{"id":8155,"date":"2019-10-31T11:38:19","date_gmt":"2019-10-31T17:38:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/?page_id=8155"},"modified":"2019-10-31T11:38:19","modified_gmt":"2019-10-31T17:38:19","slug":"they-being-being-there","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/?page_id=8155","title":{"rendered":"They being (being there)"},"content":{"rendered":"

J. D. Dixon<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

i.<\/p>\n

In the pale sun
\nof a small life\u2019s troubles,
\nin a quiet place,
\nI sit calmly in my chair,
\nplaying chicken with my words.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

ii.<\/p>\n

Tragic mountains rise
\nsharp against the horizon.
\nA chorus sweetly
\nsings. Friends: speak of the devil
\nand nothing much will happen.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

iii.<\/p>\n

The sad, lonely truth:
\nnothing much of anything
\nhappens in this town.
\nThey call it the centre of
\nall, but that\u2019s a fairy-tale.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

iv.<\/p>\n

The world sits apart.
\nMen don\u2019t face it when they pray;
\nthey face forwards and
\nnowhere else. There are no clouds
\nin the goddam sky today.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

v.<\/p>\n

The sun\u2019s radiance
\nburns bright in my quiet eyes,
\nand it\u2019s gone too soon.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

vi.<\/p>\n

Stark beauty mirrors
\nan undesired romance
\nfor this dying world.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

vii.<\/p>\n

Beautiful foothills
\ndistort the world; I tell them
\nmy heart is bigger,
\nit is all that I can see.
\nBut they say the world\u2019s so wide.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

viii.<\/p>\n

A small child speaks:
\nI\u2019m afraid of the darkness<\/em>.
\nThere\u2019s no light today.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

J. D. DIXON<\/strong> is a novelist, playwright and poet based in Glasgow, UK. His first novel, The unrivalled transcendence of Willem J. Gyle<\/em> (Thistle Publishing, 2017) was shortlisted for the 2018 Somerset Maugham Award, among other accolades. His first play, It’s My Turn<\/em>, debuted at the Edinburgh International Science Festival (2019) and has subsequently gone on tour around Scotland. He is currently working on his second novel and a collection of poetry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

J. D. Dixon     i. In the pale sun of a small life\u2019s troubles, in a quiet place, I sit calmly in my chair, playing chicken with my words.   ii. Tragic mountains rise sharp against the horizon. A … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"parent":8152,"menu_order":3,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-8155","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P15duy-27x","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/8155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8155"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/8155\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8164,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/8155\/revisions\/8164"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/8152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}