D.S. Maolalai has received nine nominations for Best of the Net and seven for the Pushcart Prize. His poetry has been released in three collections, Love is Breaking Plates in the Garden (Encircle Press, 2016), Sad Havoc Among the Birds (Turas Press, 2019) and Noble Rot (Turas Press, 2022).
SAY COLLECTIONS
there's not any cities. we need
a new word for what's now.
call it heaps. say collections. because
New York is much the same
honestly as Dublin. or people
here think it is, and that's
the same thing. I mean—not
THE SAME. but the character—
what I'm saying is now
there are Digital Quarters
all over the place, cut from life
like they're bad bits of apple,
as if they were Chinatowns,
as if it was culture which
made them—and it is, it's a bad
bit of apple. and they wear the same shirts
now in Paris and Amsterdam, the cafes
are similar and even the counter cultures
which boil over mostly
the same. it's not cities,
not countries—I don't live anywhere.
I live in an apartment
with Chrysty and Summer the dog.
and I like it here, honestly,
living here. and I live in the centre
of life and of Dublin
and drive to the edge
every day and it takes 20 minutes.
GETTING BREAKFAST
sunday mornings
these days are certain detritus.
a piling up slag-heap
of people with hangovers
walking around in the light.
I get coffee—the girl blinks
and hands it across. I walk
among seagulls like chickens
which stumble – they break
in my wake and return to their
pawing at garbage. these days
I could wipe clean a blackboard
of phrases. could look at the chalk
on the duster and bang it
away. a streetsweeper pauses;
he nods and I cross out ahead
of him. go over the street
with the sun in my profile.
over the river—walk south
like I've somewhere to be.
MAKING SCONES
we used to do it often
on days there was nothing
else. making scones; my mam
knew—in hindsight maybe
the only thing she really
did with baking. what
matter that? she could do it
and I learned from her.
squat shapes were stuck
with raisins, rose
like mushrooms on
the pan. I learned to knead
and play about
like LEGO—learned
how fine ambitions
could easily lose shape.
and we did it together
afternoons—sculpting mush
and levelling. then I'd forget—
go outside or something—and later
dad would get home. I remember jam
and sticky pride
and hunger—
recalling
after dinner and
suggesting we have
some cakes.
REASSURANCE
a video call
client conference,
early on, weeks
into covid,
and everyone
(remember that?)
somewhat
more casual,
dressed out of bed
with their hair bad,
their faces unshaven,
unwashed. I look
into bedrooms
and kitchen home
offices, people in clothes
they wear daily.
not one single one
of these men
(who might fire me)
looks like he’s never
eaten soup
without spilling it.
AN INTELLIGENT MAN AND A DAMN FINE PIANO
being told, on the other hand,
that I'm only a bully
because sometimes I write
someone's name in the poems,
in a sometimes
unflattering light.
and we're both rather drunk
on this Saturday evening,
and he tells me
he doesn't really
like reading my poems—
I know that, I do,
but I still like his (he doesn't
even write them). and I only write bad things
about people who I judge can take it,
and refuse to let respect
cloud myself putting them out.
Jack. you're one
of my closest friends, an intelligent man
and a damn fine
piano player.
this wouldn't look as good
with your name crossed out.
it means something, that word
which I use
to mean. the reason
I write swallow
is I mean to say
swallow;
I’ll write seagull
when I mean
something else.
A BACKDROP OF LANDSCAPE
pulling through mountains
in Leitrim—stubbed peaks—
majestic as unsharpened
betting shop pencils,
though the landscapes they draw
are still good. we stop at a spot
near to some holy well
and just past the turbines
where the road falls to view
of a green-shadowed landscape
like a window blind
suddenly opening. Loch Allen
below us, some fields and a wood
and the white paint-flake scratch
of a village. you take a few photos
of me with a backdrop of landscape—
they come out and look good
and I take some of you; you really
don't like them. it’s not
just the countryside—my framing's
way off, and the angle
I made of your jawline. the curse
of the amateur cameraman—
to think the photos
you're taking are going to be good
because they're of someone
you love more than any green country.