{"id":24204,"date":"2020-01-02T16:43:31","date_gmt":"2020-01-02T16:43:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ink.verticalplus.co.uk\/archive\/?p=24204"},"modified":"2020-12-14T16:44:33","modified_gmt":"2020-12-14T16:44:33","slug":"on-the-twelfth-day-of-christmas-we-bring-you-david-van-cauter-antony-owen-laura-wainwright","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/on-the-twelfth-day-of-christmas-we-bring-you-david-van-cauter-antony-owen-laura-wainwright\/","title":{"rendered":"On the Twelfth Day of Christmas we bring you David Van-Cauter, Antony Owen, Laura Wainwright"},"content":{"rendered":"

Led By Donkeys<\/strong><\/p>\n

Their lies are visible from space,
\ncarved out of sand in vast bold script:
\nProditione<\/em> writ large
\nPietas ficta<\/em> screaming to the sky.<\/p>\n

On the ground, our language shackles us:
\ntongue-tied, we\u2019re led, protesting,
\ndragged between jagged rocks, sharp drops
\nand relentless wind
\nscrambling over\u00a0Crib Goch<\/em>
\ntowards a place
\nwhere all perspectives compromise \u2013
\nup is east, west is down, left is right
\nand compass dials spin in desperate loops
\nsearching for truth in hollow chambers.<\/p>\n

Trust, like faith, is dangerous.
\nThe donkeys know where they are going \u2013
\nthey have been here before \u2013
\na new year\u2019s echo: sirens and alarms
\nwe cannot hear
\nover the shrieking.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

David Van-Cauter<\/strong>‘s pamphlet Mirror Lake<\/strong> was published by Arenig Press in 2019.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Tory Blue<\/strong><\/p>\n

Let me tell you of fridges,
\nthe one which made a Grenfell lighthouse –
\nall the lost ships burnt in their unsafe little harbours
\nif only Jacob could have been there, the pied piper of Daily Mail rats.<\/p>\n

Let me tell you of fridges,
\na coffin filled with thirty nine migrants –
\na phone with an unfinished text message\u00a0“I think I’m dying Mum”
\nthe sun above them and a cold cast shadow filled with queuing gurneys.<\/p>\n

Let me tell of fridges,
\na leader hiding from questions behind milk
\nlike a baby being breastfed by its working class mother
\n“How am I going to give everything you need in this Britain”?<\/p>\n

let me tell you of fridges,
\na billionaire in his gold Smeg by cured meats
\nwhich one tastes like the migrant or Grenfellian?
\nhow the fuck can you stomach such cruel delicacies?<\/p>\n

Let me tell you of fridges,
\nthe ones on Yemen roads blown out by bombs sold by Tories –
\na poem should never hide, it must be colder than ice to thaw us.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

With five collections of poetry focusing on conflict Antony Owen<\/strong> is a well respected writer known for investigative poetry which took him to Hiroshima in 2015 to interview atomic bomb survivors. His subsequent collection, The Nagasaki Elder<\/em> (V.Press) was shortlisted for a Ted Hughes Award in 2017<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Talk<\/strong><\/p>\n

Let\u2019s unpick this hard knot
\nso its fibres fray, lift
\nthe arrested seed, letting cold soil
\nfall through our fingers, lightening,
\nreleasing, slackening \u2013 as earthworms
\nsurface after dim weeks of rain \u2013
\nto a plain length of parcel string,
\nan opened gift<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Laura Wainwright<\/strong> is from Newport, South Wales. She is author of New Territories in Modernism: Anglophone Welsh Writing 1930-1949<\/em> (University of Wales Press, 2018). She was shortlisted in the Bridport Prize poetry competition in 2013 and 2019. Her poetry has been widely published in magazines and journals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Led By Donkeys Their lies are visible from space, carved out of sand in vast bold script: Proditione writ large Pietas ficta screaming to the sky. On the ground, our language shackles us: tongue-tied, we\u2019re led, protesting, dragged between jagged rocks, sharp drops and relentless wind scrambling over\u00a0Crib Goch towards a place where all perspectives […]<\/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-24204","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\/24204","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=24204"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24204\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24205,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24204\/revisions\/24205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}