{"id":35217,"date":"2017-08-05T15:21:15","date_gmt":"2017-08-05T19:21:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/?p=35217"},"modified":"2017-08-05T15:21:15","modified_gmt":"2017-08-05T19:21:15","slug":"perching","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/2017\/08\/perching\/","title":{"rendered":"Perching"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Perching<br \/>\nVCS <\/p>\n<p>I sat on a pole<br \/>\nHeld aloft<br \/>\nUnder the sweltering sun<br \/>\nOf the rotting waste<br \/>\nOf the battlefield below me <\/p>\n<p>I looked out of a telescope<br \/>\nHarangued by flies<br \/>\nGnawed at by hunger<br \/>\nSmacked in the chest with despair <\/p>\n<p>I scan the horizon<br \/>\nLooking for anything that moves<br \/>\nHoping for rescue<br \/>\nFearing more attack<br \/>\nFrom my lofty perch<br \/>\nI can avoid most of the perils<br \/>\nOf the decay of war<br \/>\nBut I make a handy target for arrows<br \/>\nOr any muck someone might want to throw<\/p>\n<p>There is something coming, I see it moving<br \/>\nSlowly and steadily it comes towards me<br \/>\nI take out my scroll<br \/>\nAnd my precious bottle of ink<br \/>\nThere are plenty of buzzard and crow feathers<br \/>\nWith which to make a new quill <\/p>\n<p>I sit down<br \/>\nupon my perch<br \/>\nListening to the sounds of death<br \/>\nand write about the battle<br \/>\nI am the only one to have survived<br \/>\nThe trust is mine to tell their story<br \/>\nSurvivors guilt makes the ink<br \/>\nThick with survivors guilt<br \/>\nAs I form each letter with great care<br \/>\nOn the only scroll I still have<br \/>\nWaiting<br \/>\nThe form grows larger<br \/>\nMy fate no more sure<br \/>\nThan any other mortal<br \/>\nOn my pole overlooking<br \/>\nThe charnal pit that holds my family and friends<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Perching VCS I sat on a pole Held aloft Under the sweltering sun Of the rotting waste Of the battlefield below me I looked out of a telescope Harangued by flies Gnawed at by hunger Smacked in the chest with despair I scan the horizon&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-miscellaneous"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35217"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35217\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35416,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35217\/revisions\/35416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}