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Sparklen Bottle<\/strong><\/p>\n Grandma\u2019s sparklen (\u2018sparklen\u2019 Middle English: also \u2018sparken\u2019, to spark)<\/p>\n \u00a0Pippa Little<\/strong> runs reflective writing workshops for students and is working on her third collection.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n It\u2019s Christmas<\/strong><\/p>\n Old lady dragged along in the park <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Ilias Tsagas<\/strong> is a Greek poet living in Greenwich, London. He is a member of two poetry groups (Greenwich Stanza and Lowercase Poets) and he writes poetry primarily in English and sometimes in Greek.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Winterwood<\/strong><\/p>\n These are the black and broken spokes We have come searching, silent in the snow, Throat-sore voices of ice-mist, cracked \u201cAre we lost or have we been?\u201d Not friends these trees but blackened nails. <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Callum James<\/strong> grew up on an Island and still lives by the sea, in the lea of the South Downs. He writes influenced by landscape, folklore and trauma and magic. His poems have appeared in The Wolf, Glitterwolf,<\/em> and Ambit.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Sparklen Bottle Grandma\u2019s sparklen in the winterdark house where I grew up loved me the best: I pushed my nose up close to see fireflies leap and sputter, glow-worms climb and fall in tiny squeezes, flayed hearts of angels – I know she whispered so those wandering would come curious, too close, […]<\/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":[114],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20897","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-twelve-days-of-christmas-201920"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20897","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=20897"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20897\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21233,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20897\/revisions\/21233"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nin the winterdark house where I grew up
\nloved me the best:
\nI pushed my nose up close
\nto see fireflies leap and sputter,
\nglow-worms climb
\nand fall in tiny squeezes,
\nflayed hearts of angels –
\nI know she whispered
\nso those wandering would come
\ncurious, too close,
\nthen with a swift oblique
\ntwist she\u2019d have them
\nin. I like to think
\nit wasn\u2019t wishing
\nonly but in the black mantle
\nof that house her sparklen
\nthrobs still with hostage stars
\nand deep-sea\u00a0 phosphors,
\ntinsel glitterings of those
\nshe couldn\u2019t kill.<\/p>\n
\nthe dogs lead the way
\ntheir flashing collars
\nsend sparkles into the dusk.<\/p>\n
\nof the world. Stopped: not turning.
\nAll wrong-angled in the spacious white.<\/p>\n
\nprocessional: this white bitterness
\nso hardened we may never awake.<\/p>\n
\nand petrified, where men have walked
\nmillennia with fur and axes.<\/p>\n
\nSomeone asked, \u201cAre all things
\ncoming to an end? What intervals?\u201d<\/p>\n
\nThe white repeats: a chant decayed
\nto a single note, too bright to see.<\/p>\n