The coal fire smoke piped like a snake-charmers tune<\/p>\n
Between the symmetrical council terraced houses<\/p>\n
Out on winter parade<\/p>\n
Not allowed to blink or smile at the skittish snowflakes<\/p>\n
Tickling their nose<\/p>\n
Doorsteps lay burdened<\/p>\n
Like a too-late\u00a0harvest festival alter<\/p>\n
Maybe a coal sack<\/p>\n
Or an empty\u00a0glass Alderwicks pop bottle out to get the money back<\/p>\n
And then a heap of a child<\/p>\n
Home for Christmas from across the miles<\/p>\n
Jumping once at the territorial\u00a0bark of a dog<\/p>\n
Then at the sound of a door unlocked by a Nan not seen in oh-so-long,<\/p>\n
And nothing’s changed –<\/p>\n
Not one single decoration rearranged<\/p>\n
On the tree since last year<\/p>\n
And the little lantern lights still light the same route<\/p>\n
Through the pretend branches and Santa’s boots<\/p>\n
And just as it’s time to relax<\/p>\n
Nan disappears to the pantry for snacks<\/p>\n
And they haven’t changed either –<\/p>\n
Still the same cheese and still the same pickle<\/p>\n
And things not changing means a lot when you’re little!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The coal fire smoke piped like a snake-charmers tune Between the symmetrical council terraced houses Out on winter parade Not allowed to blink or smile at the skittish snowflakes Tickling their nose Doorsteps lay burdened Like a too-late\u00a0harvest festival alter Maybe a coal sack Or…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":252,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34060","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-marathon-poem"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34060","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/252"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34060"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34060\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34530,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34060\/revisions\/34530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34060"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34060"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34060"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}