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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
Sharon Larkin
Post-operative It would be a while before he touched alcohol or felt in any way frisky, he said. The stitches were too new. She understood. He asked her to look under the dressing. There was a little oozing from his new zip. It was bloodless....
Harry Wilding
DIY with Biscuits The sound of the drill was not enough to completely drown out his voice. ‘Sure that’s in the right place?’ Gerry asked. I focussed on the screw disappearing into the wall. ‘Mary? You hear me? You sure that’s not too low?’ ‘Yes, Gerry.’...
Rizwan Akhtar
Aposiopesis I see you waving from behind the fence I am trying it hurts clouds wait and move over fields swallows distracted by the burr of an aero plane resting elbows the wrinkled hands of the mower blather into action the company though assorted shows care...
Melanie Branton
White Goods As I came down the stairs, the kitchen came upon me, buzzed through my teeth and elbows. The twin tub having a seizure, a St Vitus’ thrumming twist and shout. The shepherd’s crook of the hose clipped to the side of the sink snake-thrashed in...
Tom Kelly
Singing With Elvis The Rediffusion is playing Elvis. I am sitting in our dining-room, not sure if we ever called it that. There is a yearning in the young Elvis hitting me like a wet clout. We bond, he is a long-lost brother, singing, ‘Are You...
Sean O’Brien, Joelle Taylor and Memoona Zahid – live zoom reading
Please join us on zoom for live readings from Sean O'Brien, Joelle Taylor and our first IS&T intern Memoona Zahid, on Sunday 3rd January at 4pm GMT This is part of our monthly ‘Live from the Butchery’ series, hosted by Helen Ivory and Martin Figura from their...
On the Twelfth Day of Christmas, we bring you Helen Boden, Sarah L Dixon and Penny Ayers
Empties First of Jan, affluent suburb. Stockbridge, but it could be anywhere across the island, in Ely, Richmond, Beauly. In place of regretting they put their empties out, arranged by colour, size, acoustic property. Scores of bottles, neatened...
On the Eleventh Day of Christmas, we bring you Gareth Writer-Davies, Josie Moon, Sue Finch and Sam Garvan
Twelfth Night the weather through the draped window dreich the fire spits and greetings cards make a merry flame as I the audient listen to the sermon of the grate that a living room is empty unless you let in a little light Gareth...
A Poem from our New Intern: Memoona Zahid
Postcards from Murree, Pakistan after Nina Mingya Powles 1. We drink milky hot tea from dainty teacups, pastel porcelain. With it, the mist rising in the mountains around us, and petrichor. The sound of children playing, the tips of their shoes pattering...
On the Tenth Day of Christmas, we bring you Antony Owen, Mandy Macdonald and Ramona Herdman
Christmas in the wasteland For Prof R Klein Bird foot snow arrows east Sun is oblong yolk spilt over elms I see Hiroshima setting and all is silent now. I see you in snow drift apparitions Bride not to be scattered to five winds I feel the chilblain frost and think of...
Muntjac by Helen Pletts and Romit Berger
Helen Pletts (www.helenpletts.com) (Instagram @helen.pletts) Working collaboratively as Word & Image by Pletts & Berger with illustrator Romit Berger, since 2011 (published exclusively online by www.inksweatandtears.co.uk). Helen’s poetry was...
On the Ninth Day of Christmas, we bring you Josephine Corcoran, Nicholas McGaughey and Jack Houston
Parenting Book I wrote it down when they woke me at 3am to tell me they didn’t like ham anymore, only jam and cheese. How on the toilet is the best place to sing. I kept a notebook for years: the sore throat bad as three arrows sticking...
On the Eighth Day of Christmas, we bring you Andrea Holland, Sue Burge and Angela Topping
Domain The fork garden is planted by hallmark, by taxonomic value from the tines down. Frost plates the handle, silver lip at the edge of soil, dug out in winter, dug out of winter, bringing up root and louse. If dirt bound and iced in the fork...
On the Seventh Day of Christmas, we bring you ML Eyres, Anna Blasiak and Finola Scott
Christmas Ritual, 1. After lunch she whispers to the carved mahogany table legs feels around for the mouse cut into the back of the armchair where her grandmother reads paperback mysteries. She names that mouse Moses. Then she slides away from the...
On the Sixth Day of Christmas, we bring you Amlanjyoti Goswami, Lesley Ingram and Jane Simmons
Mad Santa Someone was here, no not me. Someone who wears pink slippers And paints the walls red Who upturns the upholstery. And downs a few swigs at the breakfast table, Tethers around the edge of the circle, asking to be out. Someone with a hood...
On the Fifth Day of Christmas, we bring you Tracey Rhys, Kate Noakes and Carole Bromley
Interior, with Child Soon enough, we were holed up in snow. So much to be glad for, our baby between us in the bed. We hummed carols, lit the tree. Such an ochre month. We lay with curtains open, sky a wash of Prussian blue, chimneys smoking, ice creaking on branches....
On the Fourth Day of Christmas, we bring you Joanne Key, Joanna Ingham and Gill McEvoy
Mister Bloody Christmas Mam taught me to send his name up the chimney, let it draw away before clawing it back through embers and ash, or to simply stand for hours in the kitchen, peeling, raw hands plunged into a bowl of sorrow, thinking of him....
Streets of the Abandoned City
Poem from Helen Ivory's chapbook Maps of the Abandoned City, published by SurVision. Performed, illustrated and recorded by Roger Foyster. Helen Ivory is a poet and visual artist. Her fifth Bloodaxe collection is The Anatomical Venus (2019). She edits IS&T and...
On the Third Day of Christmas, we bring you Lorraine Carey, Rachel Burns and Maggie Mackay
Christmas Firs The mountain road coiled, dipped in places, a saggy asphalt snake. Bends cuddled frosty drifts, crusting with darkness and a swift drop in temperature. We watched somersaulting snowflakes from portholes of erased condensation, our gloves and coat cuffs...
On the Second Day of Christmas we bring you David Bleiman, Susie Wild and Barry Fentiman Hall
Simply having… You’re only in Tesco for the milk, already angry, having to scrape the car before your first coffee, and then to hear Band Aid and Slade before the end of November. By the time you get home you are almost calm until you see...