<\/p>\n
Fireworks<\/strong><\/p>\n The fireworks came from the water, or so he thought, Did it mean a thing? Closing gaps in the crowd, Ears nipped by the whistle She watches as he wades, and the body of a ground unseen, <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Robert Van Egghen<\/strong> is a UEA graduate, now working as an English teacher in Japan. His poetry and journalism have appeared in various publications. Someone once called him “the lovechild of Keats and Jimmy Carr”. He’s not sure if he likes that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Fireworks The fireworks came from the water, or so he thought, lighting a cigarette with an old matchbox, wishing he could light it off his girlfriend’s cheek, and leave her skin prickling with the heat. Did it mean a thing? Closing gaps in the crowd, lights flashing crackling in unison above, his hand limp […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","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-2980","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2980","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=2980"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2980\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2982,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2980\/revisions\/2982"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2980"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2980"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2980"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nlighting a cigarette with an old matchbox,
\nwishing he could light it off his girlfriend’s cheek,
\nand leave her skin prickling with the heat.<\/p>\n
\nlights flashing crackling in unison above,
\nhis hand limp in her squeeze,
\nsomething close to honey through the trees.<\/p>\n
\nof two rockets running in parallel.
\n“I’m going in”, he says, taking his shoes off
\nand leaving them by the side of the bank.<\/p>\n
\nripples splaying off
\nhis legs swallowed almost whole
\nby the water layered with gold<\/p>\n
\nhidden by a sky upside down.
\nRainbows melt around his feet –
\nor at least that was how it seemed.<\/p>\n