{"id":13613,"date":"2017-05-22T08:00:44","date_gmt":"2017-05-22T08:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ink.verticalplus.co.uk\/archive\/?p=13613"},"modified":"2020-12-09T15:28:00","modified_gmt":"2020-12-09T15:28:00","slug":"anthony-lawrence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/anthony-lawrence\/","title":{"rendered":"Anthony Lawrence"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Difference<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

The once-in-a-thousand-year-flood came and went.<\/p>\n

We listened as though blood were a tide<\/p>\n

our bedroom an ark. At dawn we understood<\/p>\n

the full extent of what had occurred:<\/p>\n

as there was no sun, we attended a critical mass<\/p>\n

in our underwear. A town went by, followed<\/p>\n

by a stunned population, all wearing plover masks.<\/p>\n

You were at the window, giving a commentary<\/p>\n

on the direction of the wind. I lay on the bed<\/p>\n

listening to a public broadcast of the dangers<\/p>\n

of being out alone, after dark. You reported<\/p>\n

people walking through the steady rain<\/p>\n

of a pamphlet-drop. I put the words diaspora <\/em><\/p>\n

and exodus <\/em>up for discussion. Your voice broke<\/p>\n

with news of street executions being carried out<\/p>\n

by gangs by torchlight. They say that hardship<\/p>\n

calls forth the best and worst in relationships.<\/p>\n

The sky was red, the ground white with ash.<\/p>\n

By such extremes were our differences exposed.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
Anthony Lawrence<\/strong> has published sixteen books of poems and a novel. He teaches Creative Writing and Writing Poetry at Griffith university, Gold Coast, Queensland and lives on the far north coast of New South Wales. Click here for more:\u00a0 http:\/\/www.poetryinternationalweb.net\/pi\/site\/poet\/item\/24676\/15\/Anthony-Lawrence<\/a><\/div>\n
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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      Difference \u00a0 The once-in-a-thousand-year-flood came and went. We listened as though blood were a tide our bedroom an ark. At dawn we understood the full extent of what had occurred: as there was no sun, we attended a critical mass in our underwear. A town went by, followed by a stunned population, […]<\/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":[136,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13613","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2017-poetry-picks","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13613","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=13613"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13613\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13934,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13613\/revisions\/13934"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}