Paul atten Ash

We Lie Down in Wild Fields

harvest mouse
wriggling up your sleeve
you giggle
then she whispers
in your ear
I am always afraid
and our bodies are
beehives on fire
still the bees hum
angry orisons 
then drop 
one by one
and hope is
an old root holding on
deep down in the earth

running from crows
to find sanctuary
like a wombwild child
her words like prayer
a susurrus of thin trees
shaking out shadows
the lumberyard’s fell
only the buzz of chainsaws
hymns waiting on eschaton
rising and falling
to the floor
we lie down in wild fields
letting the world go
to waste
its wounds fatal

Paul atten Ash is the pen name of Bristol, UK-based Paul Nash. He has been published by Broken Sleep Books, Butcher’s Dog, Exposed Bone, Full House Literary, Magma Poetry, Nine Arches Press (forthcoming), Salò Press, Sídhe Press, among others. Prize shortlistings include: Alpine Fellowship (2023) and Ginkgo (2022, 2021). Searchlight Seasons, his debut poetry pamphlet, will be published by Atomic Bohemian (atomicbohemian.com) in October 2024. He is currently curating We Dream in Green (a collaboration of contrapuntal ecopoetry), as well as working towards his first collection. campsite.bio/northseanavigator; X: @NorthSeaNav; IG: @north_sea_navigator