{"id":2479,"date":"2013-04-22T21:00:43","date_gmt":"2013-04-22T21:00:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=2479"},"modified":"2013-05-15T10:40:05","modified_gmt":"2013-05-15T10:40:05","slug":"three-poems-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=2479","title":{"rendered":"Three Poems"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"littlebrother<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\nCartographer Standing<\/strong><\/p>\n

They told you stand barefoot, the cool grass
\nspreading for the soles of your feet; weight
\nthrough your heels, and the pressure of your
\ntall body through your legs. Feel your feet,
\nthey said, feel the ground, the earth below.
\nWhat do you feel? And you, cartographer,
\nfollowed the route from skull to collar bones
\ninto your shoulder girdle, ribcage, and down
\nyour segmental spine, into a heavy pelvis,
\nhip sockets, femur, knee, fibula, the collection
\nof bones we call feet, and then, what was it?
\nIn this ungardened new-age, ageless place,
\nbeside the old A5 route, Dublin to London,
\npeople walked those centuries, were drawn
\nby horses, play swift car radios now, small,
\nshrill against the heavy valley, you weighed
\nagainst a thought. Bones, you thought. Bones.
\n 
\n<\/p>\n

Seam<\/strong><\/p>\n

We\u2019re drawn to the edges of it
\nas if you could hold them,
\nthe lapping edges, and stretch it out
\nbetween the anorak people
\nstamping here, and the bare ones
\non the other side, in a bright place
\nhardly imaginable, where bathers
\nare all laid back and bare. We stand
\nat the edges and just above the surface,
\nconsider walking down. Into it.
\nInto it. Where the things
\nare so life sized they make a speck
\nof this diver, like a spaceman
\nin his breathing equipment,
\nlooking for something small.
\nSmall enough to spear. Wide eyes
\nwith the colour of depth, like a baby
\nwhen he surfaces. The world
\nfills lungs to bursting, and, limited,
\nsends him back in, past the edges
\nto shudder again. How cold it is.
\n 
\n<\/p>\n

i<\/strong><\/p>\n

This text comes, and, in the office,
\nwhere I am what I do and the small
\nthings I do seem largely important.
\nI\u2019m not sure I want to, want to go
\nin a convoy of big laughter, chasing
\nravenously along skinny coast roads,
\nfor the tide, to stand in the loud
\ncold crew, stuffing good bodies
\ninto thick wetsuits full of old smells
\nof rubber and sea, to race beach
\nin my bare feet, stinging and bright
\nwith its million particles of sand,
\nhilarious, urgent to forget myself.
\nAnd I\u2019m easy to forget, little I,
\ncarried in the great, cupped palm,
\nfun-sized, body slung out by a sea
\nthat slices at tiny shores, held up,
\npressed down, gathered and cycled.
\nAgain. Hopeless with small laughter,
\nwrung out by the wheeling tide.
\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

They told you stand barefoot, the cool grass
\nspreading for the soles of your feet; weight<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":47,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[294],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\nThree Poems - The Manchester Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=2479\" \/>\n<link rel=\"next\" href=\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=2479&page=2\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Three Poems - The Manchester Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"They told you stand barefoot, the cool grass spreading for the soles of your feet; weight\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=2479\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Manchester Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-04-22T21:00:43+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2013-05-15T10:40:05+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/littlebrother-s.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Alys Conran\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Alys Conran\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=2479\",\"url\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=2479\",\"name\":\"Three Poems - The Manchester Review\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2013-04-22T21:00:43+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2013-05-15T10:40:05+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/#\/schema\/person\/173c038a8a70beed41bdb42d5f18d7d0\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=2479\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/#website\",\"url\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/\",\"name\":\"The Manchester Review\",\"description\":\"The Manchester Review\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/#\/schema\/person\/173c038a8a70beed41bdb42d5f18d7d0\",\"name\":\"Alys Conran\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/wp-includes\/images\/blank.gif\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/wp-includes\/images\/blank.gif\",\"caption\":\"Alys Conran\"},\"description\":\"Alys Conran\u2019s poetry, short stories and translations have been placed in several competitions including the Bristol Short Story Prize and the Manchester Fiction Prize, published in a number of anthologies and magazines including Nu: Fiction and Stuff by Parthian Books and Cut on the Bias by Honno Press, and read at The Hay Festival and on Radio Four. 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