New Poetry by Jim Conwell

In the Field

The oats are tall here. 
They stand up straight and dry, 
seeds hanging like fruit along their edges. 
The vast rustling forest of this field 
is full of bugs and hunting frogs, 
unaware of the reapers to come.

The land falls to the road and then lies flat to the vast horizon. 
And here, at the boundary of this small farm, 
the earth has been flattened
into a smooth hollow.
He has lain here on some moonless night.
His body, on this spot. I know it.

He is small, perhaps the size of five years, maybe seven. 
He is not dressed for this place or this climate. 
No-one has pulled a coat on him and roughly tugged the edges closed.
But he does not feel the cold, though the ground is cold and the air colder. 

And no one comes in the night 
though sometimes, he thinks he sees something travelling 
along the field’s edge 
and he makes himself smaller without moving.


- Jim Conwell 2018

Jim Conwell’s parents were economic migrants from the rural west of Ireland and he was born, and has lived most of this life, in various parts of London. He has worked as a psychotherapist for nearly 35 years and, in recent years, has dedicated real time to writing. He currently has had poems published in various magazines including Pushing Out the Boat, Shot Glass Journal, The Coffee House Anthology, The English Chicago Review, The Fenland Reed, The Frogmore Papers, He has had two poems shortlisted in the Bridport Poetry Prize. He is married to Annemarie van der Meer and they have eight grandchildren.