{"id":1023,"date":"2007-07-14T09:07:00","date_gmt":"2007-07-14T09:07:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ink.verticalplus.co.uk\/archive\/?p=1023"},"modified":"2007-07-14T09:07:00","modified_gmt":"2007-07-14T09:07:00","slug":"some-foreign-field-by-phuoc-tan-diep","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/some-foreign-field-by-phuoc-tan-diep\/","title":{"rendered":"Some foreign field by Phuoc-Tan Diep"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><font size=\"2\"><span style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-weight: bold;\">Some foreign field<\/span><br style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\"><br style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\"><span style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\">A can of Canada Dry ginger ale lies exposed, torn in half.&nbsp; A tramp sniffs it for booze.&nbsp; It smells of fruit fermenting in wet packs.&nbsp; His boots are rotten, toecaps lifting off dirt-encrusted feet.&nbsp; He looks like he has marched a long way, from a far off bunker in some foreign field to this hidden place under a leafy bush in St. James Park.<\/span><br style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\"><br style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\"><span style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\">The green map of Canada expands, reflected in sodium streetlights, mixing with leaves and covering him with lines of longitude and latitude, like a thin wire cage. <\/span><br style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\"><br style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\"><span style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\">Now the soldiers lack stealth as they march, feet tapping on thin aluminium.&nbsp; He can almost hear their communiqu\u00e9s, the Morse code of tiny feet.&nbsp; The tramp shuffles deeper under the bush, allowing shadows to hide him from enemy eyes.&nbsp; Police sirens keep him on the edge of sleep. <\/span><br style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\"><br style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\"><span style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\">Soft grass sighs as it is crushed under the running feet of a young boy, too young for cigarettes.&nbsp; He coughs up smoke in great mustard swirls.&nbsp; He looks around, eyes hidden under his cap with U2\u2019s <\/span><span style=\"font-style: italic; font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\">Achtung Baby<\/span><span style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\"> emblazoned on it.&nbsp; He flicks the glowing tip, sparks flaring bright, and lobs it like a grenade, into the ginger ale can.&nbsp; He flees.<\/span><br style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\"><br style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\"><span style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\">Soldier ants rush out over No Man\u2019s Land and flattened poppies into their trenches.<\/span><br style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\"><br style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\"><span style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\">There is two minutes silence.<\/span><br style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\"><br style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\"><span style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\">The boom-boom of nightclubs shudder leaves, raining them down like shrapnel on the tramp.&nbsp; He flinches, retreating further into the ambush of sleep.&nbsp; <\/span><br style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\"><br style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\"><br style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\"><span style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\">\u2022 P-T is a regular contributor to IS&amp;T<\/span><br style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\"><br style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\"><\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Some foreign fieldA can of Canada Dry ginger ale lies exposed, torn in half.&nbsp; A tramp sniffs it for booze.&nbsp; It smells of fruit fermenting in wet packs.&nbsp; His boots are rotten, toecaps lifting off dirt-encrusted feet.&nbsp; He looks like he has marched a long way, from a far off bunker in some foreign field [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1023","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1023","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1023"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1023\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}