PATRICK

ALL GRASS IS FLESH 

- ni mi casa es ya mi casa - 

the grass is the world we don’t have and so it is history 

the green we wanted so much 

the lawn’s luminescence scalds the scar of our old desire 

our pre-emptive renunciation was forced -  

we saw it as forced as we took it yet 

take it. 

the sea we have: 

it holds us still as the gone gleam of the day — 

between the rock and the sky the roll of it ghosts us. 

the grass laps at the shored-up light from the house. 

backs to the window we see 

the sea gleam beyond the drive 

and do not see our long shadows 

fallen across the garden. 

we want to 

to spreadeagle ourselves 

wet blades cutting at the corners of our mouths 

black humus in the holes of our eyes.  

the lawn brings dull deasy ease to the eye 

the hint of the home we hadn’t 

drawing us out in our exile 

it is there and we can’t find it in us. 

my house is not my house. 

the moon draws us out to the sea 

where we swam in the day. 

seed moves in the wind, the lawn is mown. 

the lawn intervenes between the field and the house. 

it is the movement holds us, 

the swing learnt in the pull of the wave, 

the hole in the stomach we live in, 

the trepanned hole in the head. 

the grass grows, we all know 

how it grows and grows –  

every blade cuts us entirely. 

DESCANT 

crisply the car is lowered, the cables 

throbbing against the dullard air, 

holding the chill to your very bones. 

the brisk descent eases to a glide to 

a motionless stop, and they crowd out, 

muffled, muffled.  you too descend, you step, 

each step rearranges your frame  

as you take it you took it. odd 

to you your knees seem to buckle but 

they do not, 

quite. 

flesh and mittens and healthy silken hair 

are blankets.  they are about you 

and you are lost, in conversation which  

frames you as you walk through it 

from the stop. 

from here you look out 

you see some things become clearer as the words 

recede 

but it goes slowly by, you are talking the same. 

the same and still  

you are  

out of your range, safe, 

desperate for a marvellous quickening. 

turning and taking the curve to the square 

you are smothered, you mis- 

took, it is a ball in your throat, the 

realization, knotting. 

you suffocate chokes with your lips and teeth. 

a sort of what is it glottal blink 

returns you to the sensation of your distended legs’ impact 

with the stone, how is it that the sky streams by so? 

you pull yourself together 

you make the best of it, none of it 

is of any particular import 

other than as flight. 

view inter Suniti Namjoshi  

Moral and not really reasonable,   

I say what sometimes happens 

is oppressed in one way. 

It does not imply 

we too are capable. 

We too have all the dilemmas. 

One of the things is to go outward –  

one is considering the microcosm 

dealing evil within oneself. 

You are talking about what happened yesterday. 

Ideas is different. 

We do not separate in the same way. 

What seems strange is a habit of thinking 

thinking there are others who have reason. 

Engagement could be my training. 

Lewis Carroll and Jonathan Swift, 

I will tell you what I think. 

You have a system, it is elegant 

and lovely the way everything follows. 

This love of one more thing you cannot jump. 

You will get insane results, your most 

witty and ironic effects intact, clear. 

Well, I’ve done you a favour, 

the only favour you’ve done for me. 

So jumping out of one system you get 

thinking all that needs to be said. 

All you do, that’s where the economy comes from. 

I don’t know what she means by it 

but she is regarded. 

I do not accept any praise or blame. 

My friends send me building, 

think of it! – like some sprout. 

Like, like building, done subject to time. 

In my book, building is the process of building. 

I hand over this to you and say put it on, 

the building site gets built up and ideas 

forgotten. This is something. 

I don’t think of home. Home is not anyone, 

or a take away. 

It is very difficult to explain  

how tied one is, what ties one, a  

thousand sometimes in the beginning you  

never were before. Ideally,  

I would like to feel that every place 

matters to me in the same way 

as what happens. 

But I have to confess, 

not proud of this, 

when something happens, it tears me apart in a way. 

The same thing happened say 

in England.