{"id":316,"date":"2010-11-19T22:40:47","date_gmt":"2010-11-20T03:40:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kuny.ca\/blogs\/?p=316"},"modified":"2010-11-19T22:40:47","modified_gmt":"2010-11-20T03:40:47","slug":"simon-carnell-the-dead-letter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kuny.ca\/blogs\/2010\/316\/poems\/simon-carnell-the-dead-letter\/","title":{"rendered":"Simon Carnell &#8211; The Dead Letter"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The study as if someone has just left the room<br \/>\nand failed, for sixty-odd years, to return.<br \/>\nOn its desk a last dead letter, faded ink<br \/>\nall but gone. A copy of <em>Empire and Democracy<\/em>?;<\/p>\n<p>an igneous paperweight suffocating in its dust.<br \/>\nOn the floor an antique, outsize Dictaphone;<br \/>\na smell of desiccated newsprint and hooks;<br \/>\ntwo-volume <em>Stalin<\/em>, in several languages,<\/p>\n<p>and besuited Chinese visitors, conspicuous.<br \/>\nAnd the narrow, low, bullet-proof doors<br \/>\nof the blossoming bouganvillea-draped house<br \/>\nseem small as an entrance to a tomb:<\/p>\n<p>rusted home-made and riveted like those<br \/>\non a prototype tank, time-lock or submarine &#8211;<br \/>\nfitted after Siqueiros&#8217;s (brief crazed and failed)<br \/>\nleft-handed foray into homicide. The earth-<\/p>\n<p>floored guardhouse is a converted garden shed<br \/>\nnext the chicken coops; its guard&#8217;s toy-like<br \/>\nRemington with red-painted stock<br \/>\nis kept in the lobby with the photographs:<\/p>\n<p>Trotsky with head in a big bandage.<br \/>\n&#8220;moments before death&#8221;. Detectives in hats,<br \/>\ngrouped around exhibit A, the ice-pick.<br \/>\nTrotsky with nurses and medics, &#8220;moments after&#8221;<\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The study as if someone has just left the room and failed, for sixty-odd years, to return. On its desk a last dead letter, faded ink all but gone. A copy of Empire and Democracy?; an igneous paperweight suffocating in its dust. On the floor an antique, outsize Dictaphone; a smell of desiccated newsprint and <a href='https:\/\/kuny.ca\/blogs\/2010\/316\/poems\/simon-carnell-the-dead-letter\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-316","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poems","category-4-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kuny.ca\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kuny.ca\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kuny.ca\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kuny.ca\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kuny.ca\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=316"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kuny.ca\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":317,"href":"https:\/\/kuny.ca\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316\/revisions\/317"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kuny.ca\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kuny.ca\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kuny.ca\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}