<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The Orchard<\/strong><\/p>\n Down \u00a0 \u00a0 past rough slivers of Cotswold stone wall The pommes were balls of mush \u00a0 \u00a0 bigger than my grip I tossed each carcass \u00a0 \u00a0 with its bullet pips \u00a0 \u00a0 into log Evergreens rustled around \u00a0 \u00a0 thick with brown and dusty The crows were scalping those cherry nuts \u00a0 \u00a0 cutting <\/p>\n The Orchard Down \u00a0 \u00a0 past rough slivers of Cotswold stone wall was the lower garden \u00a0 \u00a0 reaching from earth gnarled tendrils erupted \u00a0 \u00a0 like arthritic hands \u00a0 \u00a0 pear and cooking apple trees \u00a0 \u00a0 with sweet bitter fruit The pommes were balls of mush \u00a0 \u00a0 bigger than […]<\/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-18848","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18848","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=18848"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18848\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18906,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18848\/revisions\/18906"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nwas the lower garden \u00a0 \u00a0 reaching from earth
\ngnarled tendrils erupted \u00a0 \u00a0 like arthritic hands \u00a0 \u00a0 pear
\nand cooking apple trees \u00a0 \u00a0 with sweet bitter fruit<\/p>\n
\nthat would \u00a0 \u00a0 I was told \u00a0 \u00a0 rot my innards \u00a0 \u00a0 at a bite \u00a0 \u00a0 but the
\npears \u00a0 \u00a0 were rumped beauties \u00a0 \u00a0 on thin knuckle branches
\nand I sunk into them \u00a0 \u00a0 turning over with each swallow<\/p>\n
\npile \u00a0 \u00a0 looking up \u00a0 \u00a0 to the titan cherry tree \u00a0 \u00a0 black limbs
\nbeyond best jump \u00a0 \u00a0 carrion cackled and bombed
\nleafless \u00a0 \u00a0 in dark symbiosis \u00a0 \u00a0 the birds a crow canopy<\/p>\n
\nwebs \u00a0 \u00a0 owls and bats \u00a0 \u00a0 roosting \u00a0 \u00a0 side by side \u00a0 \u00a0 stirring with
\nflexing flap and stretch of feather \u00a0 \u00a0 at syrup blood
\nsprayed through air \u00a0 \u00a0 and the clatter \u00a0 \u00a0 of seed skulls<\/p>\n
\nblistered flesh with beak \u00a0 \u00a0 I\u2019d keep palms open
\nstrafing to catch \u00a0 \u00a0 a miss pulled stem \u00a0 \u00a0 a spinning rivulet
\nof berries \u00a0 \u00a0 but now \u00a0 \u00a0 I would climb that tree \u00a0 \u00a0 dig blunt
\nnails into bark \u00a0 \u00a0 bend and rip \u00a0 \u00a0 at the thought of hunger
\nroar \u00a0 \u00a0 a shadow to sky \u00a0 \u00a0 not wait for what falls to me<\/p>\n
\nZ D Dicks<\/strong> is the Founder\/CEO of the Gloucestershire Poetry Society and Gloucester Poetry Festival<\/a>. He holds an MA in Creative and Critical Writing. His first collection, Malcontent,<\/em> is available from bookstores and online.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"