<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
New Year\u2019s Day Pantoum, 3am<\/strong><\/p>\n When the singing in the street has stopped I tramp through fields of years My heart is slipping in the mud The streets are later than the last bus home Years have glittered past my windows <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Josephine Corcoran<\/strong> is Writer in Residence at St Gregory’s Catholic College, Bath.\u00a0 She edits And Other Poems<\/em> and is a Poetry Society Stanza Rep in Trowbridge, Wiltshire.\u00a0 She has published one pamphlet with tall-lighthouse and a full collection, What Are You After?,<\/em> will be published by Nine Arches Press in June 2018. Twitter @JosephineCorc\u00a0 @And_OtherPoems<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Smoke Signals<\/strong><\/p>\n The blessed hiss of silence escorted my lax mouth I drip the ash of fragrant scripture from my cigarette, A tinker with all his brass has made camp in my breast I’ll gladly throw Christmas morning onto the bonfire as an offering my desires are a reflection of my charlatan gouged flesh \u2014 a collage containing all the colours of the world, with just an apple and a rosary, embalmed in lacerations We fed Him up on milk sop, hinted at bodies beneath the land, giving land to the innocent, added wiseness to dizzy love <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Grant Tarbard<\/strong> is an editorial assistant for Three Drops From A Cauldron, a reviewer & the author of Loneliness is the Machine that Drives this World<\/em> (Platypus Press). His new collection Rosary of Ghosts<\/em> (Indigo Dreams) is out now.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Dormir<\/strong><\/p>\n The woods have been sliced, not coppiced But shy chestle crumb still makes her nest Her berry-red blood slows to cold, and yet She is fat as a nut, golden as winter sun <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Rosie Miles<\/strong>\u2019s debut pamphlet is CUTS<\/em> (HappenStance, 2015).\u00a0 In 2017 she was recipient of an Arts Council\/Nine Arches Press Dynamo Poetry Mentoring Award.\u00a0 She lives in Birmingham. \u00a0She really likes radishes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" New Year\u2019s Day Pantoum, 3am When the singing in the street has stopped I dream the year in fields Cowbells tip as baubles drop Each hoof returns me to a kissing gate I tramp through fields of years My footprints waiting in the mud Each thud returns me to a kissing gate […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[82],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-twelve-days-of-christmas-2017"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15377","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\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15377"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15377\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15940,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15377\/revisions\/15940"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nI dream the year in fields
\nCowbells tip as baubles drop
\nEach hoof returns me to a kissing gate<\/p>\n
\nMy footprints waiting in the mud
\nEach thud returns me to a kissing gate
\nAnd trees are dragged from fields to streets<\/p>\n
\nMy dream is later than the last bus home
\nThere are dying trees in every street
\nAnd lovers sleep in moon-bright rooms<\/p>\n
\nFireworks glittered past our windows
\nThough babies slept, lit up by moons
\nUntroubled by love or kissing gates<\/p>\n
\nNow town clocks chime as baubles drop
\nI snagged my heart on a kissing gate
\nThe singing in my house has stopped<\/p>\n
\nfull of the feathers of gulls that might be voiceless angels.<\/p>\n
\ntobacco colour\u2019s the barrels of my lacquered synapses.<\/p>\n
\nforming a tethered yoke moan sung between the sky and a Moravian star.<\/p>\n
\nnot to go back \u2014 a vibration, a tingling, an ivy taste,<\/p>\n
\nan assemblage box of lights, tissue paper fibre and cut twine,<\/p>\n
\nin the gnarled nooks of priest holes. God was in that box<\/p>\n
\nswallowing churches with a country dance of do-si-dos.<\/p>\n
\nsuffered His nudity out of politeness as he spoke pandemonium<\/p>\n
\nas a waltzer of telephones rung in the New Year.<\/p>\n
\nto make way for road and rail.
\nThe corridors of hedge are gone.<\/p>\n
\nnear the rough common\u2019s edge
\nnear the hazel copse.<\/p>\n
\nshe\u2019s safe as leaves here
\nbeneath protective ground.<\/p>\n
\nand she sleeps and sleeps
\nwhile the earth so darkly turns.<\/p>\n