DS MAOLALAI - POEMS

DS Maolalai has been nominated four times for Best of the Net and three times for the Pushcart Prize. 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)

I read books
​

​by myself
on the sofa. in the kitchen
she makes dinner
for us both. noodles roll her pan
like letters
bound in cursive. make sentences
she doesn't bother to read. adds pepper
instead, and sliced carrots. adds spices,
sausages
and examines
her new
combinations.
I'm forbidden
from entering
her kitchen;
struggling
to get through a paragraph.
she turns pages
and serves them
with bread.

The wine shop.
​

​we worked
standing still
for 6 hours at a time
and made a new cup of tea once
each 15 minutes. it was monotonous, tiring work,
though very easy -
we stacked up shelves
and took money for winebottles,
waiting each night for the 9pm rush,
continuing our conversations as we counted the check-out
while various people
paid us and left.
 
the backlight of the shelves
hung livid
in contrast against the sunset,
white against red
and brilliant soft yellow, curling
as it came out and landed,
moving through brown whiskey bottles,
through blue and green gin bottles,
and bottles of off-white
white wine.
 
 

On average
​

​like finally eating a jar of olives
which has stood in your cupboard for months,
calling a friend
and suggesting
that after work
you should maybe get a beer together.
 
the trouble with my friends
is we don't talk
while we’re sober - hell
on any average
we barely talk while drunk.
mostly
when I'm drunk
I'm at home
and writing poems -
why is it
that outside
I get paralysed for things to say.
 
like stepping off a platform
onto the rail tracks - too final.
drunk and passionate
with friends present
and no chance
for revision.
 
 

Some farmer in spare time.
​

​driving
or being driven
toward leitrim,
and newtownforbes somehow
still stands as a landmark,
though the last time we really visited
must have been 2002.
we used to get sandwiches
and coffee
in this one little shop - the village tea room -
they also sold paintings. I was a child;
I liked it
because there were danish pastries
and wooden toys, carved
by some farmer
in spare time between fieldwork. these towns,
everywhere
made of concrete and wet metal,
where people live
80 years
and don't go anywhere. like mold
on tiles in a bathroom, or a japanese
fighting fish
in a glass on a high
kitchen shelf.
 

Ghosts.
​

​this evening
is a quiet evening.
in the garden, the dog
is barking at ghosts.
 
I go outside,
look at what
she's looking at. it's nothing;
a tree
with nothing in it. the dog
is old
and somewhat deaf;
she jumps
when I touch her back. together
we stand
and watch the tree. leaves move
and perhaps
something else does.