2 poems
by DS Maolalai
a gleam of january
the breeze has a bit
of ground glass-
dust thrown up in it.
that gleam of november
and january. catching the light
and cutting your lungs up
when you breathe it in deep
while you stand
on the balcony,
watching the sun
as it melts like a candle
and flattens against
the horizon, behind
chapolizod. november
and january vary a little –
their colour, their quality
of light. and it's january
now, which is better
in ways – air burns
like bummed cigarettes,
borrowed on a patio
outside of a quiet-night bar. you cup
up your hands and you huff
on your fingers; the evening
a piano to be played. below, traffic goes –
going home, going out
toward the city. the headlights
all on and all beckoning
that you should follow. the 9pm series
of breadcrumbs and pieces
of beerbottle, holding the light
with the tips of its fingers,
hanging it up like a coat.
walls and fall backward
the mind climbs steel downpipes
and up toward the gutters;
hopperheads perching,
surveying their corners like cats –
blackly shadowed and
lesser black skylines,
a point and a point of sharp
view. my mind touches raindrop-
wet, never-dry brickwork.
it fingers to water-stained
white painted walls, making grey
maps of countrysides,
pictures of human anatomy.
the mind feels the walls
of each sliced apart house:
every kitchenette, single
bed, windowless shower
room. sometimes, I think,
I could live in these moments;
could sit on these walls
and fall backward. and a yard
full of people putting smokes
out in flowerpots. and moss
on the ground, and a bicycle
somebody left. the comfort of rocks
being dropped into place
by a river. there are slimes –
types of algae – which grow in such places.
if you put them in sunlight they die.
DS Maolalai 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.
