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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
Veronica Aaronson
I am the Groupie I stalk Frink’s warrior – London, Liverpool, Swindon, Chicago. He entices me into art galleries and sculpture parks in the pouring rain. I want to know the dreams that curl up in his bones, the length of his longing, depth of his...
David Subacchi
The Deputy His office Next to the Head’s Was so untidy, Papers on chairs, Rubbish bin overflowing But it was here They all waited, For an interview Or a result. Amongst his jumble And his wall charts And the red faced Secretary Apologising. ...
Hilary Otto
What the data about migration told me We are incoming packets discrete, carrying our own context. Our aim is to pass through without being stored in a session. We choose the optimal path for delivery, clustering at the interface between nodes....
Twelve Days of Christmas Zoom preview . . . Live from the Butchery
Please join us for a zoom launch of our annual Twelve Days of Christmas feature, on 13th December at 4pm GMT. Our 12 readers are: Pascal Vine , David Bleiman, Maggie Mackay, Amlanjyoti Goswami, Carole Bromley, Lesley Ingram, Ramona Herdman, Sue Burge, Susie...
Jane Thomas
Taking HRT at The Neon Sign Museum, Las Vegas Popped tubes and leaking neon. Lucky, Golden Gate, Circus-Circus, half illuminated Happy Days. Scorching pinks turned to blues, stiletto heels snapped to slippers, bright night shine, dull by dusk. The...
Cat Turhan
Hand-shell After Dora Maar Divide a woman’s body into geometric shapes. Triangle tits, a six-pointed star. Segment a woman’s face into orange slices. Split it through a spider’s web. Float a woman in a pool. Swim statue-stiff, your hand-shell on...
Robert Nisbet
The Fringe For days, weeks, I’d longed quite hard for silence, as the weighted ache of noise loured. Then, Sunday morning, three o’clock, humid morning-night, the window open, there came a silence fringed with scents (our lane half-in, half-out of...
Vote Vote Vote! Your IS&T Pick of the Month for November 2020.
When finalising our shortlist for Pick of the Month for November 2020, the one thing that we could concur on was what 'a cracking month' it had been (in terms of IS&T poetry if nothing else!). The current crisis, both its beginning and end, features in Jay...
Steph Ellen Feeney
The brief invisibility of fathers I do not draw but here I do. Heavy looping lines. That scar of road. Weeds through the stones. The olive tree, persisting. Wild fennel, and him bent over it. The way that he inhales the leaves. Pours rice like...
John Tustin
We Are Alike We are alike, you and me. We are alike. You die of love, I die of love. You die without love, I die without love. We live to love, We live without love, We live until we die And then You must die alone, I must die alone. You and me,...
Chrissy Banks
The Nearly Times Once, when a group of horses bolted and reared, eyes white, legs flailing, trampling whatever was under their hooves. Once, wheeling too fast on a bike down Richmond Hill, tumbling off. Stilled on the tarmac, a human speed bump....
Kashiana Singh
5 Haiku Origami cradle songs on the drive home… my empty womb * my mother’s knitted sweaters- I unravel knots * tears- water raining into an empty cup * drifting snowflakes- I restore the fragile lace of my wedding veil * encounters- his world is shaped by her...
Adaeze Onwuelo
Every Girl's Dream White egg dress black shoe suit doughnut sugary ring thrown flinty dandruff and white rice copy and pasted vows wedding receptionists are only here for the liquor vacancy signs is their twin eyes a head dress of heaven? A...
Peter Bickerton
Conspiracy theorists As they conspire, I agonise: it’s a glass door sudden at full pelt and that sickness as the wind escapes. Peter Bickerton is a writer, scientist and resident poet for Thought For Food. Peter’s poetry has featured...
William Doreski
Sunday Before the Hurricane The sky looks wary. The trees confer in muffled rustlings. I should start my generator, make sure it’s willing to cough enough power to support me through a rush of wind and rain. Hardy knew about wind and rain, his...
Xan Nichols
Haiku in the hope of an easing of lockdown Sunrise early May all flame and pale duck egg blue; Clouds of lilac grey Just before sunrise - a muted bloom of russet On the chilly ground Above the skyline blazing - the risen sun like a young god Tree trunks east facing...
Helen Ross
He carried a grudge from Land’s End to John O’ Groats His starting point, a granite mass; cliffs tumbling, arrows pointing to nearly nowhere, lost as Camelot hiking hurt in all weathers, spitting distance in rhythm with his stride. Every step more...
Sophie Fenella
Conversation with the Doctor You hold my breath before me, pickled in a jar, it looks like veins when held up to the light; this could be life, this could be the future of reproduction. You bring me back, back in the room, back to tweezers, and...
Matthew Friday
The Stork A huge white question mark stalks a field outside Bassersdorf. Black mourning tips folded back, a softly red bill probes the earth. The legendary bringer of babies, your blessed image hangs above those more fortunate doors. Ours creaked...
Rob Stuart
Plastic Poem II – Limerick Rob Stuart’s poems, visual poems and short stories have been published in magazines, newspapers and webzines all over the world. He has also written the screenplays for several award-winning and...