Five Poems by DS Maolalai (Diarmuid ó Maolalaí)

 

Trying at haiku

 

 

cars: rows of the glow 

in dark rosary  

bead on the quays. the window; 

reflections on the ceiling. 

I am lying on the sofa with a beer.

 

 

I can't stop comparing things to birds

 

 

I will still write you poems  

when my mind's gone  

to absolute 

plastic bag hamburger 

meat. I'm sure you'll 

be sick of them. I think 

you might already be. in paris 

ten years ago 

my skull struck a jazz drum 

drunk on the montmartre stairwell.  

so what if my mind  

has arrived at delayed  

fall apart? chrysty: I can't 

stop comparing things to birds. 

even blowjobs are soft 

as a sparrow. you are a bird: 

I'm a summer you've migrated  

over. I don't think I'd blame you 

to fly away now 

before I get worse 

than I am. I hope that you don't 

but I will understand. and it won't 

stop the poems 

but will change them.

 

 

Position ridiculous

 

 

she is bent over forwards  

in a yoga position. I insert 

it behind. rise and look down  

and see, for a moment, 

a much bigger penis 

with her head on the end; her ass 

and her hips as the balls 

and her spine down the cockshaft.  

and sex makes me think  

in a series of these kinds  

of nonsenses. position 

ridiculous – the arching of tendon  

and bone like fork lightning  

struck. sweat on the skin 

in spots smooth as beetleshells 

and movement a chore and then suddenly 

sawblade through timber;  

the focused approach of the moment 

when something falls off –

 

 

A scarf-wearing overweight age

 

 

he admired my tan leather 

jacket. my height. the way 

I leaned into his lighter. 

I seem to be a magnet 

for gay men of a certain 

scarf-wearing overweight 

age. it's nature – one can't help 

their face in the light of a lighter.  

and I'm not homophobic, but I'm also 

not gay – and I say it when flirtation 

flares bright as a night's 

open doorway. beforehand it would be 

presumptuous, I think, and I'm anyway 

married – I don't hide my ring. 

 

we lean against walls 

in an alley off capel st – a view 

of the river if you look 

through the windows of nealons. brick 

sweats as men do in all 

kinds of temperatures. bricks 

light up brightly – show human 

skin texture in the shadow 

of saltish street lights.

 

 

A bit like tradition

 

 

his mother was just before  

christmas last. that was 2023. 

after the viewing a few of the gang  

got lunch at the tolka house pub. 

now it's his father, and he lives 

in their home. I don’t think he’s working –  

on some disability payment,  

which can't be enough on its own.  

they will probably sell – his sisters  

will want something out of it.  

the family doesn't get on I remember 

unless things have changed in ten years.  

they may have. I remember, 

 

when we visited, afterward 

last time, he looked small as a terrier, 

wiry and at home on the sofa, 

uncomfortable shaking our hands.  

we bullied him – the light kind 

of easy-going torment  

you meet upon people 

you know very well. I don't think he liked it. 

this weekend we'll go to the tolka 

again. it's a bit like tradition 

or it would be like one  

if tiarnan had more than two  

parents, the miserly hag. 

 

des went from pancreas cancer –  

the same thing as killed my last dog. 

I probably won't mention that  

when we go up there. will shake hands 

and talk about when we were  

15 or 20, about how I'm sorry 

and we should meet up, and not about  

where we're getting lunch.

 

DS Maolalai (Diarmuid ó Maolalaí) has been described by one editor as "a cosmopolitan poet" and another as "prolific, bordering on incontinent". His work has been nominated thirteen times for BOTN, ten for the Pushcart and once for the Forward Prize, and 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).