Five Poems by Diarmuid ó Maolalaí (DS Maolalai)

Drive dangerous; wear a seatbelt 

 

slaps crash like fast cars 

over country at night-time,  

and hard overtaking 

on blindspot-signed 

corners in cork. and we try  

very hard, but sometimes  

 

they happen when drinking,  

and after we neither 

apologise. it's not so important  

and nothing's been said 

 

that won't be forgiven 

eventually. love is secure,  

but the thing with security 

is it makes you  

take risks –  

drive dangerous; 

wear a seatbelt.  

smoke cigarettes, 

drink heavily and jog.  

 

Enjoying a cigarette 

 

standing by a wall: 

all brick, and the coolness 

of bar-shadowed alleys.  

smoking a cigarette.  

incredibly noir and good- 

looking. blowing up burn  

at the lights which burn 

also, but dimly, like it is  

their job. light like the texture 

of coins in gloved fingers. I remember 

this. loving it. being out 

for a moment. silence: the world 

in the bar and me out of it.  

walls with a waterstain –  

a broken-down gutter  

above me. black bricks: 

their dirt coloured 

shadow in moisture and moss 

like coaldust on palms, 

under fingernails. 

moist as the centre 

of rocks and of organs,  

though dry on the nights  

I'm remembering –  

roads parched as a salt- 

bacon sandwich. the bins 

smelling terribly. 

and cigarettes always.  

enjoying one – also  

a beer in my hand,  

held casually 

in calculated pose. 

the neck on the space  

between thumb 

and my forefinger. low 

like a sixgun. and  

cigarettes. one  

foot enbooted,  

cocked up on the wall.  

 

The clothes you used to wear 

 

don't get me wrong, 

you were a good fuck as well, 

limber as a hunting tom cat 

and warm as a long  

morning shower, 

but for some reason the thing 

that was best 

for me –  

the thing that would be the painting 

if I ever became a painter –  

was when you would first take off your coat; 

peeling it like fruit 

and revealing 

whatever it was  

you had chosen to wear that day. 

 

I think that, perhaps, 

was what I wanted to fuck; 

that's what made this the best part. 

the part of you that made those decisions, 

that chose between a black skintight turtleneck 

and a light 

denim-blue blouse, 

grey jeans 

on black pants. 

somehow that was what got me then 

and hell, the memory has got me now. 

 

if you were somehow to turn up again 

and ask me to lie down in a puddle for you  

you know I'd do it. 

you were sex, straight  

as a river. 

animals in headlights 

were not as stuck  

as me.

Writing poems 

 

it used to be easy  

like ripping off  

sticking plasters – perhaps 

I've got better. perhaps 

I have not.  

 

Lusty poetry 

 

girls on dutch bicycles –  

fit and so wonderful –  

looking like nothing  

but girls riding bikes.  

legs moving, bodies 

tied lines like roped flagpoles 

in skirts and in beautiful 

trousers – and this kind, of course,  

of overt lusty poetry  

now is not fashionable 

and, honestly, I don't 

much like doing it –  

but something’s 

there anyway; 

girls on their bikes 

which skim low  

like swallows 

and sparrows,  

fresh blackberry- 

ripe, and grown 

in a lay-by 

while you drive,  

going fast with the radio. 

 

Diarmuid ó Maolalaí (DS Maolalai) - is a graduate of English Literature from Trinity College in Dublin and recently returned there after four years abroad in the UK and Canada. He has been writing poetry and short fiction for the past five or six years with some success. His writing has appeared in such publications as 4'33', Strange Bounce and Bong is Bard, Down in the Dirt Magazine, Out of Ours, The Eunoia Review, Kerouac's Dog, More Said Than Done, Star Tips, Myths Magazine, Ariadne's Thread, The Belleville Park Pages, Killing the Angel and Unrorean Broadsheet.

He has been nominated nine times for Best of the Net and seven times for the Pushcart Prize. He has released two collections, "Love is Breaking Plates in the Garden" (Encircle Press, 2016) and "Sad Havoc Among the Birds" (Turas Press, 2019). His third collection, "Noble Rot" is scheduled for release in April 2022.