For people who invent pain, terrified of blankness

For people who have nowhere to go in the afternoons,
For people who the evening banishes to small rooms,
For good people, people huge as the world.
For people who give themselves away forgetting
What it is they are giving,
And who are never reminded.

For people who cannot help being kind
To the hand bunched in pain against them.
For inarticulate people,
People who invent their own ugliness,
Who invent pain, terrified of blankness;
For people who stand forever at the same junction
Waiting for the chances that have passed.

And for those who lie in ambush for themselves,
Who invent toughness as a kind of disguise,
Who, lost in self-defeating worlds,
Carry remorse inside them like a plague;
And for the self-seeking self lost among them
I hazard a poem.

 Brian Patten

What now radiates...

The Irrelevant Song
Brian Patten

Already in the woods the light grass has darkened.
Like a necklace of deaths the flowers hug the ground.
Their scents, once magically known,
Seem now irretrievable.

Because joy and sorrow must finally unite
And the small heart beat of the sparrow
Be heard above jet-roar
I will sing,
Not of tomorrow's impossible paradise
But of what now radiates.

As branches reach

A Neruda-feel.

"You come to me quiet as rain not yet fallen.

...You come to me
Quiet as bulbs not yet broken
Out into sunlight.

...The fear I see in your now lining face
Changes to puzzlement when my hands reach
For you as branches reach..."

Brian Patten

And then

And Nothing Is Ever As You Want It To Be

You lose your love for her and then
It is her who is lost,
And then it is both who are lost,
And nothing is ever as perfect as you want it to be.

In a very ordinary world
A most extraordinary pain mingles with the small routines,
The loss seems huge and yet
Nothing can be pinned down or fully explained.

You are afraid.
If you found the perfect love
It would scald your hands,
Rip the skin from your nerves,
Cause havoc with a computered heart.

You lose your love for her and then it is her who is lost.
You tried not to hurt and yet
Everything you touched became a wound.
You tried to mend what cannot be mended,
You tried, neither foolish nor clumsy,
To rescue what cannot be rescued.

You failed,
And now she is elsewhere
And her night and your night
Are both utterly drained.

How easy it would be
If love could be brought home like a lost kitten
Or gathered in like strawberries,
How lovely it would be;
But nothing is ever as perfect as you want it to be.

Brian Patten

Dying

"What did we ever own that hadn't
the quality of seasons
their numerous dyings?"

Brian Patten

Park

The sprinklers were on in the park, when you took a diversion to pass through it, this aimless Saturday morning. No one around on the pathways, there's too much water. You smile, stop, park your bike, set off on a walk, listening to music. Waiting and watching each sprinkler spray, ducking and running under it at the correct moment, gleefully failing and getting drenched, and then on to the next one. The tree barks, wet and dark, each pattern standing out, as if on a monsoon day.

In between you stop to watch the dragonflies, lazily floating around in between the old trees you know since 1988, and a few squirrels, doing Saturday morning squirrel things. And hey, that sprinkler stealthily came at you through the tree leaves while you were not watching! Happiness.

Walking back through the dryer paths, you notice young couples on benches, anxiously discussing their future. Oh what will become of us, where is our life going, will you stay by me always. You are so glad you are past that age. You can afford to walk around alone, smiling through sprinklers, your wet hair sticking to your head, your spectacles blurry, and not care, and not want anything more from life.

You are learning to empty your boat, drop your baggage, disconnect, detach, and lift up lighter and freer. You are on your way out.

From somewhere far away returns this park poem, noted down more than 20 years ago.

I caught a train that passed the town where you lived

I caught a train that passed the town where you lived.
On the journey I thought of you.
One evening when the park was soaking
You hid beneath trees, and all around you dimmed itself
as if the earth were lit by gaslight.
We had faith that love would last forever.

I caught a train that passed the town where you lived.

Brian Patten

Later, while leaving the park, you notice that the pink-flower-trees of November have started to bloom, bare branches all set to be covered in delicate blossom. Another year, another beautiful season.


*Poem from old notebook, 19 Oct 1989, Thursday

Sometimes it happens..

Sometimes it happens

And sometimes it happens that you are friends and then

You are not friends,

And friendship has passed.

And whole days are lost and among them

A fountain empties itself.

And sometimes it happens that you are loved and then

You are not loved

And love is past

And whole days are lost and among them

A fountain empties itself into the grass.

And sometimes you want to speak to her and then

You do not want to speak

Then the opportunity has passed

Your dreams flare up, they suddenly vanish

And also it happens that there is

nowhere to go and then

There is somewhere to go

Then you have bypassed

And the years flare up and are gone

Quicker than a minute

So you have nothing

You wonder if these things matter and then

They cease to matter

And caring is past

And a fountain empties itself into the grass....

Brain Patten

Poem written in the street on a rainy evening

Everything I lost was found again
I tasted wine in my mouth
My heart was like a firefly; it moved
Through the darkest objects laughing

There were enough reasons why this was happening
But I never stopped to think about them
I could have said it was your face,
Could have said I’d drunk something idiotic,

But no one reason was sufficient
No one reason was relevant;
My joy was gobbled up by dull surroundings
But there was enough of it

A feast was spread; a world
Was suddenly made edible
And there was forever to taste it........

Brian Patten

Prose Poem Towards a Definition of Itself

When in public poetry should take off its clothes and wave to the nearest person in sight; it should be seen in the company of thieves and lovers rather than that of journalists and publishers. On sighting mathematicians, it should unlock the algebra from their minds and replace it with poetry; on sighting poets it should unhook poetry from their minds and replace it with algebra; it should fall in love with children and woo them with fairytales; it should wait on the landing for 2 years for its mates to come home then go outside and find them all dead.

When the electricity fails it should wear dark glasses and pretend to be blind. It should guide all those who are safe into the middle of busy roads and leave them there. It should shout EVIL! EVIL! from the roofs of the world’s stock exchanges. It should not pretend to be a clerk or a librarian. It is the eventual sameness of all contradictions. It should never weep until it is alone and then only after it has covered the mirrors and sealed up the cracks.

Poetry should seek out couples and wander with them into stables, neglected bedrooms and engineless cars for a final Good Time. It should enter into burning factories too late to save anyone. It should pay no attention to its real name.

Poetry should be seen lying by the side of road accidents, be heard from gasrings. It should scrawl the teacher’s secret on a blackboard, offer her a worm saying, inside this is a tiny apple.

Poetry should play hopscotch in the 6PM streets and look for jinks in other people’s dustbins. At dawn, it should leave the bedroom and catch the first bus home. It should be seen standing on the ledge of a skyscraper, on a bridge with a brick tied around its heart. It is the monster hiding in a child’s dark room, it is the scar on a beautiful man’s face. It is the last blade of grass being picked from the city park…..

Brian Patten

Impermanence

"What did we ever own that hadn't
the quality of seasons
their numerous dyings?"

Winter Song, Brian Patten

* * * * * * * * * * * *

It is not the growing older that bothers you, but the realization that proportionally the older people who are dear to you are also growing older and therefore more vulnerable - each time the phone rings with that long-distance tone, you freeze in terror.

* * * * * * * * * * * *
A buddhist ritual where they make an elaborate beautiful rangoli/mandala [colorful design] on the ground, and then the sand is brushed together, collected, and dispersed in flowing water.
To re-inforce one of the basic principles of life, and of Buddhism - the impermanence of things.