{"id":9740,"date":"2015-12-15T09:00:58","date_gmt":"2015-12-15T09:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ink.verticalplus.co.uk\/archive\/?p=9740"},"modified":"2015-11-26T16:11:32","modified_gmt":"2015-11-26T16:11:32","slug":"mary-jacob","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/mary-jacob\/","title":{"rendered":"Mary Jacob"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>In A Black Country<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>It was in the countryside<br \/>\nthat it came into being,<br \/>\ntraipsing black mud in the hallway.<\/p>\n<p>Was it something you said<br \/>\nthat invited it in?<br \/>\nWhat could you clamp in your hands<br \/>\nto stifle the words<br \/>\nclanging against your teeth?<\/p>\n<p>You are in the country,<br \/>\nwith the safety catch on,<br \/>\nlayers of blankets wrapped around your head,<br \/>\nand yet it knocks.<br \/>\nAnd yet it opens the door<br \/>\nby itself. It tracks you down<br \/>\nto the country.<\/p>\n<p>It stands there, holding its head<br \/>\nin black hands<br \/>\nwith blackened fingernails.<br \/>\nBlack mud falls from its boots<br \/>\nto the thin red carpet.<\/p>\n<p>You look down at the red,<br \/>\nTurn your head and look out<br \/>\ninto the grey.<br \/>\nYou tip your chin up and gaze<br \/>\nat the white ceiling.<\/p>\n<p>But where its face should be<br \/>\nis a black hole<br \/>\nand it draws you in.<\/p>\n<p><strong><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Mary Jacob<\/strong> is Californian relocated to Wales. Recent poems have appeared in <em>Uut Poetry, Wales Within, The Wait, Flux, Centrifuge, Long Exposure<\/em> and more. She organises the <a href=\"https:\/\/wordsandwordspoetry.wordpress.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Words&amp;words&amp;words<\/a> poetry series at the Aberystwyth Arts Centre.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; In A Black Country It was in the countryside that it came into being, traipsing black mud in the hallway. Was it something you said that invited it in? What could you clamp in your hands to stifle the words clanging against your teeth? You are in the country, with the safety [&hellip;]<\/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-9740","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9740","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=9740"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9740\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9742,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9740\/revisions\/9742"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}