<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The Vampire’s Lament<\/strong><\/p>\n ‘Holding hands at midnight’, he suggests to me. Fang slouches between us, whiskers twitching, My heart beats faster than webbed wings <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Mary Franklin<\/strong> has had poems published in Iota, The Open Mouse, Ink Sweat and Tears, London Grip, Message in a Bottle, The Stare’s Nest<\/em> and various anthologies.\u00a0 Her tanka have appeared in poetry journals in Australia, Canada, UK and USA.\u00a0 She lives in Vancouver, British Columbia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Vampire’s Lament ‘Holding hands at midnight’, he suggests to me. Not bloody likely!\u00a0 I’ve been haunting this cemetery for centuries and he comes along with that gapey grin, handshake a raw oyster, nails like ice picks, breath a swollen sewer and asks to be a partner? Fang slouches between us, whiskers […]<\/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-8820","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8820","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=8820"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8820\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8822,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8820\/revisions\/8822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nNot bloody likely!\u00a0 I’ve been haunting this cemetery
\nfor centuries and he comes along with that gapey grin,
\nhandshake a raw oyster, nails like ice picks,
\nbreath a swollen sewer and asks to be a partner?<\/p>\n
\na cacophony of cawing from crows eavesdropping
\nand the tawny owl, perched low in the beech tree,
\nwatches everything.\u00a0 His head turns 180 degrees
\nand looks directly behind him.\u00a0 He is screechless.<\/p>\n
\nof brown bats soaking up moon beams.
\nI tell him as sternly as I can:\u00a0 ‘You work your side
\nof the moor and I’ll work mine.’\u00a0 I’ll ask the owl
\nwhat’s to be done.\u00a0 He never lets me down.<\/p>\n