Ink Sweat & Tears

@inksweatandtears.co.uk

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Online poetry magazine posting daily. We publish & review poetry, prose, filmpoems, word & image and print publish as IS&T Press. Editing internships. Posts by Sabine Wilson-Patrick & Kate Birch.

Image: grey storm clouds surrounded by a grey border Text: Daughters of Rain until dark clouds trembled at the horizon’s lip, a hand closed over the moon and when the sky broke open, we wept for the earth in the rain, for the world we risk to lose Lottie McCrindell
Image: a collage of women and cats in various states of repose Text: i chose the cat Helen Pletts and Romit Berger. translated byMa Yongbo
Image: seaside shot from above surrounded by a tan border Text: 28th April 2015 In Brighton, sea stretches blue expanding the space in my head, you get that, don’t you? I can breathe again, doze on pebbles. Check into the Royal Albion, safe. From my room white cliffs shine bright calling me out. Roz Doe
Image: an owl in a tree surrounded by a light green border text: Blodeuwedd ensorcelled by Gwydion Eyes, green as moss, darken to black. Oak tassels spell-woven to feathers. A blossom-soft body wrath-scorches to brown. Broom flowers harden to bone, curve into beak, curl into talons. Iris Anne Lewis
Image: a woman holding a photo frame tinted blue surrounded by a light blue border. Text: Portrait You notice the nose: webbed veins spritzed with little flicks of red, purple blotches daubed with a palette-knife, broken ends where blood-vessels gave up the ghost Nairn Kennedy
Image: a green landscape Text: submissions are open
Image: a swarm of birds pursuing a fish surrounded by a grey background Text: Still Life of Fish and Bird One day a fish swam away and the river ran dry, and the lone bird, sitting in a tree, flew off and took the whole sky with it. Jason Ryberg
Image: laptop opened to Google with yellow border Text: Out a found poem from a Google search ‘define out’ no longer detained in prison in the middle of nowhere no longer involved in a competition not at home or one’s place of work James McDermott
Image: two pigeons on a garden wall surrounded by a dark blue border Text: Pigeon Politics Their droppings soil plant pots, the al fresco table and chairs and the crumbling path I must tread to the washing line. In mating they have no finesse. Coy, the female resists. The male pecks her then mounts her and is done in a trice. Sylvia Banham
Image: a hand holding crushed berries surrounded by a dark border Text: Glory of the Blacker Berry What matters now is the feast of this survival. The glory of our own light, black light. Look at us: the deeper the root, the sweeter the juice. Glory of the blacker berry, split wide open to the sun. Daniel Naawenkangua Abukuri
Image: a swirl of fish in the ocean Text: the sky and the water and the birds and the fish the sky met the water where the birds met the fish the sky met the water where the fish met the birds the sky met the birds where the water met the fish Robert Billinski
Image: tire marks in a car park surrounded by a black border Text: Going Nowhere Fast Impotent in family life and ineffectual at work sometimes he would spend a full quarter-hour just circulating the mini-roundabout on his moped dizzy from the power of blocking everyone else Gordon Vells
Image: mushrooms tinted red with a red border Text: Endings i recoil at the abject the never-ending cycle of leaves under loam a seedbed for eggs or spawn this going on & no space for heaven or things to pause or find reprieve i protest say how when i’m gone i’d like to rest before the choice to return & go through Patrick Wright
Image: a women breastfeeding in a field, tinted pink, surrounded by a pink border. Text: O is the mother letter Breast. And mouths to feed: the need to quench and satiate an Other at the great Expense of self. Give comfort, forfeit Feeling safe. L Haiman
Image: Tower Bridge from a medium distance, revealing some of the surrounding areas, surrounded by a blue border Text: Portrait Oh London. U useless city. Map to nowhere land. Tight stretch open eye. The underground metal. Francis de Lima
Image: mannequin heads tinted pink with a pink border. Text: STEMs When I was 12, I knew the weight of a human head. 8 Heads in a Duffel Bag (a bit of dark comedy). It grew from there. The curiosity. The calculations. But, perhaps, that’s not true. Miriam Swales
Image: daisies with a moth on it and a yellow border Text: Broad-blotch Drill (a.k.a. Orange-spot Daisy Moth) By what rough science were you given this migraine of a name, which starts as a spillage on the workshop floor and ends so gratingly? Alison Pritchard
Image: a rodent perched on a tree branch surrounded by a grey border Text: A Rat Decides to Change its Place Sleek brown legs, pumping from the stewed-tea shade of rain damp oaks scud towards a pool, below a crumbled, redbrick efficiency of Victorian engineering. Matt Gilbert
Image: a painting of a mystical woman in greens, blues and pinks, surrounded by an orange border. Text: I Am the Dreaming Herpetogaster Chimera/ Kathleen Bryson
Image: a starry sky with a dark blue border Text: Doppelgänger It’s tiresome— keeping up with it, learning your new names. The nights that crack open like a Strongbow come cloying back; here, you point, Orion’s belt, your face all teeth, me not knowing for certain where your finger points, you, buckled up, almost onto something. Scott Lilley
Image: A bird in a tree, tinted green, with a moss green border. Text: The Bird The bird crept up on him, threw its voice into an empty tree, he started to notice the aliveness of things, wondered how he had slept through his adult life without ever having inhabited a bush. Rich Yates
Sunburst background shining through near transparent B&W image of 'Breakfast in Bed' by Mary Cassatt (1897) illustrating mother and small daughter. Text: Congratulations! Gabrielle Meadows On sunday morning you lay together laughing IS&T June 2026 Pick of the Month
Image: a farm against a light green background Text: Girl Awaits the Psychic Investigators I’ve noticed that the land around this farm is demarcated in his winter-yellow tail. Like me he’s seasonal and loves new words, and poetry and sometimes, privacy. Our visitors must surely find him interesting. Annie Kissack
Image: a silhouetted couple against a pink sky with a pink border. Text: Love Is... We don’t decide who we love. Who we hate, yes, who we’re jealous of, but never who we end up loving. It’s not fate or anything— that would be silly— but it is out of our control and often bloody inconvenient. Jim Murdoch
Image: black birds flying on a grey sky with a pale blue border. Text: Whiteheads/ It’s 16 below zero. Actual temp. We’re the sole owners of the shore, windchill pushes it down to minus 36. Keeps the pikers away and the eagles don’t seem to mind. I count 22 whiteheads in one tree. Steve’s beard is Santa white. / Alex Stolis
Image: A setting sun against a black background with a red border Text: Heartburst: (Plato's Allegory of the Cave)/ The prodigal sun casts shadows in your cave of someone taking a photo at a wedding of their baby at a celebration. There’s a roar of a truck the hiss of a missile the boom of a dumb bomb –/ Ashia Mirza
Image: hills in the distance surrounded by a green border. Text: Something (almost) understood/ These hills that look towards both weald and waves/ hold – in their homesteads, fenced and open land,/ trackways and contours – all that’s happened here,/ but hide their mysteries in riddles: how/ whole flints were wrapped – by nature’s sleight of hand –/ in chalk laid down as plankton long ago,/ Phil Vernon
Image: a green tinted pier in the wilderness surrounded by a mint green border. Text: Dear bonne nuit pier/ I walk up your pier between the/ sheer weight of boats you've/ been wintering, stand with my/ back against your granite after/ a swim/ Sandra Noel
Background of bright sunshine with Vote symbol bottom right Text: IS&T June 2026 Pick of the Month Khairina Anindya Dylan Foster Hannah Linden Gabrielle Meadows Luke Moran Nina Nazir
Image: a yellow tinted road surrounded by a dark purple border. Text: the stirrups of genghis khan/ a decapitated road sign/ spears the yellow verge/ meaningless as a symbol/ of progress. A vain strut/ Mike Duggan
Image: an eel swimming in clear water surrounded by a dark teal background. Text: Eels/ I wrote a metaphone using eel/ for blue--light reflections in the water/ on a flooded motorway/ and mentioned glittering scales/ Sue Spiers
Image: a blue sky surrounded by a blue border. Text: Because I don't know any other way/ I form the phrase how dare you/ from hot tracks and nails. I fire it up/ into the sky's great/ vacancy. It is no longer/ a question. / Oenone Thomas
Cover of 'The Dreaming of Hinkley Point' showing a landscape in swathes of grey, blue, white and orange paints with book title and 'A Poem by Graeme Ryan' and 'Artwork by Georgina King' on it. Text outside cover; ‘ecologically sensitive, inventive and beautiful collection’ Review by Jean Atkin
Lilies in a garden. Text: submissions are open.
Image of pills on a side table overlaid with a dark purple tint. Text: Misdiagnosis There’s something wrong with the sky it’s the colour of a bruise and smells of burnt toast. Do you hear that noise? Someone’s shredding the blue Siobhan Logan ©
Image: Silhouette of person looking outside from a darkened room while smoking. Text: Behind the closed door, he was there, your father, smoking quietly with himself staring at the black, Alex Searle ©
B&W image of young black woman with Ink Sweat & Tears logo upper left.
2/3 image of a wooden heart-shaped ornament on a brown textured background. Ink Sweat & Tears intern logo bottom left. Text in gradient colours from purple, through fuchsia, orange and gold. ZAKIA THANK YOU
Chairs decorated with bows for a wedding. Title: How to Stop a Wedding. Quote: His phone pings; the morning sun glares. Kyle staggers to the bathroom mirror amidst empty bottles for inducing oblivion. Writer: Hallie Oakwood.
Black cherry ice cream photo. Title: Black Cherry Ice Cream. Quotes: 'We ate it leaning against the rail above the harbour -- black cherry,' and 'melting down the cone faster than we could catch it.' Poet: H.J. Thomas.
Fireworks and thunderstorms. Title: Thunderstorms. Fireworks. Quote: 'I'm in the spare bedroom/office. Christy's in a rotten bad mood.' Poet: DS Maolalai.
A drawn map. Title: How to get here. Quotes: 'Among the joys of love was when we got our first apartment on a boulevard' and 'above the trams and tree tops and the wires that cut the street like tangram puzzles and' Poet: Stephen Keeler.
Blue swirls that look like they could be gusts of wind. Title: Forecast. Word & Image by: Nina Nazir.
Image of a foetus in utero. Title of Poem 1: Khair. Quote: 'I answered inside you forcing myself into your ribs'. Poet: Khairina Anindya. Title of Poem 2: BIRTHLIGHT. Quote: But I felt you move, little wish, inside my body, inside its mist. Poet: Genevieve Beech.
Tree and above surface roots. Title 1: 'Bay Laurel'. Quote: My last will and testament is to be buried under the bay tree. Poet: Marion McCready. Title 2: Allocentric Genders. Quote: The arc of the branch is but a curve of the body. Poet, Vic Brooks.
Source of Narcissus' fountain in Aranjuez, Spain. Title: 'Smashing Narcissus. Quotes: 'We set about him with rifle butts and spades, waiting our turn alongside our enemies, the same burnt flesh, the same blistered feet. Poet: Linda McKenna.
Person in costume make-up. Title: She remembers the house of her husband. Quotes: 'He's not, as they said he is: loathsome, most monstrous.' and 'He has a strange and sinister beauty.' Poet: Abigail Ottley.
White man with a guitar singing into a mic. Title: Renegade Voices. Quotes: 'I am most visceral when being disarmed' and 'by a song, a lyric written'. Poet: Frank Phelan.
House shaped wall key holders. Key rings and keys hang from one of the hooks. Title: The Last Key. Quote: 'My father died with all his keys still on the ring. House key. Padlock key. The tiny brass one for the old suitcase he never opened. Office key for a job he left in 2002. A car key for a Toyota that rusted behind the house'. Writer: Joseph Marcel Ikhenoba.
Ferry boat on the sea. Title: Wake. Quotes: 'The ferry pushes the sea' and 'forces a long, white reply that speaks of where we've been'. Poet: Katherine Duffy.
Image of front cover of Karen McCarthy Woolf's book 'Unsafe'. Quote: 'Karen McCarthy Woolf rides this rhythm [of visuals with short fragments of text] masterfully... She's always addressing the question of who owns the land, our bodies, our music'. Reviewer: Sairah Ahsan.