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The archive is a separate site formed from all the posts from that original Ink Sweat & Tears website, it consists of everything we have published up to the end of 2019.
Recent posts
Maggie Mackay
Lady Mary Hamilton If you were to be wandering through the Kunstkamera in St Petersburg, last century, you’d likely have spotted a glass jar on a dusty shelf and inside it a head, pickle-floating in spirits. This belonged to Mary Hamilton. It was...
Ian Heffernan
The Journey in We pass a shock of roofs, a builders’ yard, A squat clocktower, cranes, wide bird-filled parks, Unkempt back lawns and windows seen through trees. Graffiti flares from walls of darkened brick And at unmeasured intervals we...
Steve Haywood
The Winter Coat My fingers flicked across the screen like a concert pianist performing a well-rehearsed and all too familiar musical score: odd numbers, one to thirteen, seventeen and twenty-seven (my lucky numbers), and a small bet on red, just...
Guy Elston
The Mishap The first barbecue of summer - the last, for Peter – had a decent turnout, uni pals and partners mostly, but the odd school hanger-on and semi-pitied colleague too. The first hour was a bit damp, naturally - politics, sport, the time...
Evan Hay
Sent from my iPhone, so please excuse brevity, spelling & punctuation Sent from my iPhone whilst dieting, so please excuse an 8-point-font Sent from my iPhone during a senior moment, so with all due respect Missy- excuse spelling &...
Grant Tarbard
The New Testament of Dog Dog, elemental creature delving in puddles, fully formed in mud, this body earth, all love without mechanism, he is the murmur that nestles into these delightful sounds of apocalypse. Enemy fire turns off the crickets...
Zoe Brooks
Stars in Class Our teacher would give out stars – gold stars to the bright supernovas, silver for the hard-working planets, and none for the boy at the back a black hole that sucked in everything she threw at him and gave back nothing. The...
JT Welsch
Sonnet A body longing how long? to be there by 10am FedEx promise a plastic box like for recipes or receipts pouring like cake mix in the rain. JT Welsch's books Orchids (Salt, 2010), Hell Creek Anthology (Sidekick, 2015), and Flora...
Tara
Chew Toy My body, my stomach, my chest is a ball A dog runs after it and Occasionally gives it a little chew It’s that lurching feeling That sinking A mix of fluttery anxious butterflies And deep sorrow Heart races and mind is overactive All you want to...
William Bedford
The News is in The news is in. Grey fears can go away now. These flames are black and green, the colours of disease. It isn’t true! But only because I keep my eyes closed. If I open them, the wall offers an Arctic ferment of blues, the ceiling is...
Stuart Ross
Join us for a live zoom reading from Stuart Ross and Bloodaxe poet Clare Shaw in our new occasional 'Live from the Butchery' series, hosted by Helen Ivory and Martin Figura from their home. The reading will take place on Sunday 28th June, 4pm GMT, 11am EDT. Please...
Phil Vernon
Fin The first bars are the seeds from which the music grows, but even the music’s surprised when it flowers; by what it knows. The first snow lands; each further flake that falls is laid on the flake before, and turns the world to white and shade:...
Mbizo Chirasha
Country Train of My Country I see from a distance, its metal backbones disappearing into the blue haze of our day. It moans and vomit its human snort into the silent heat. Kacha kuchu ka……cha Kuchu……uuu Kachaaa Kuchuuu. Kweeeeeeeeee. The sound steps...
Priya Subberwal
how to lose your mind at the end of the world (an instruction manual) step one: stare out the window for hours on end. pretend you’re making eye contact with someone. step two: envision a post-apocalyptic future, where you only eat canned beans,...
Zach Murphy
Why the river? Shannon sat in her tattered recliner chair and scowled at the cheesy infomercials on the television. It’d been exactly four years since the Mississippi River took her son Gus away. Gus was a freshman at the state university where he...
Jonah Corren
Unravelling Fields like tapestry Fields like patchwork quilt Fields like ripples over water Fields like sunspots on lens Fields floating clouds shifting with wind shapes always changing an old stone wall diced onion in a frying pan ...
Gail McConnell on Father’s Day
Untitled / Villanelle I have often longed to see my mother in the doorway.’- Grace Paley Because having a father made me want a father. - Sandra Newman I have often longed to see my mother tap-dance in a top hat like she did before he died –...
Claire Booker reviews ‘John Dust’: poems by Louise Warren, ink drawings by John Duffin
Poetry comes from a deeply personal inner landscape. But what happens when external geographies bring their own emotional and social clout to the party? Enter John Dust – the riveting personification of Louise Warren’s native Somerset. Dust feels...
Izzy Lamb
Void It was before dawn when I saw him hurtle behind an asteroid illuminating my telescope with the flash of a cheap bathroom bulb too hot and burst under stress. And you can flip the switch but the cosmos told him to hide so he’ll nick himself...
David Olsen
Blue Light A pain in my leg wakes me at 4. I stand to stretch out the cramp. Blue light pulses on the ceiling. I part the drapes. Across the street an ambulance ticks. In a pool of light from a street lamp, an old man is trundled out, an oxygen...