{"id":340,"date":"2011-08-07T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2011-08-07T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ink.verticalplus.co.uk\/archive\/?p=340"},"modified":"2011-08-07T11:00:00","modified_gmt":"2011-08-07T11:00:00","slug":"ben-parkers-lake","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/ben-parkers-lake\/","title":{"rendered":"Ben Parker's 'Lake'"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Lake<\/span>

There is a lake that freezes<\/span>
once only in a lifetime. Too distant<\/span>
to be seen from shore although<\/span>
the lake is small and could be shouted over<\/span>
on a day the wind is right. The centre<\/span>
holds an island, squat as a bronze boss<\/span>
on a silver shimmering shield. <\/span>
It is miles from the nearest village,<\/span>
shaded from the sun by a neat <\/span>
half-moon of craggy, treeless mountains<\/span>
and is a place you would not visit twice.<\/span>
But come when weather warnings<\/span>
have cleared the paths of weekend walkers<\/span>
and all the native birds have passed you<\/span>
on their journey south and you might find <\/span>
the water fastened down with ice.<\/span>
And if you choose to make the walk<\/span>
don't stop. The surface cracks<\/span>
and mutters at your back. Speed up,<\/span>
keep the looming island in your sight,<\/span>
the freeze will hold you only once.<\/span>



*Ben Parker<\/span>  was born in 1982 and completed a creative writing MA at UEA in 2008. He now lives and works in Oxford. His poetry has been published in a number of places, including Staple, Iota, Eyewear<\/span>, and Neon<\/span>.<\/span><\/span><\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The LakeThere is a lake that freezesonce only in a lifetime. Too distantto be seen from shore althoughthe lake is small and could be shouted overon a day the wind is right. The centreholds an island, squat as a bronze bosson a silver shimmering shield. It is miles from the nearest village,shaded from the sun […]<\/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-340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340","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=340"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}