<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Something\u2019s wrong<\/strong><\/p>\n This is how it will start: to follow and she will see Listen to me, she will say, but her eyes will be wide open, before she tells you that she is turn your back. Years later <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Sharon Phillips<\/strong> started learning to write poems a few years ago, after she retired from her career in education. Her poems have been published online and in print, and have been shortlisted for the Bridport Prize (2017), the Indigo Firsts pamphlet competition (2018) and the WoLF Poetry Competition (2019). Sharon won the Borderlines Poetry Competition in 2017 and was among the winners of the Poetry Society Members\u2019 Competition in November 2018. She lives in Otley, West Yorkshire.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Meerkats<\/strong><\/p>\n My mother has stuck meerkats to her bins. In town, she tells me how spectacular At the house, there are jobs As I leave, the nervous tom <\/p>\n <\/p>\n David Van-Cauter<\/strong>\u2019s\u00a0 pamphlet Mirror Lake<\/em> was published in 2019 by Arenig Press. He was runner-up in the Ver Prize 2019.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Getting the Point<\/strong><\/p>\n It\u2019s getting to the point <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Terry Quinn<\/strong> worked in Medical Engineering.\u00a0 The Amen of Knowledge<\/em> won the Geoff Steven\u2019s Memorial Prize. He has a collection with Julie Maclean To Have to Follow<\/em> from Indigo Pamphlets.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Something\u2019s wrong This is how it will start: from the other side of a room you\u2019ll hear your mum talk, loud but so fast you won\u2019t be able to follow and she will see you\u2019re looking so she\u2019ll come over and pull you aside. Listen to me, she will say, I\u2019ve got […]<\/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-20146","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20146","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=20146"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20146\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20238,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20146\/revisions\/20238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nfrom the other side of a room
\nyou\u2019ll hear your mum talk, loud
\nbut so fast you won\u2019t be able<\/p>\n
\nyou\u2019re looking so she\u2019ll come
\nover and pull you aside.<\/p>\n
\nI\u2019ve got something to tell you,
\nand you will think of cancer\u2014
\nbreast, perhaps, or womb\u2014<\/p>\n
\nand her teeth will shine with spit
\nand she\u2019ll pant a little laugh<\/p>\n
\nthe Holy Ghost and you will
\nstare at the flakes of mascara
\nbeneath her lashes before you<\/p>\n
\nyou will feel her strong fingers
\nclutching at your bicep.<\/p>\n
\nI ask her why.
\nShe says because the butterflies have peeled off.
\nThat makes sense, I reply.<\/p>\n
\nthe markets used to be:
\nthe space
\nthe open air
\nAn elbow hits my back.
\nA man yells in my face.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n
\ninvolving reaching things, and bulbs.
\nWorking through each chore,
\nI mark it off, implore her
\nto remove the stains
\nthe house is burdened with, the pain
\nof loss that clings to every dusty book
\nand stands upright, expectantly, to look.<\/p>\n
\nscurries away from my touch.
\nI try hard not to read too much
\ninto that –
\nafter all, it\u2019s just a cat.<\/span><\/p>\n
\nof a small rearrangement
\nin how things were.
\nNot exactly a lie,
\nI did have a girlfriend,
\nshe was called Eileen,
\nand she did, does, live in Hammersmith.
\nBut she didn\u2019t,
\nas far as I know,
\ndrive a Ferrari
\ninto the lake at Kew Gardens
\nafter an argument
\nabout a duel I\u2019d fought
\nwith Simon Armitage
\nabout her honour
\nor the placing of a comma
\nin the Dead Sea Poems.
\nOne or the other,
\nit doesn\u2019t matter.
\nThe point is that these days
\nyou need an edge,
\na little something
\nthat\u2019s hard to find
\nin another poem
\nabout finding your Father\u2019s pipe
\nor a lost letter from a lost love
\nabout snow falling on Blackburn
\nor a night spent talking
\nabout that Al Gore film.<\/p>\n