{"id":2077,"date":"2021-11-30T21:57:12","date_gmt":"2021-12-01T01:57:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/?page_id=2077"},"modified":"2021-12-04T22:32:30","modified_gmt":"2021-12-05T02:32:30","slug":"ive-had-enough-of-thomas-cromwell","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/poetry-archive\/ive-had-enough-of-thomas-cromwell\/","title":{"rendered":"I&#8217;ve had enough of Thomas Cromwell"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n<p><span class=\"has-inline-color has-black-color\"><strong><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-2331 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1188\/2021\/12\/CromwellGrid-268x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"292\" height=\"327\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1188\/2021\/12\/CromwellGrid-268x300.jpg 268w, https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1188\/2021\/12\/CromwellGrid-914x1024.jpg 914w, https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1188\/2021\/12\/CromwellGrid-768x861.jpg 768w, https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1188\/2021\/12\/CromwellGrid.jpg 1095w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 292px) 100vw, 292px\" \/><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\r\n<p><span class=\"has-inline-color has-black-color\"><strong>I\u2019ve had enough of Thomas Cromwell<\/strong><br \/>Mercedes Lawry<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p><span class=\"has-inline-color has-black-color\">and the tick, tick, tick of his brain,<br \/>the constant swirl around him of his low<br \/>beginnings, snipes and sneers like pestering crows.<br \/>He is a chessmaster, moving women<br \/>back and forth in knotty schemes \u2013<br \/>who marries who, who gains an ally, who breaches<br \/>a border, who bears a successor.<br \/>Whose family is silk and velvet,<br \/>whose family is common coal.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p><span class=\"has-inline-color has-black-color\">Thomas is elusive. He gets close<br \/>to the fire, sipping his wine,<br \/>outguessing the fickle king. Wolsey hums<br \/>in the background, his fall from grace<br \/>never out of mind. Anne Boleyn is stitched<br \/>into his maneuvers. The world stumbles on<br \/>despite tyrants and connivers.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p><span class=\"has-inline-color has-black-color\">In our fictions we dissect him, Lord Privy Seal,<br \/>a chancellor, a chamberlain. We try to understand<br \/>his place in shadow and in ice, make stories<br \/>about orbits of power\u2014whispers, lies,<br \/>false gods, false wives. He\u2019s on a tightrope,<br \/>where friends and foes trade roles, trade Thomas<br \/>like a poorly sewn leather ball<br \/>in a game gone on too long.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p><span class=\"has-inline-color has-black-color\">He is exhausting, Master Cromwell.<br \/>By the time he\u2019s at the scaffold,<br \/>my sympathies are waning. His eyes are open,<br \/>the blade is sharp, his clever ways,<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-text-color has-background has-medium-gray-background-color has-medium-gray-color is-style-wide\" \/>\r\n\r\n\r\n<p><span class=\"has-inline-color has-black-color\"><strong>Mercedes Lawry<\/strong> has published widely including three chapbooks, short fiction and stories\/poems for children. She\u2019s been nominated for a Pushcart six times. Twitter-@mercwrites<\/span><\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I\u2019ve had enough of Thomas CromwellMercedes Lawry and the tick, tick, tick of his brain,the constant swirl around him of his lowbeginnings, snipes and sneers like pestering crows.He is a <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/poetry-archive\/ive-had-enough-of-thomas-cromwell\/\">Continue Reading &rarr;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3221,"featured_media":0,"parent":1261,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2077"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3221"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2077"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2077\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2332,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2077\/revisions\/2332"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1261"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}