Ink Sweat & Tears is a UK based webzine which publishes and reviews poetry, prose, prose-poetry, word & image pieces and everything in between. Our tastes are eclectic and magpie-like and we aim to publish something new every day.

We try to keep waiting-time short, but because of increased submissions, the current waiting time between submission and publication is around twelve weeks.

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Featured Poetry/Prose of the Day

Patrick Wright

IN EVERY OVAL A FACE When you drew lines in the sand with your long white cane the lesson was that faces can be found just about anywhere. All they need is a frame. And there it was, just needed you to accentuate the slanted brows with a deft gouge, the skin tone there, around two slivers of razor shells, which served as eyes, the nostrils you jabbed with your tip, and a mouth (a smirk you said) that seemed quite devilish. ‘Is it creepy?’ you asked. To you, this was beach braille, your runes. (But now perhaps subterfuge, as you trotted off into the holes left by horseshoes, in the days after your waist was stapled shut, to seal the missing tissue, the shape of a closed eyelid.)   Patrick Wright has a poetry collection, Full Sight of Her (Eyewear), which was nominated for the John Pollard Prize. His poems have appeared in Poetry Ireland, The North, Gutter, Poetry Salzburg, Agenda, and London Magazine.

S.C. Flynn

TENTH VIEW OF THE SOUTHERN CROSS
Araucania, Chile, 1800 AD

This is no job for the young, Melipal…

Lauren Sheerman

Offices

matins
as the sun thinks of rising i whisper good morning god into my pillow.

Curtis Brown

Property 26-2-24

After West Bank settlement marketing event… in New Jersey.

Some old masters may have operated in good faith:
unclear how they made their riches.

Vidushi Rijuta

Chances

I had nothing to lose,
so I took a chance.

Previously featured

Recent Prose

Simon Ravenscroft

Blessed are the weak of mind for they shall have the appearance of answers and be troubled only when they encounter people with contrary answers and yet . . .

Tom Cardew

I pat its head until its face starts to flatten. Its body meets the floor, legs buckle under the weight of my enthusiasm . . .

Scott C. Holstad

Fifteen hours of processing time later, I was in my cell block and already two confrontations with Six Shooter, a massive Crip from the Compton/North Long Beach area, with a ‘tude. Early on he and his set surrounded me, two of them 187s like him. They made sure I knew if I stepped out of line, I wouldn’t be leaving while breathing. That didn’t go down with me very well. Some have said I have an attitude problem.

Rebecca Klassen

1)      Liana vines are rooted in the earth and use trees to climb towards the canopy.

Mum sews in her armchair, the embroidery hoop in one hand like a tambourine as she plays it with cotton, the needle’s tempo remaining steady when Dad gets home from the pub again. I notice the root sprouting next to me from the carpet, curling around Mum’s ankles.

Luke Reilly on National Flash Fiction Day

The man is a master. Through livestreams and televisions and retinas, through a giant screen in the city centre, sixty million people have been watching his furrowed brows. Waiting for his fingernails to pick up a piece of clamshell or slate and place it on a gridded board.

Recent Haiku

R.C. Thomas

The Universe dreamed I’d come to its restaurant. I needed to pass the time before my train home.

Anthony Lusardi

the highway asphalt. reeks of exhaust and burnt rubber. the cars and trucks go by. the sun boiling and you rotting.

Chen-ou Liu

snow crystals
on my neighbor’s windows …
Foreclosure askew

& more

Shasta Hatter

Empty Basket

Driving down the boulevard, I see large trees decorated with pink and white blossoms, evergreens tower over houses, trees flourish with spring greenery.

Jayant Kashyap

We are in the bath, your hands
around my back, mine around yours—
everything covered in a fog.

News

Word & Image

Ilias Tsagas

Ilias Tsagas

  Ilias Tsagas is a Greek poet writing in English as a second language. His poems have appeared in journals like:...

read more

Filmpoems

Martin Rieser

Martin Rieser

We came to the tree with open arms
in hope, with a feel for rain,
we left the forest’s endless charms
and the lost words, and the new alarms
for the great tree’s growing pains.

read more

Featured Poetry/Prose of the Day

Patrick Wright

IN EVERY OVAL A FACE When you drew lines in the sand with your long white cane the lesson was that faces can be found just about anywhere. All they need is a frame. And there it was, just needed you to accentuate the slanted brows with a deft gouge, the skin tone there, around two slivers of razor shells, which served as eyes, the nostrils you jabbed with your tip, and a mouth (a smirk you said) that seemed quite devilish. ‘Is it creepy?’ you asked. To you, this was beach braille, your runes. (But now perhaps subterfuge, as you trotted off into the holes left by horseshoes, in the days after your waist was stapled shut, to seal the missing tissue, the shape of a closed eyelid.)   Patrick Wright has a poetry collection, Full Sight of Her (Eyewear), which was nominated for the John Pollard Prize. His poems have appeared in Poetry Ireland, The North, Gutter, Poetry Salzburg, Agenda, and London Magazine.

S.C. Flynn

TENTH VIEW OF THE SOUTHERN CROSS
Araucania, Chile, 1800 AD

This is no job for the young, Melipal…

Lauren Sheerman

Offices

matins
as the sun thinks of rising i whisper good morning god into my pillow.

Curtis Brown

Property 26-2-24

After West Bank settlement marketing event… in New Jersey.

Some old masters may have operated in good faith:
unclear how they made their riches.

Vidushi Rijuta

Chances

I had nothing to lose,
so I took a chance.

News

Word & Image

Ilias Tsagas

Ilias Tsagas

  Ilias Tsagas is a Greek poet writing in English as a second language. His poems have appeared in journals like:...

read more

Filmpoems

Martin Rieser

Martin Rieser

We came to the tree with open arms
in hope, with a feel for rain,
we left the forest’s endless charms
and the lost words, and the new alarms
for the great tree’s growing pains.

read more

Previously featured

Recent Prose

Simon Ravenscroft

Blessed are the weak of mind for they shall have the appearance of answers and be troubled only when they encounter people with contrary answers and yet . . .

Tom Cardew

I pat its head until its face starts to flatten. Its body meets the floor, legs buckle under the weight of my enthusiasm . . .

Scott C. Holstad

Fifteen hours of processing time later, I was in my cell block and already two confrontations with Six Shooter, a massive Crip from the Compton/North Long Beach area, with a ‘tude. Early on he and his set surrounded me, two of them 187s like him. They made sure I knew if I stepped out of line, I wouldn’t be leaving while breathing. That didn’t go down with me very well. Some have said I have an attitude problem.

Rebecca Klassen

1)      Liana vines are rooted in the earth and use trees to climb towards the canopy.

Mum sews in her armchair, the embroidery hoop in one hand like a tambourine as she plays it with cotton, the needle’s tempo remaining steady when Dad gets home from the pub again. I notice the root sprouting next to me from the carpet, curling around Mum’s ankles.

Luke Reilly on National Flash Fiction Day

The man is a master. Through livestreams and televisions and retinas, through a giant screen in the city centre, sixty million people have been watching his furrowed brows. Waiting for his fingernails to pick up a piece of clamshell or slate and place it on a gridded board.

Recent Haiku

R.C. Thomas

The Universe dreamed I’d come to its restaurant. I needed to pass the time before my train home.

Anthony Lusardi

the highway asphalt. reeks of exhaust and burnt rubber. the cars and trucks go by. the sun boiling and you rotting.

Chen-ou Liu

snow crystals
on my neighbor’s windows …
Foreclosure askew

& more

Shasta Hatter

Empty Basket

Driving down the boulevard, I see large trees decorated with pink and white blossoms, evergreens tower over houses, trees flourish with spring greenery.

Jayant Kashyap

We are in the bath, your hands
around my back, mine around yours—
everything covered in a fog.

Picks of the Month

Reviews