{"id":2624,"date":"2026-07-31T15:07:44","date_gmt":"2026-07-31T15:07:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.raphshirley.com\/blog\/?p=2624"},"modified":"2026-07-31T15:07:44","modified_gmt":"2026-07-31T15:07:44","slug":"seven-emails","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.raphshirley.com\/blog\/2026\/07\/31\/seven-emails\/","title":{"rendered":"Seven emails"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<pre class=\"wp-block-verse\">The seven emails shall be opened by the intern<br>Only he with his hot white flesh<br>Fresh from first loans<br>Can break the mails<br><br>And at the opening of the first mail<br>The tears began<br>Upon the flushed <br>Youth of his cheek<br><br>At the breaking of the second mail<br>Rage<br>Brewed in a broken head<br>Aged too soon<br><br>The third mail<br>Confused<br>And compounded<br>The full terror of what life will bring<br><br>Four<br>And<br>The<br>Shakes<br><br>Five red eyes hallucinating<br>The guilts begin their march<br>Across continents<br>Of the soul<br><br>Six cuts<br>Breath faster than beats<br>Lock the door<br>Dig the trenches for the eagle is overhead<br><br>Ten thousand workers in London<br>Ten thousand in Berlin<br>Ten thousand in Paris<br>Twenty thousand in Los Angeles<br>Twenty thousand in New York<br>Thirty thousand in San Francisco<br>Boxes in hands<br><br>The seventh mail<br>Sat unopened in the box<br>Blurred networks<br>And the seven angels were knocking<br>And the seven trumpets were beginning<br>At the first trumpet I fell to the floor sobbing<br>At the second bloodshot eyes turned the screens red<br>At the third a star outside the window<br>That the riots are upon us<br>Negroni!<br>The fourth trumpet said look West<br>At the F-35 stealth fighter coming out of the Sun<br>Woe! Woe! Woe! rang the sirens<br>We are recommending that all citizens stay inside for the <br>Last three trumpets<\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The seven emails shall be opened by the internOnly he with his hot white fleshFresh from first loansCan break the mailsAnd at the opening of the first mailThe tears beganUpon the flushed Youth of his cheekAt the breaking of the &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.raphshirley.com\/blog\/2026\/07\/31\/seven-emails\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[235],"tags":[236],"class_list":["post-2624","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry","tag-poems"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raphshirley.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2624","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raphshirley.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raphshirley.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raphshirley.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raphshirley.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2624"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.raphshirley.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2624\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raphshirley.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raphshirley.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raphshirley.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}