gg rr a
beginning the end
ss ss
grass intermedial magazine
Š Trinity Publications 2019
editorial
The jungle frequencies will not be separated and neither will the pages of this book. A note, on intermediality. Things can only represent themselves. Between the pages you will find things that can not capture the subject of their discussion. My portals are volitional; errors of discovery. Each piece is in dialogue with one another. Each piece furthers the understanding of the last. Thinking symbolically is plainly human. Reading this is not enough. Dance without singing at your peril. Let your leg twitch in the theatre, this too has its price. Wrench the symbol from the shudder it inspires and the symbol is lost.
contents grass kestell + nicole patton
deus in absentia
chris joyce - i will not submit to classification the sun ian macartney - THEE OZYMANDIAS REX your mother sinéad barry - untitled sinéad barry (The space for me provided a haven... fergus tremar menendez - an object grass donnellan ben pantrey - stage fright
white sheets silver t.v. sleep big flame
maya bushell - the window
light
róisín doyle-bakare whisht + 25/9/18 after big chipper
flow
emma rodgers - the belly project neil arthur handly - +966 for two pianos
dry heat clean
christian moore - self-portrait with beak grass kestell joyful news from the new world grass donnellan
harmony joy bliss
So on, so forth. I dreamt a fugue that looks like this –
A pure fiction of chorality. Nevertheless it has its certain charms like rats chewing the head off their leader – adornèd freedom. Being aware of every effort made to move from here to there, you would go insane, throwing eggs at your genitals. This here is an absolute shit-show. I dreamt a landscape painting, cast in a magnificent hue once described by Milton as “really a bit much”. deus in absentia
(Crumpled receipt of any description). No skin off my back, sure. Do you see the figure with its back turned? That is your daughter and she will bring you nothing but grief. Nip it in the bud, Sergeant. Nip it in the bud. Before she turns around and The play goes as follows. Down to their last dime, five garishly handsome young vagabonds enter, stage right. The set forms itself around them, forgetting itself along the way, leaving a stage-right of an 18th-century royal French court and a stage-left of the last strip club before you crossed state lines, that night, rain on a wooden red You Are Now Leaving sign that made the whole world pale black. Clothed from head to toe as beekeepers, na young men cherche la reine. Or at least a girl dynamic. The twist is she never arrives. The audience found the whole thing derivative as they piled back into the Mondeo of a November night, oooooh she says, it’s getting frosty. Back on set the boys have not left. They must sit still now as this was the play all along ha very clever, but they are caged in their own weight. They are caged in the very fact of their acting to not be acting – la vraisemblance. Vagabond #5 lifts his helmet (it gets hot in there) and is promptly tapped on the shoulder, and he knows he hasn’t made the cut. His shuffling away is the only sound now – quiet in the theatre. An idea for an art project Mario did not like: A room, unsturdy, begotten not made with white walls attending an oncoming stream of black paint that will scribble out the worst things you have ever thought. Imagine the amount of sympathy sex I would get if my parents died. The like, scrawled from ceiling to floor the darkness was unimaginable, and then place in the framed school photograph of the boy-girl, aged 9 and honestly happy then, herms eyes scratched out but smiling so wide it would make you an honest sad. “I do not want my name associated with this.” deus in absentia
A jazz band playing Caravan getting picked off by ugly sniper fire, playing for their lives. Me in a glass cage. You in a glass cage! A film, like this: I’m really trying my best to make this evening special, Will. We love each other and – if you could just turn that down, please – you have to put in the effort if you want, oh, I don’t know, anything? Listen, I don’t mean it but, and I don’t mean to upset you, I really don’t but… I asked you to turn it down. The Hidatsa crawled out from the bottom of a lake! They told me that to write I needed to live - to experience. I have done nothing. This too has been an experience. Grass where trees once stood. Shaven absence, stretching for miles and continents. An ever oppressive existent and upward flight.
deus in absentia
chris joyce the sun
THEE OZYMANDIAS REX (Suicide Note of a Post-Culture) Written By: Ian Macartney By: Ian Macartney By: Ian Macartney By: Ian Macartney By: Ian Macartney By: Ian Macartney
THEE OZYMANDIAS REX (Suicide Note of a Post-Culture) Written By: Ian Macartney By: Ian Macartney By: Ian Macartney By: Ian Macartney By: Ian Macartney By: Ian Macartney
your mother
MANIFESTO I: A PSEUDO-SEMIOTIC APPROACH
...VERSUS/PLUS...
THUS, A
[&&&]
your mother
Scene Nullus Establishment shot of a factory. It’s been gutted of machinery. An army of WORKERS line the mid-ground, all dressed in yellow, cyan or magenta hazmat suits. There is a blackboard facing away from the camera, to the far-left. The sound of footsteps, echoing across the concrete. Enter, from right, the SCREENWRITER, hobbling slightly. He is pale and sweating; unwell. The WORKERS watch him go by, obedient. He reaches the blackboard. Mid-shot of him, squinting and reading it. He nods slightly. Close shot from behind his head, framed by the blackboard (the white chalk equations are blurred, but the faint outline of a Mobius strip can be seen, dominating the centre). The SCREENWRITER begins to vigorously nod, slowly turning around, when - facing the camera, with occasional glances to the WORKERS - he flings his arms into the air. SCREENWRITER: MAKE IT HAPPEN! The video pauses, then fades to black. An advert begins to play— yellow bar at the botto, etcetera. A “Skip Ad” button appears in the bottom-right corner after about five seconds. The advert is a montage of the hazmat-suited workers using power tools to cut metal, then bend, then smoothen, burnish and weld. Industrial sounds; no talking. The advert ends. Close shot of a stainless steel Mobius strip (a groove in the centre of its continuum), sitting on a white podium. The SCREENWRITER kneels down to get a better look, and the your mother
camera racks focus on to his face. Cut to surveillance footage of the room. There is a large window on the left wall, and a door on the one adjacent. It resembles both an intimate exhibition space and an interrogation room. Flashing text in the top-right corner of the shot says “13 YEARS BEFORE”. Three WORKERS stand behind him, one for each colour. The one in the center holds a camera. The SCREENWRITER motions for it. POV shot of the camera, as it gets put on the rig by the SCREENWRITER. He lets go, carefully, and it starts to loop around, filming in the pattern of a lemniscate. The SCREENWRITER laughs, as it gradually gets faster. You exit full-screen for the video and pause it. The title says “THEE OZYMANDIAS REX”; like/dislike ratio is heavily bent to the latter; 40,018 views, 138 comments. You jump to another tab, another video, which has as its title “6 Years Before” - you are already very far into this one. You click play and put it on full-screen. [&&&] Surveillance footage of the exhibition room; absolute silence. In the top-right it says “13 Years After”. In the centre, on the podium, is a smashed camera. Three HIPSTERS enter from the door on the side wall the camera directly films, dressed in black but for a magenta beret, teal tie and yellow shoes (respectively). They walk around the room, observing the art, finger on chins in thought. your mother
The teal words “THIS IS REALLY INTERESTING” flash on screen. The yellow words “YES. IT IS” flash on screen. More walking. The magenta word “HMMMM” fills the screen. After three or so minutes of artful observation, the footage ends.
your mother
sinĂŠad barry white sheets
(The space for me provided a haven of freedom in the life of a teenager where nearly every space in which I resided was narrated by the systemic chaos of school and home life.) On hot days during the summer, my friends and I would often jump off the slip into the river at the rowing club. This practice served the dual purpose of cooling down after strenuous sessions and shocking my parents when I arrived at home soaked, river scum clinging to my legs like a latex tarpaulin. The Shannon river, although beautiful, is extraordinarily filthy; overturned shopping trolleys, stuffed bin bags, and other discards of contemporary urban life were not uncommon sights on training sessions. With particular distaste, I remember being advised by my peers which day the city’s sewage would be released into the water, and passing on that most certainly misinformed information myself. Consolation was found in the belief that we were leaping into the river on a day where it was filled with the least amount of sewage. Between the thrilled shrieks, destitute flirting and parading exhibitions of physical prowess, it was surprisingly easy to dissociate myself from the filth in which we swam. Even now, as a matured woman of 20 21, I regret nothing. My mother’s brothers were hugely involved in the club when they were teenagers and the boathouse is still home to two boats named after one of those uncles. The Brennie Murphy 1 and 2 were named after a relative of mine who I never met, due to his tragic early death before I was born. When Brennie was 24 years old, he emigrated from Limerick to New York to live in my parents’ then shared apartment. On a night shortly after his arrival he woke up in the middle of the night to find himself paralysed in bed. He was diagnosed not long after with a rare bone cancer called ( ), and he died seven weeks after diagnosis. Dirt, decay, and death are inevitabilities which I believe to be dissociated from our generation. Abstract concepts like limits and silver
ends exist for us, or for me, in a manner no more real than the fabric of a cloud an incogitable distance away. Naturally, few people my age have ever been confronted with death, in fact most have grieved at some point in their life. The sense that this event could happen to us seems more like a crazed daydream than a certainty, akin to joining a circus, or having all of your limbs spontaneously drop off. Perhaps, on second thought, this phenomenon is not unique to our generation. I imagine it has always been difficult for a people to imagine their own demise, particularly the young. Now, however, this sense of eternity appears to be amplified. Due to the: • drastic decrease in infant mortality rates • elongated life expectancy • and the indestructible atemporality of our identities on social media pages Death appears as a distant phenomenon, sad but surreal. Life on the other hand, is the pressing tragedy. In my family, death at a young age was much more commonplace, as little as two generations ago. Both my paternal grandparents, and one of my maternal, lost their fathers when they were children. Gran was the only one who discussed this during my lifetime. After the death of her husband my great-grandmother (gran’s mother) was left running a mill in Galway and raising eleven children by herself. These children, all sixty-seventy years older than me, I have only known through notice of their death. One sibling’s ( ) passing, was mentioned fervently but seldomly by my Gran. ( ) committed suicide when she was in her twenties. I’ve been told by Gran it wasn’t anyone’s fault but drink and her own. Generously, when I was about seven or eight Gran gave me that sister’s watch, which I lost shortly afterward. Out training one weekend, the morbid wintriness of the morning silver
made me question, as I often did my commitment to this sport. The grey sky was indistinguishable from the agitated water and our skinny jr16 crew were shivering. It is said that water is choppy when it’s rough. I think this is very evocative, the thought of chopping water, slashing what lies below like a silver knife. As far as I can remember, we weren’t out on the water that long before encountering an something floating on the water that resembled ballooned bin bags. He was average height, dressed in all black, and facing downwards. I remember gliding slowly past with horror, but it could have been another boat that found him too. Rushed whispers flew up and down the boat, what is it? Oh Jesus. Nervous grins. Her oar brushed off him is she okay? (My memory lapses) My coach pulled the body into his motorboat and called the services. We turned around and ended the session early. Shocked and mostly silent, the adults at the club watched the search and rescue team lay the body flat on the concrete from behind the window. His dripping clothes on the bare surface resembled tar melting onto an altar. Inside, myself and (a friend) comforted another girl who was upset over the ordeal, even though it seemed like she was getting upset for attention. I have a fractured memory of a chat our coach instigated afterward for morale, and one of side stepping the corpse outside the club, although the latter is probably false. Also false were the rumours about who the man was, and what happened to him. My memories of this day, and this man faded quickly, resurfacing some years later as a kind of afterthought in my own development. Sleazy in its inauthenticity, the cold river turned to Spring, into Summer and the winter was soon forgotten. The tiny rowing club remained a small, imperfect haven for a short few more teenage years. Aged seventeen, I discovered that I liked silver
to try on the fabrics of adult life and pretend I was among it. I felt tired from rowing and soon quit. Myself and most of my peers felt that we had outgrown our time there. Before this however, when the next summer came, we threw ourselves back into the river, swimming gleefully. The thought that our pool had been a lamentable avenue of suicide never passed through my mind, and I doubt it did anyone else’s. Crossing the bridge some 20m above us strange adults often stopped and looked down worriedly, reassuring themselves everyone was safe. To us however, danger was as abstract as the possibility of growing old, and a dead man on the river was a stranger.
silver
sleep
sleep
An Object
fergus tremar menendez
Monday Had a worker come to the station earlier. Didn’t like him from the outset: mottled skin, unkempt stubble, and a chin jutting out like a bonnet, locking his jaw in permanent grimace. What’s more, he had come here to rat on a colleague: one of the sailors down at the docks. The informant said he was a mechanic. Not that I’d trust him fixing anything; you could smell the liquor on his breath. He said the sailor he was reporting had stolen an object from the workers, something that did not belong to him. The docks are run as a collective; any fish captured at sea are pooled together in the warehouse, then the profits are evenly split. Apparently this particular sailor has been spotted stealing a crate, dragging it out of sight behind a net. The man was rubbing his hands together while he spoke, grinning manically, with glee. It was clear he didn’t like the sailor; this was recompense for an old grudge. I put my pen to the side and considered. Rural policing isn’t up to much. I mostly spend my time helping cats or comforting kids who dropped their ice cream. This town is quaint but it is sluggish. I should have gone into writing instead. Stories have always been my true passion. So while I disliked my informant, and I perceived his hidden vendetta (if you have a grudge with someone, where’s the honour in going to the police?), I had no reason not to pursue it. This town t.v.
is too bereft of events to justify overlooking a crime. This was the only thing that had happened in my constituency for a month. I said I’d visit the sailor on Wednesday. Wednesday Wind was blowing in from the headland as I walked up through the town. It was bright but it was breezy, spooking gulls into the sky. They hovered over the moss-topped roofs, an eager formation, a battalion of airborne eyes. There were more gulls gathered than usual; it was like a crowd of spectators, assembled along the coast to observe. The mechanic had insisted on joining. I did not have the strength to say no. We wandered up through winding streets, until we came to the sailor’s front door. I knocked twice, with firm, hard raps. “Constabulary Police! Open up!” The door clicked. The sailor opened. I measured him up. He had a proud, upright bearing. His eyes glimmered cobalt blue. His ginger beard fell in cascades, compensating for the otherwise lack of hair that extended over his head. His skin...I could hardly describe it. It was both young and old at the same time, as if the salt of the sea had aged it, creased it with wrinkles and ravines, only to one day change its mind, and wash the palette milky and clean, smoothing if with newfangled shine. I could not draw my attention from his hands; they were cross-hatched with puckered t.v.
scars. He cast a look at the mechanic, narrowed his eyes, then turned his attention towards me. “How can I help you, Officer?” “I apologise for the morning intrusion. However, you have been accused of attempting to steal an object which is not your own. I do not mean to corroborate these claims without a further investigation; however I will need to inspect your house, in order to determine the veracity of this accusation.” “That’s a lot of fancy words there. Are you a policeman or a poet?” the sailor replied. He paused to contemplate for a moment, throwing the mechanic another icy glance. Then he stepped back from the doorway, and allowed the two of us in. The sailor led us up a stairwell, to a single room on the first floor. It was clean and plainly furnished; swan-white walls, a tidy bedstead, pots of lavender on the sill. Painted above the wooden headboard was the outline of a blue boat, cresting the sea. The only sign of any disorder was a heap of nets in the corner, dropping salt flecks and rusty hooks. You could see straight out to the port. To my dismay, the mechanic was right though. Without any attempt to conceal it, there was a big crate under the bed. We all saw it before we acknowledged it; we all knew it was why we were here. “Where did you get that crate?” I finally asked. The sailor pursed his lips. No reply. “Pull it out from there,” I instructed. t.v.
The sailor did as he was told. He dragged it out into the light. I noticed scrape marks in the same spot on the floorboards, which suggested he had done this before. The mechanic was licking his lips lasciviously. The sailor still was not saying a word. He stood to the side and let us observe it. Musty splinters, mouldy slats. Between each plank a surreptitious shadow. I cracked my knuckles to indicate that I was about to open it. I raised my arms and I lunged – The object jumped. It jumped a foot up in the air. The crate jolted, and it jumped. Something living was inside. I garnered my courage to lunge again, and I pounced The wooden crate emitted a thump. It vibrated. It pulsed. Whatever was inside, it was furious. “Jesus Christ, they’re still alive in there!” the mechanic cried. Hands still raised, I fixed the sailor with a glare. He had still not moved or said a word. “Is it fish?” I asked him flatly. “No,” he said “It is a monster.” The swash of the sea crept in from afar. The cry of the gulls punctured our thoughts. I stood there motionless like a moron. The mechanic had stopped moving also. The sailor maneuvered himself so he was standing between us and the wooden object. His broad shoulders blocked the light eking from the window, whitening its pith, refracting its glare through the prism of his beard. His features denuded, we could barely t.v.
discern the rouge of his lips as he continued “I caught it when I was out in the straits. It was bulging towards my boat. I knew it just by its terrible shape, beneath the water. I knew that I was seeing a monster.” There was lucidity in his voice that dared us to defy. The crate jumped upwards from the floor again, as if offering a confirmation. “I could have fired my engine and fled. But for some reason I did not. It was coming for me, only me. I was intrigued. It wanted to be caught...” The mechanic finally interrupted his narration - “There’s no such thing as sea monsters.” The crate thumped – an objection. The sailor locked his eyes with the mechanic, properly, for the first time. The mechanic lowered his gaze. They had been on the sea together; they knew he knew otherwise. “Is it violent?” I asked. I was surprised by my own question. The sailor responded by raising his hands, showing us his welter of scars. “When?” “Every night, it comes for me. I live inside its warm shadow. But don’t worry, it only comes for me. The rest of the town can sleep safe.” I was never a paragon of a policeman; I’d sooner believe in myths than in laws. When a policeman sees a threat he neutralises it. When a dreamer meets a myth he holds back. I am a dreamer, and I responded with reverence and fear. t.v.
“If it attacks you, why do you keep it?” I asked. “Because this monster, it is mine. I saw it coming towards me in the water. I did not choose to turn and flee. I caught it. I chose to keep it. This monster, it is mine.” Another thump from the crate. I had almost forgotten the presence of the mechanic in the room. When I remembered, I realised he was thinking the same thing. His thoughts were pasted on his face - time to go. “We’ll be in contact about this object...” I mumbled as I left, though we all knew this was a formality. Neither of us would be coming back. We forgot to pull shut the door, and as we padded down the stairs we heard the resonant voice of the sailor, reverberating from within his room “I did not steal this object from you; you cannot take it away! It is mine and I will suffer it alone!” Saturday Someone has propped up an accordion at the bar and now everyone is singing shanties, voices echoing across the bay. I have had too many tonight, and have come outside to clear my head. The boats are sagging tiredly in their moorings. Their ropes are crusted in rotting kelp. Beyond the harbour wall, the moon is hanging, hot and heavy, in a pool of indigo. I wander down the restless shoreline, running my hands along the rails. I smell cold iron squeaking on my fingers. Seaweed belches on the wall. A solitary gull is swallowed by the wide moon. A bell jingles on a mast. t.v.
Stretching outward from the small town is a slither of silverdappled sand. The waves whisper promises of oblivion. At the edge of these waves is a man - a darkening blot. His dark outline totters and teeters, skirting at the water’s edge, wandering with curving meanders, intermittently obscured then re-obscured. Perhaps he has been at the tavern; perhaps he is walking into the void. The sand seems to be quietly enticing him. Perhaps it is the old sailor... I like to imagine that the sailor, on a moonstruck night like this, wanders down along the shoreline, wanders out towards the rocks. He walks till he has left the town, his feet slipping on buried stones, his boots filling with the wet sand. Out there, in furtive isolation, with the cliff looming up on one side, the waves resound in his ears. They fill his head with tumultuous song. He carries a bottle of rum in his left fist, which he gulps with sudden swigs. Is that the sound of sea in his ears then, or is it rum crashing into his head? He sees a rock swelling out of the darkness. He calls out to it with a laugh. As he stumbles closer and closer though, he realises it is not a rock. It is the crate, waiting for him, waiting with him, beached like destiny in the sand. Of course it is. What else would be here, waiting on this lonely shore? He finds his way back every night. He forgets how or why. He throws the bottle to the ocean. He lifts a rock in his fist instead. He is David facing Goliath. He is one man standing alone. His scars are stinging on his fingertips. The wind is electric in his t.v.
hair. Every night he comes back to here, to the seaside and the crate. He will sleep in a blood-soaked embrace. He knew, when he saw the monster, under the ocean, surging towards him, that his life would never be peaceful. That he would face talons every night. Yet he knew also when he chose it, that this was the best decision. Purely because it was a decision: a decision that brought him the world. The monster leaves him battered and desolate. It smashes his skull like an exquisite rock. And yet he would never forsake it. His monster brings him alive. He will fight it till the stars are benumbed. “Go on then, I’m ready for you!” He grips tighter onto his rock. He lifts up the lid of the crate.
t.v.
Stage Fright
The books that should have sent me sleep have only lost me time The turn of every page just brings me closer to the dawn But even then the words impart no meaning. I follow them until a full stop breaks my concentration and I find my phone is telling me another hour’s gone. And soon the dawn will come. From ten to twelve till five to three and now it’s almost four. And I’m lying here still staring at the poster by the door Or blinking at the ceiling as it warms in orange light Rolling to the wardrobe with my eyes shut tight Listening to someone outside acting out a scene Of a streetlight drama: substitute for dreams.
ben pantrey
big flame
maya bushell light
Whisht Whining winds await withering weeps Wind warps the weeping willows and waits Waits wistfully for the whirlpool waves The whirlwind waits And waits And with the waiting withering weeping willows wail And wait And always wait for the awoken winds to awaken the weakening weeping willows And when the wait has waited And waited And the weight of the wait has been lifted The whining winds return and wait for withering weeps
25/9/18 after Big Chipper In the mood for food Chips on the hips Defeat all the sweets Mind my behind Beep Beep Coming through
rĂłisĂn doyle-bakare flow
emma rodgers dry heat
clean
christian moore harmony
Joyful News from the New World Corpus Christi Medical Center Account Number 0112714 Admit Time/Date 2330 13/09/2018 Reg Init EG Brought By N/A Info Provided By Neighbour MR Number 30904528 Admitting Physician John Bowman Primary Car Phys. John Bowman Room # 302 Type - Service Surg Discharge - Patient Last Name First Middle Stanton, Margaret Former Name Bradbury Race C Red Pref Do not Social Security # 186-22-6177 Patient Address 45 E 1300 Road City Grant State KS Zip Code 66044 Patient Phone # 785-841-8693 Driver’s Licence #K 12-44-4728 Age 63 Birth Date 05/06/1955 Birthplace Kansas Gender F MS F Occupation Farmer Accident? Date/Time Yes Approx 1400 29/07 Patient Employer Self-Employed Employer Address N/A Employer Phone N/A Spouse Name N/A Spouse Address N/A City – State – Spouse Phone – Emergency Contact Beth Bradbury Relationship Daughter Home Phone - Cell Phone 415-475489 Work Phone – Admitting Diagnoses Amputated lower leg Spinal Fracturing Broken Ribs Multiple Contusions on head, neck and chest Admit type Surg ICDp – Admit Source Emergency Primary Insurance Plan N/A Primary Policy # Authorization # Primary Policy Holder – Insurance Pan # 2 Secondary Policy # - Authorization # Secondary Policy Holder – Insurance Plan #3 – Tertiary Policy # - Authorization # Tertiary Policy Holder – Guarantor Name N/A Rel to Pt – Mailing Address – Guarantor Phone – Guarantor Occupation – Employer – Employer Address – Employer Phone – Billing Remarks None at this time Principal diagnosis Forced amputation Code V49.75 Operations and Procedures N/A Physician Dr. Mulberry Date 13/09/2018 Code - Consulting Physician Dr. Bowman Final Disposition: Discharged – Transferred – Left AMA – Expired ×Autopsy Yes × No – I certify that my identification of the principal and secondary diagnoses joy
and the procedures performed is accurate to the best of My knowledge. Attending Physician Dr. John Bowman Date 13/09/2018. In the valley the soft green river pushed with uncaring and unstoppable force, one with muddy bank and detritus. A steady hand. A beaver chewed on a meagre twig from a nearby aspen, always with his eyes open and darting forward and behind. The grass too pushed, and beneath her feet the blind worm danced, carving his way between darkness. Above, there was a glimpse of an eagle, only passing through, looking for meatier pray, and always looking down. A lull hung in the trees, and the pine wood creaked with the ages, but only just. Breathing in, breathing out. Spiders spun webs. Above the egg white clouds the stars were rooted still, and someone, somewhere, said “Sarah, baby, I’m so sorry. But you have to know that these things happen.” A violent and horrible god, somewhere.
grass kestell
joy
I fear the end of my life will feel like the end of a summer when I feel like I haven’t done enough and now I have to leave but I’ve wasted the whole thing. The whole thing has been building up to this and now I know I’ve wasted it. I should’ve enjoyed it more. And now I’ve wasted it. The whole thing. I also think about when I join the work force. I’m worried that working every day will feel like when you’re forced to get up and do things on holiday. I am tired, mainly. I am tired but the time is limited so I have to get up and do things that seem like a good thing to have done, even on days off. I will get up every day for few reasons that are my own. On my own days. I worry that working life will be like a city break. A rainy bustle. I’ll be very busy and supposed to be very happy. But really I’ll be very tired and I won’t be able to think. I will feel like I’m wasting time. I will feel like I’m always missing something but for some reason it has to be this way. I will be very tired. I will be.
grass donnellan
bliss
Editors
Aoife “1957-D No.1” Donnellan wabi, sabi.
Christopher “The Sunshade” Kestell am nothing , if not some patchwork nightmare, dragged from the boot of a hatchback and bludgeoned to death with a phonebook.
Contributors Ben Pantrey Whistler’s Nocturne in Black and Gold.
Chris Joyce The Awakening
Christian Moore l’Absinthe Emma Rodgers Grande Arabesque Fergus Tremar Menendez Good Arms vs. Bad Arms Ian Macartney Untitled Maya Bushell Night
Nicole Patton La Bayadere
Neil Arthur Handly Setting Sun
Róisín Doyle-Bakare The Starry Night Sinéad Barry Arabesque no. 1 in E Minor, L. 66
grass acknowledges Trinity Publications, as well as Digital Print Dynamics, for making this issue possible. Thank you to everyone who contributed.
a
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