DS 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).
Machinery moves.
lowering their winches,
cranes toil
and hoist skyward. the city
ticks taller, as mountain
and glacier-
spun time. from the top of this hill
and across the horizon
machinery moves
in a restful
slow motion,
swinging its balance
like the fat backs of spiders,
tucking untidiness
to the corners
of maps.
Daydrinking
it’s good – drinking wine
on these hot afternoons
on these days when we have
to be nowhere. we sit on the porch
at our second-hand table
and watch people walking
and coming from markets;
pushing strollers and pulling
at dogs. we get up and make
toast; bring it out with some ham,
old roast chicken and freshly
cooled bottles. occasionally
come out with coffee
or tonic on ice. white wine
all summer like snowmelt
from alleys; as yellow as suns
through the rise of the smoke
from that factory over the river.
as yellow as corn and as rippling
in pour as a field of it flowing to breezes.
you lean back, exhale, pull
at ivy which clings to our brickwork.
I look at your neck in the arc
of its stretching, like a cat standing up
on the back of a torn-apart couch.
Him.
it’s not that I’m an atheist
really – just don’t
want Him coming
to my wedding.
for christ sake –
it’s important to me
but that’s not the same
as Important –
not in the way
of a famine, of floods
running streets. He’s got better
to do (given grand schemes
and everything). if He’s real
then I shouldn’t take
his time. and if people maybe
stopped inviting Him
so often to weddings
then maybe He’d
stop making sunsets
so wonderful for them.
stop making birdsong
and mountains and rainbows
and other tacky garbage
for people to admire.
prevent some disease
and stop killing the innocent;
let’s get Him less lyrical.
put Him to work.
Maj 7th
we are in the back of this bar
up in phibsborough centre,
near the bohemian grounds.
he is back for a wedding –
we are getting a drink
and waiting for friends
to come meet us.
he talks about life now
as it happens near
amsterdam – has been studying
law there a year. talks about girls
and then tells me my scar’s
looking well – I must have
my own stories. I touch it – my finger
runs fishhook to eyebrow. feels folds
in the skin where the stitching
made crumples and seam. it’s true –
I look dashing when light
falls at angles. my eyes arch
and spiral, as if to a maj
7th chord. he rolls up
a cigarette, licks paper,
lights up and hands it to me
when I ask. it’s a light beerish saturday
evening in dublin. there’s a stretch
to the weather and clothes
have been drying on lines.
25 feet
my balcony faces a bicycle shop.
people come by with bicycles – men
pick them up, twist their spanners,
test tensiles, pump wheels.
hand cash out for bicycles,
trade like hard cattlemen. a ten
year old girl sits on top of a white/pink
and spun apart engine. kicks forward
and rolls up the pavement
quite slowly and wobbling for 25 feet.
behind her, her father stands
next to the salesman. they watch
as she goes and comes back.