<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Advent service<\/strong><\/p>\n Three o\u2019clock and the hall is a collapsed lung. The boys in the back row are weary. They have writhed The piano uncoils its rusty spring and they sit up slowly, filling the cracks in their voices with the edges of sly smiles. They tuck their embarrassment under my unfashionable voice as hard as iron, swallow the water that\u2019s like a stone. is yet to come, untouched as a Christmas sprout, a little Our Lady In the needle\u2019s eye that stitches silence to song \u201cBloody hell, it\u2019s a deluge\u201d says a small voice beside me. <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Catherine Ayres<\/strong> lives and works in Northumberland. Her poems have appeared\u00a0 in Ink, Sweat \u00a0& Tears, Spontaneity, Domestic Cherry, Prole <\/em>and The Moth.<\/em> She recently came third in Ambit<\/em> magazine\u2019s \u201cUnder the Influence\u201d competition.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Man in the Street<\/strong><\/p>\n A man in a Santa hat, not obviously out of it, <\/p>\n Ken Evans<\/strong> is a Creative Writing Master’s student at Manchester University. He featured in The Interpreter’s House<\/em> and on Morphrog9<\/em> this summer and was placed in the Poets & Players Competition 2014.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Advent service Three o\u2019clock and the hall is a collapsed lung. Candles glow through a fug of Lynx and condensation. God is with us. He is ready for a song. The boys in the back row are weary. They have writhed through the rituals of celebration and now their necks rest on the […]<\/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":[37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7912","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-twelve-days-of-christmas-2014"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7912","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=7912"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7912\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7924,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7912\/revisions\/7924"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nCandles glow through a fug of Lynx and condensation.
\nGod is with us. He is ready for a song.<\/p>\n
\nthrough the rituals of celebration and now their necks rest
\non the backs of chairs, legs splayed like scissors.<\/p>\n
\nlike a ward of old men expecting medicine.
\nThe boys don\u2019t want to sing; the girls are watching,<\/p>\n
\nBut they know I\u2019m unashamed, a fallen woman in a cardigan,
\na God-fearing atheist swollen with strange devotion.<\/p>\n
\nand we creak forward, a carnival float of dishevelled praise.
\nWe open our mouths to bleak midwinters, fall on earth<\/p>\n
\nThe candles flicker like departing lovers, like bald heads in the
\nhospital and I\u2019m spiralling through alleluias, back to where all that\u2019s past<\/p>\n
\nlooking for the Lord in every bedroom ceiling light- streak.
\nThe music stops.<\/p>\n
\nthere\u2019s a low thunder, the thump of a thousand hearts.
\nSleet is veiling the windows in a desperation of grey.<\/p>\n
\nChrist, I think, it\u2019s like applause.<\/p>\n
\nantlers on, tacks down the street,
\nfills our pavement with bandy-leg confidence.
\nNo warning, he flings his sails wide,
\nsings out, ‘You’re beautiful,’ to the tarmac host
\na shoal that swerves round his turbulence.
\n‘Don’t worry, mate, you’ll get over it,’ he laughs,
\neyes me. Doesn’t even bother to warn me off,
\nI’m safe, no threat in tie, overcoat, a suspect lack
\nof bags. There\u2019s the sudden gain of apathy, it\u2019s Christmas again
\nand I’ve still let down every side there\u2019s ever been.
\nI scramble for the tongue in my pocket
\nthe shoal wheels round, expectant. I am sucking
\nin air in a too warm suit. The moment passes,
\nhe walks off laughing. Now he\u2019s gone I want to be him,
\ntaking on the world for fun, singing because
\nit’s a sunny lunchtime in December, because he can
\nbecause he felt like it and no-one\u2019s arrested
\nChristmas Eve unless they really want to be.<\/p>\n