Four Fields from Home
by and published in Edition Seven of Pomegranate
In the Fourth Field it was like swimming
I swam right out Andrew could not hold me
‘Andrew’ I said ‘Andrew we are in the Fourth Field’
I touched his back his sweat I left small shoes in the grass
his sweat warm on my hand
it was like my head had popped
Andrew said the Fourth Field had known Romans
here lie their chiselled stones
‘We knew this land, this sun,’ they said
‘We knew your fathers, this field
was the crop of your fathers. We ate their sheep and small birds.
Here is a skull, paper thin. This bird came from Africa, it felt the Kenyan suns
It pecked white bones on plains where dead men rise.’
And it was fat and red ambers bled across the fields
I wanted them warm in my hand to swim across them into every house
the farms the Romans knew to touch the cars and every stone
through feet of soil
soil so thick so cold
‘We are dead men, like your fathers,’ they said ‘Here is a skull, paper thin.
See the sun, it is dying.’
We found faeces small white skulls
under a bush lay a can
‘The tramp’ Andrew said for we had seen him
he would crunch us he came to our windows yellow-eyed at night
we had stolen his jug spat in it
other boys lit his mattress and he had seen us all saw us walk to school
from high up in the Fourth Field
The skull was in my pocket a Fourth Field Skull so far from home
I held it not too tight paper thin the Roman bird from Africa
Mark Burns Cassell
Mark Burns Cassell recently graduated from the University of Leeds with first class honours. He is now taking at least a year out from thinking about careers and further education; he is moving to Cumbria for the summer, then to Brighton, whilst making writing his main focus. Mark is currently developing his skills of writing poetry using more basic, formal conventions – sonnets, quatrains – Making Cider with Joan of Arc reflects this.