{"id":104099,"date":"2025-10-25T23:08:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-25T23:08:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/104099\/"},"modified":"2025-10-25T23:08:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-25T23:08:08","slug":"shadow-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/104099\/","title":{"rendered":"Shadow \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I keep it barred, that door into the dark,<br \/>\nalthough a weight still pushes at the bolt.<br \/>\nMost days I manage, only now and then<br \/>\nmy grip grows slack, the lock gives with a jolt.<br \/>\nAll in my mind.<br \/>\n \t\t\t  \tBut still he blocks the light,<br \/>\nacross the threshold throws a livid shade,  <br \/>\nhis words, hot fists, still sounding in my head,<br \/>\nthe thumping tune, a pounding serenade.<\/p>\n<p>He never laid a hand on anyone.<br \/>The blows were subtle, finely honed, finessed,<br \/>and found their target. That was the only way<br \/>he knew to care, to crush what he loved best.<\/p>\n<p>I hold myself, still, out of his shadow\u2019s sway,<br \/>grow towards light now, keep the dark at bay.<\/p>\n<p>Today&#8217;s poem is from Catherine Ann Cullen&#8217;s new collection Storm Damage (Dedalus Press)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I keep it barred, that door into the dark, although a weight still pushes at the bolt. Most&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":104100,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,61,60,49207,979],"class_list":["post-104099","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-poems-of-the-week","tag-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104099","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104099"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104099\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/104100"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104099"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}