<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Wake<\/strong><\/p>\n Long ago, I watched them pound to block their shouts, so unrestrained They brought me in to ‘give us songs’ I think I flashed a mad, wet eye She was gone \u2013 but they were left <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Mark McDonnell<\/strong> lives in Staffordshire, England where he teaches in a high school. His poem \u2018Communion\u2019 was recently shortlisted for the 2017 TLS Mick Imlah Poetry\u00a0Prize. His poetry has appeared in\u00a0Snakeskin Poetry, Antiphon, Shot Glass Journal<\/i> and will be featured shortly in Measure<\/i>. He was a finalist in the 2016 Eratosphere Sonnet Bake-Off.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Wake Long ago, I watched them pound their drinks while I hid, fiercely shy behind the door. An uncle found me there. And even now I try to block their shouts, so unrestrained yet forced, that room so very small. They laughed but said they grieved; they drained the Bells. My father […]<\/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":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16637","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16637","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=16637"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16637\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16639,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16637\/revisions\/16639"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16637"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16637"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\ntheir drinks while I hid, fiercely shy
\nbehind the door. An uncle found
\nme there. And even now I try<\/p>\n
\nyet forced, that room so very small.
\nThey laughed but said they grieved; they drained
\nthe Bells. My father most of all.<\/p>\n
\nand, being young, I must have seemed
\na balm for all their petty wrongs,
\nsome token of the things they’d dreamed.<\/p>\n
\nin his direction; someone led
\nme stumbling, Comin’ thro’ the Rye<\/em>.
\nHe stopped me, sent me off to bed.<\/p>\n
\nwith drink and song. He looked so numb
\nthat night, so fragile and bereft.
\nSo fearful of the days to come.<\/p>\n