{"id":1506,"date":"2020-05-24T00:57:48","date_gmt":"2020-05-24T00:57:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/oxmag\/?page_id=1506"},"modified":"2020-06-18T22:41:29","modified_gmt":"2020-06-18T22:41:29","slug":"sixty-eighth-birthday-poem-robert-penick","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/oxmag\/sixty-eighth-birthday-poem-robert-penick\/","title":{"rendered":"Sixty-Eighth Birthday Poem &#8211; Robert L. Penick"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<br><h2><strong><em>Sixty-Eighth Birthday Poem<\/em><\/strong><\/h2><p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><strong>Robert L. Penick<\/strong><\/p><hr>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><br>It wasn&#8217;t supposed<br>to play out so long.<br><br>This spool of time<br>should have been<br>cut short<br>when life was a pageant,<br>a parade of beauty and desire.<br><br>Envy the astronauts<br>killed on liftoff.<br><br>Or the pyrotechnician<br>dead in his explosion<br>of fireworks.<br><br>From the stars, they now pity<br>your lusterless, downward<br>arc.<br><br><br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p style=\"background-color:#ffffff;font-size:14px\" class=\"has-background wp-block-paragraph\">\/\/\/<br>The poetry and prose of Robert L. Penick have appeared in over 100 different literary journals, including <em>The Hudson Review<\/em>, <em>Soundings East<\/em>, and <em>North American Review<\/em>.  His latest book is <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.slipstreampress.org\/exit_stage_left.html\">Exit, Stage Left<\/a><\/em>, from <em>Slipstream Press<\/em>. More of his work can be found at <a href=\"http:\/\/theartofmercy.net\">theartofmercy.net<\/a><br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<br><figure class=\"wp-block-image is-resized\"><a href=\"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/oxmag\/issue-44\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/oxmag\/files\/2020\/06\/output-onlinepngtools-5.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1863\" width=\"275\" height=\"152\"><\/a><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sixty-Eighth Birthday Poem Robert L. Penick It wasn&#8217;t supposedto play out so long. This spool of timeshould have beencut shortwhen life was a pageant,a parade of beauty and desire. Envy the astronautskilled on liftoff. Or the pyrotechniciandead in his explosionof fireworks. From the stars, they now pityyour lusterless, downwardarc. \/\/\/The poetry and prose of Robert &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/oxmag\/sixty-eighth-birthday-poem-robert-penick\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Sixty-Eighth Birthday Poem &#8211; Robert L. Penick&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2310,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1506","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/oxmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1506","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/oxmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/oxmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/oxmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2310"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/oxmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1506"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/oxmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1506\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/oxmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}