/two-new-poems-by-matthew-howard\/","title":{"rendered":"Two new poems by Matthew Howard"},"content":{"rendered":"

One from the cave<\/span>
 <\/span>
<\/span>A cave man and a cave man and a cave man<\/span>
found themselves upright in a cave,<\/span>
found their limbs suddenly dexterous<\/span>
found their fingers feeling into articulations;<\/span>
and they were laughing, well, not as we know it<\/span>
but a sort of chattering, incredulous<\/span>
at the good result that had fallen into their hands<\/span>
(these things going searching from them)<\/span>
and they felt they had to mark it somehow,<\/span>
such an occasion wouldn\u2019t come again,<\/span>
so they stood together at the mouth of the cave<\/span>
and looking out they just knew this was all theirs,<\/span>
but right then one scoops up a rock and smashes<\/span>
it into the skull of the one to his left<\/span>
(it could have been the one to his right)<\/span>
anyway, and he smashes and he smashes and he smashes<\/span>
and it\u2019s like this thing pushes through to his fingers,<\/span>
so he keeps going and he\u2019s covered in all strange<\/span>
new stuff and he wants to know what else is in there<\/span>
so he beats and smashes (he\u2019s so strong!) he doesn\u2019t stop<\/span>
until he\u2019s just hitting the earth of the cave floor,<\/span>
until the soil\u2019s all slopped with this hot sticky stuff;<\/span>
but the funny thing is this one wasn\u2019t any stronger<\/span>
or taller or better \u2013 he just did this first,<\/span>
as if a synapse sparked sooner or something<\/span>
behind his eyes sharpened its focus on this compunction.<\/span>
And so just then, the other cowed at the heel<\/span>
of the sweating one\u2019s side and they watched<\/span>
 <\/span>
the long flow out the mouth of the cave \u2013<\/span>
a new beast streaking freely on the plains.<\/span>
 <\/span>
Or so it went,<\/span>
and so it goes.<\/span>
 

<\/span>– – – – – – – – –<\/span>
 

<\/span><\/span><\/span>Hand Dryer: A Vanitas<\/span>
 <\/span>
The auto downward jolt<\/span>
of hot air on my hands<\/span>
shocked; the blast-stretched skin<\/span>
showed new transparencies<\/span>
of bone under flesh.<\/span>
 <\/span>
God, the bastard blows hard.<\/p>\n

\u2022 <\/span>Matthew Howard is in his late 20's and works in Norwich in the insurance industry. He is currently taking the Diploma in Advanced Poetry at the UEA which is taught by Sarah Law and Helen Ivory.<\/span>
<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One from the cave A cave man and a cave man and a cave manfound themselves upright in a cave,found their limbs suddenly dexterousfound their fingers feeling into articulations;and they were laughing, well, not as we know itbut a sort of chattering, incredulousat the good result that had fallen into their hands(these things going searching from […]<\/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-972","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/972","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=972"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/972\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}