8/17/21

New | Poetry | DS Maolalai

Artwork via Wikimedia commons

 

Birds about

 

I'm so sick

of these novels,

all these short stories,

this poetry. so sick

of working

office-work;

marking spreadsheets,

tracking time. sick

of getting up

and getting up

early – 7am shower,

cup of coffee,

take the dog out

to piss. sick of movies

and especially

of books made

into movies. of music,

potted houseplants,

hospitals,

fear of death. so sick

of driving home

and getting home,

sick of the dinners

you make me

because you're frankly

the much better

cook. there's

birds about,

scratching beautifully

in the yard outside

my window. I'm heartily sick

of their sounds.

 


 

Catching frogs

 

the sun reaches down

under earth's deep

moist surface,

 

grabbing the shoulders

of flowers to pull

 

upward

with the violence

of clumsy

young children

 

snatching at frogs

under muck. 

 


 

Fallon's rough

 

jetlagged, sagging, I disembark

in Paris, dragging my bag

past conveyor to check-out,

where my passport from Ireland

will get me quickly through. on a train

into the city, knowing Fallon's

rough directions. knowing roughly

where the flat is, roughly where

to meet my friends.

I walk the road, pulling

a suitcase, wearing jeans, a hat

and white linen. I look fantastic,

frankly, and the girls

look quite pretty to me;

the men unshaven,

unshowered, artistic, and very

Parisean. everyone drinking

outside cafes. everyone smoking.

and my friends are there too,

stretching like long four

o'clocks – an afternoon beer

by a stack of locked bicycles. trees

on the shade of their t-shirts

and of various dirty

umbrellas.

 

 


Forgive me, I can't be general

 

forgive me,

I can't be general – what I write

are specific poems

and sometimes with names

of my friends.

 

I am not a painter

or any sort

of musician, not even

a dispassionate

reporter; at best

 

a diarist, placing days

on pieces of paper

for the benefit, I hope,

of someone else.

 

A visual artist

 

Guillarmo comes by

and again to just drop

off some boxes

on the way to the studio

set up with a friend. and bea

has told him, since he's got

somewhere permanent,

he can move from their flat

all his paintings, his books

and his boxes of photos.

 

he shows us a series

of portraits he's doing –

a neighbour leaning over

his hot oven stove. intrusive,

I guess, though there's

something to voyeurism.

and the face is just a steam

on the window. he's flattered,

and we've framed up

some pictures he's taken.

shows us his plans

for another art

book. it's good

 

and I tell him so: I like

that he's talented

and that he's a visual

artist – it's good for material

to have friends like these

and no danger to me

or my poems.

 

DS Maolalai is a maintenance dispatcher working in Dublin. His poetry has been released in two collections, "Love is Breaking Plates in the Garden" (Encircle Press, 2016) and "Sad Havoc Among the Birds" (Turas Press, 2019)

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