{"id":419,"date":"2010-08-12T09:39:52","date_gmt":"2010-08-12T16:39:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shaunbelcher.com\/writing\/?p=419"},"modified":"2017-04-03T18:03:07","modified_gmt":"2017-04-03T17:03:07","slug":"the-shipstone-star","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shaunbelcher.com\/writing\/?p=419","title":{"rendered":"The Shipstone Star"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong> THE SHIPSTONE STAR <\/strong><br \/>\n<img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-427\" title=\"star\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/shaunbelcher.com\/writing\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/08\/star.jpg?resize=200%2C215&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"star\" width=\"200\" height=\"215\"><\/p>\n<p>Red lead rain lashed to pink<br \/>\nhangs like a soviet star<br \/>\non the left side of Nottingham&#8217;s tunic.<br \/>\nAlways east facing, a towering symbol.<br \/>\nThe dawn of a century personified, rusts<br \/>\nabove a city of casual workers, bicycles<br \/>\nand the hard slogging dutiful dead<br \/>\nwho fleck fields from the Rhone to the Rhine.<\/p>\n<p>Never facing the river, that westward<br \/>\nleaches mud from peak and meadow.<br \/>\nThe dried, limed stench of rutted tracks<br \/>\nlining the willow barks of Derby and Leicester.<br \/>\nGables glossed white upon lace-curtained<br \/>\nsuburban fuchsias, trimmed lawns and empty trailers.<br \/>\nSafety in numbers as the suburbs huddle<br \/>\ninto its coat from Bramcote to Beeston.<\/p>\n<p>Cattle slide into ditches, barges grind<br \/>\nat their moorings as floods flow on toward<br \/>\ndry fens gasping for this summer downpour.<br \/>\nThe star remains firm, but tatty.<br \/>\nA remnant of a fading imperial industrial glory.<br \/>\nCheap imports in containers trundle round the ring-road<br \/>\nheaded for Poundland, Primark and Ikea.<\/p>\n<p>We died for this, these rain-sodden shires<br \/>\nwhisper the ghosts in the graveyards<br \/>\nas hooded boys on BMXs spin on street corners.<br \/>\nIn a damp bedsit a shelf-stacker from Warsaw<br \/>\nlifts a Samurai Sword from the wall and mimes<br \/>\nthe DVD still stuck on play on the monitor.<br \/>\nStar and blade flash for a second and are gone.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<br \/>\nThe storm lashes the window.<br \/>\nThe Shipstone Star shines black on a white sky.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>THE SHIPSTONE STAR Red lead rain lashed to pink hangs like a soviet star on the left side of Nottingham&#8217;s tunic. Always east facing, a towering symbol. The dawn of a century personified, rusts above a city of casual workers, bicycles and the hard slogging dutiful dead who fleck fields from the Rhone to the&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1,75,33],"tags":[66],"class_list":["post-419","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-horseshoe-press-pamphlet","category-poetry","tag-the-drifting-village"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6nhh-6L","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shaunbelcher.com\/writing\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shaunbelcher.com\/writing\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shaunbelcher.com\/writing\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shaunbelcher.com\/writing\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shaunbelcher.com\/writing\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=419"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/shaunbelcher.com\/writing\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1672,"href":"https:\/\/shaunbelcher.com\/writing\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419\/revisions\/1672"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shaunbelcher.com\/writing\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shaunbelcher.com\/writing\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shaunbelcher.com\/writing\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}