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<\/p>\n
Lucy<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n In the painting, she\u2019s a young girl<\/p>\n with flowing chestnut hair.\u00a0 Her tunic<\/p>\n veils the swell of adolescent breasts.<\/p>\n Around her shoulders lies a russet velvet cloak.<\/p>\n In her hands she holds a plate<\/p>\n on which lie two eyes.\u00a0 Two fried eggs,<\/p>\n they gaze up at us mournfully.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n When she said no the suitor<\/p>\n chosen by her father, she was sentenced<\/p>\n to be ravished.\u00a0 Divine forces put a stop to that,<\/p>\n stopped ravening wolves straight in their tracks.<\/p>\n They tried to burn her then, gouged out her eyes. The flames went out,<\/p>\n leaving pale wisps of smoke.\u00a0 Finallly, they pierced her heart,<\/p>\n killed her with a silver sword.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n But she ended up with the last laugh.<\/p>\n This valiant girl, face pocked with empty sockets,<\/p>\n is known as Lucy, deliverer of maidens,<\/p>\n patron saint of light.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Susan Castillo Street<\/strong> is a Louisiana expatriate and academic who lives in the Sussex countryside. She is Harriet Beecher Stowe Professor Emeritus, King\u2019s College, University of London, and has published two collections of poems, The<\/em> Candlewoman’s Trade<\/em> (Diehard Press, 2003) and Abiding Chemistry<\/em>, (Aldrich Press, 2015). Her poems have appeared in The Missing Slate<\/em>, The Stare\u2019s Nest, Ink Sweat & Tears, Nutshells and Nuggets, I Am Not a Silent Poet, Snakeskin, Literature Today, The Yellow Chair Review,York Mix<\/em> and other reviews. She is a member of three poetry groups: 52, Goat, and High Wealden Poets.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Palestine Sunbird<\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n He has a quiet belief in angels,<\/p>\n sees them carry souls into the ether<\/p>\n their great wings barely ruffled by the air.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Each dawn, he watches them approach across<\/p>\n the sands, hovering on iridescent wing<\/p>\n as they shimmer in the heat, their brilliance<\/p>\n reflected in his eye.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Evenings, he suspends his tiny body from a vine<\/p>\n while beetles measure out their battlefields below<\/p>\n in clicks and spars.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n He dreams he\u2019s not alone<\/p>\n but flies great tree-scapes in the sky with others like him,<\/p>\n funnelling the long salt wind, its rush of phosphorescence,<\/p>\n through his hollow bones.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n But he is old, knows that one night as he sleeps,<\/p>\n the angels will embrace him, lift him from his brittle form<\/p>\n and steal him, float him far into the ether,<\/p>\n <\/p>\n each neat, green feather tucked<\/p>\n into a final jolt of light.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Jane Lovell<\/strong> lives in Rugby, Warwickshire. Her poems, which have been published in a range of journals including Agenda, Poetry Wales<\/em> and Mslexia<\/em>, focus on our relationship with nature, from a flea wearing tiny jewelled boots created by a Russian miniaturist to a circus elephant butchered during food shortages in post-war Vienna. Threads of folklore and science run through her work.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Scan<\/strong><\/p>\n Alien inside, spooky grey on the screen<\/p>\n All squirming bones and hollow eyes<\/p>\n Growing in the dark<\/p>\n Stamping out a space for itself<\/p>\n In the warm igloo of my insides<\/p>\n <\/p>\n As my neck lies twisted towards the monitor<\/p>\n It rolls away, turns a bony back to us<\/p>\n The scan lady laughs, freezes the moment<\/p>\n The cold shoulder<\/p>\n I recognise instantly the child of my lover<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Jessamine O Conno<\/strong>r is a poet, and facilitator of ‘The Wrong Side of the Tracks Writers’ and ‘The Hermit Collective’. Award winning and widely published, she is judge of the ‘New Roscommon Writing Award 2015’ and soon to be ‘Featured Poet International’ for Muse-Pie Press.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Dawn Chorus<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n He saw me in a late night shop<\/p>\n buying Marlbro Lights.<\/p>\n I only remember his beard – nothing else,<\/p>\n I didn’t think about how he looked<\/p>\n at me.<\/p>\n He asked me out for dinner –<\/p>\n what went through my mind was did I look<\/p>\n like I needed feeding<\/p>\n or just like someone who’d say yes<\/p>\n to a chicken dinner.<\/p>\n I didn’t know then, that to all men<\/p>\n a seventeen year old girl is beautiful –<\/p>\n even with ample flesh, spiked purple hair<\/p>\n and art school clothes.<\/p>\n I can’t remember a single thing about him,<\/p>\n just the taste of the chicken fricassee,<\/p>\n the cushions of the limousine and the dawn chorus,<\/p>\n before light<\/p>\n as he drove me home.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Jessica Mookherjee<\/strong> was raised in Wales to Indian parents, lived most of her adult life in London and has recently moved to Kent. She studied biological anthropology and now works as a consultant in public health. She has recently had poems accepted by Agenda<\/em> and Antiphon.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Lucy In the painting, she\u2019s a young girl with flowing chestnut hair.\u00a0 Her tunic veils the swell of adolescent breasts. Around her shoulders lies a russet velvet cloak. In her hands she holds a plate on which lie two eyes.\u00a0 Two fried eggs, they gaze up at us mournfully. When she […]<\/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-9424","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9424","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=9424"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9424\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9426,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9424\/revisions\/9426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}