<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Sacrifice<\/strong><\/p>\n after Genesis 22.2: Then God said, \u201cTake your son, your only son, whom you love\u2014Isaac\u2014and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you.<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n Let fathers bind their sons<\/p>\n to altars, so the wind<\/p>\n might winnow the chaff.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Let a million feet<\/p>\n trample out<\/p>\n a threshing floor.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Let the harvest moon<\/p>\n light the hunter\u2019s path.<\/p>\n Let the guns begin again.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Let the earth feed<\/p>\n on bone-meal and rain,<\/p>\n let fire do its work.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n *<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The ground gives to spring, marks<\/p>\n digging men with chalk, the Somme<\/p>\n moves gentle and slow. Primroses<\/p>\n <\/p>\n litter No-Man\u2019s Land and solemn<\/p>\n broken trees sprout green buds.<\/p>\n Men clamber into the uproar<\/p>\n <\/p>\n of a summer morning. Some drown<\/p>\n in fire, some lie close with the earth<\/p>\n and feel it quake, of those some blacken<\/p>\n <\/p>\n into filth, some crawl, try out sound<\/p>\n and scavenge words. In the quiet that follows<\/p>\n starlings cloak the shifted sky<\/p>\n <\/p>\n *<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I am wire tangled into<\/p>\n the approximate shape of a man<\/p>\n in a fireside chair. At dawn<\/p>\n <\/p>\n rain broke heavy along the valley,<\/p>\n sent sheep bleating to the trees.<\/p>\n If I dream gas as wood-smoke<\/p>\n <\/p>\n it isn\u2019t so harsh on the throat.<\/p>\n By chapel time, sun spilt<\/p>\n through clouds blinding the road.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I am waiting for the mud<\/p>\n on my boots to dry. When still<\/p>\n I can hear the choir.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Martin Figura<\/strong><\/a>\u2019s most recent collections Dr Zeeman\u2019s Catastrophe Machine<\/em> (Cinnamon Press) and pamphlet Shed<\/em> (Gatehouse Press) were both published in 2016.\u00a0 The show of Dr Zeeman<\/em> <\/a>began touring in 2016.\u00a0 He was shortlisted for the Ted Hughes Award and won the Best Spoken Word Show Saboteur Award for his previous show Whistle<\/em><\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0 He\u2019s performed all around the UK, including several Latitude Festivals, Bang Said The Gun, Rally <\/em>and Broad\u00a0<\/em> and a number of leading poetry festivals, such as Stanza and Ledbury.\u00a0 He lives in Norwich where he runs Caf\u00e9 Writers.\u00a0 He is a retired army major.<\/p>\n Note: This poem was commissioned by 14-18NOW: WW1 Centenary Art Commissions, Norfolk & Norwich Festival, and Writers\u2019 Centre Norwich.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Sacrifice after Genesis 22.2: Then God said, \u201cTake your son, your only son, whom you love\u2014Isaac\u2014and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you. \u00a0 Let fathers bind their sons to altars, so the wind might winnow the chaff. Let […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","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-12303","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12303","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\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12303"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12303\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12568,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12303\/revisions\/12568"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}