{"id":12089,"date":"2016-10-16T14:54:00","date_gmt":"2016-10-16T13:54:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/the-bravest-of-the-brave\/"},"modified":"2016-10-16T14:54:00","modified_gmt":"2016-10-16T13:54:00","slug":"the-bravest-of-the-brave","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/the-bravest-of-the-brave\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;the bravest of the brave&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">&#8216;the bravest of the brave&#8217;<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>by Fran Lock<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>We will never again \u2013 in any future conflict \u2013 let those activist, left-wing human rights lawyers harangue and harass the bravest of the brave \u2013 the men and women of Britain\u2019s Armed Forces &#8211;<\/em>\u00a0PM Theresa May at the Conservative Party Conference 2016<\/p>\n<p>you could spit this distance. a night carved up along our<br \/>wounded latitudes. these, the deathbed territories: houses <br \/>you can wake at night with howling; weekends, when flags<br \/>mutate the gaptooth terraces. blue dufflecoat, spineless in <br \/>a sightline; a black lung, obliviously butterflied, small <br \/>matters. a pristine buckle of bone; the plump dependency<br \/>of children, milk teeth courting spores in yellow bedrooms.<br \/>you could spit this distance. the engine\u2019s wheezing sync,<br \/>the armoured pig, the gun. your anti-language gratifies <br \/>itself. the blind eye keeps your worshipful company. all<br \/>laws in accordance with screeching. curfew. groping<br \/>sorceries. the tv screen, a white sail stretched tight by<br \/>light, not air. no one is there. a smile that spreads <br \/>like an infection; your hands sculpt the flesh of us from<br \/>silence. a body\u2019s soft reckoning. you crouch in stairwells <br \/>like botanists. we are searched out, sampled, categories<br \/>of life. vexing scent of humankind. warren. open sewer.<br \/>running sore. subspecies. the trigger bristles with fingers.<br \/>flatblocks hum with it: picturesque demises, velvety<br \/>texture of mouths you smash like oysters, plumbing pearl.<br \/>fatigue, amplified, unfocussed. a church you crumple<br \/>like an egg box. conceal a solemn promise in fist. you<br \/>could spit this distance. in your vindictive livery. we have<br \/>nothing but a vagrant immortality; insinuating holiness, <br \/>a hope that stops just short. you name the slate, the dust.<br \/>you lure the earth to language. our culture is a bitten<br \/>tongue. young girls, knotting their hair like nylon ropes.<br \/>such deeds. and who will speak of them? it is an<br \/>antique zero you are counting on. the rust around<br \/>the hole. a boot prevails upon a bending back forever;<br \/>persuades a face to open in a failure to scream.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8216;the bravest of the brave&#8217; by Fran Lock We will never again \u2013 in any future conflict \u2013 let those activist, left-wing human rights lawyers harangue and&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":423,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1660],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12089","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12089","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/423"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12089"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12089\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12089"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12089"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12089"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}