2 Poems by Jim Conwell

​I wanted

I wanted her to love me.
I wanted to be her big brother,
sitting there with her in the windswept corridor
just beyond the revolving doors.
That we could be in silent camaraderie,
Beyond words.
Something that time would not change.

But she was travelling in one direction,
And I in another.
It had always been so.

So we put her away.
In a crude, dirty hole in the ground.
Because we have finished with her.
Because we do not like the dead.


Sure, me own father’s house is the same.

This time, it has crossed over some line.
The crack that runs from chimney to ground
has opened up something vital
that will bleed out now from behind the render.
In the downstairs room a wild animal
has smashed the old chair
into pieces. There is now only a sad chaos.
The land will take it back.


Bionote

With an original background in Fine Art, Jim Conwell has worked in mental health for over thirty years. He has had poems published in magazines in the UK, Ireland, Australia and North America and had two poems shortlisted in the Bridport Poetry Prize 2015. He lives in London, England.