Three Poems by D.S. Maolalai
Four young men
(eastern european or german)
are walking up the quays
from the hostels and into
the town. they are drunk –
this is wonderful, seeing young drunks
walk at midnight. one smokes
a cigarette casually. one (drunker)
burns one he's bummed. his walk
is so careful – he'll be the first
one unconscious. I'm on my balcony
smoking as well, ashing off. I can see
all their futures as god would – spilled pints by the bins
in the alleyways spilling of george st.
there are times when you talk
with your friends and there's times
when you drink with them.
the buildings each side
of the river fall down to their yells.
The slug.
you don't look too close, but you do
and then sometimes
they're beautiful. or some are. or this one.
magnificent brindle – browns and red-
black in a tortoise shell. and movement – one long bicep:
flex and extend. here we are four floors
from pavement and traffic. I don't know how he came
but he's here. and I don't know the size
that's a sin to kill an animal, but also
that is what he is. as long as a cock on the red brick,
as flacid and curling. I call my wife to marvel –
she's disgusted instead. the plants on the balcony
have lived here three years. once you have them
you have them forever. I let her go in
and then thumb him to a flower pot - tap on the side
of the balcony. the cafe has an awning – he'll live.
the last place had mice sometimes. every trap
made the dog bark. that was alright –
it didn't feel like doing it. I don't know if he knew
he was high off the ground.
I suppose that the sky looked the same.
A true bachelor
a rough L-shape; each room
for ten years or more. a bed
in one corner. a cooker
or sometimes just a microwave.
and cut from each room
was a bathroom – a shower
and toilet and sink. in toronto
the sink in the shower. in london
in the room and in dublin
two sinks – in the bathroom
and one for a kitchenette: luxury!
usually damp and a window
framed not very much.
dust in the lampshades
in the pattern of fruitflies on apples.
I've been a true bachelor. found furniture wild,
like a man in the country
stomping train-trails with buckets of blackberries.
my uncle lived in a house in clonakilty
and occasionally found bottles
of poitin when cutting the hedgerows.
I found old coat-hangers. lighters under
the bed. girls didn't like it
but I did. it's best to live places
where you want to go outside every day.
DS Maolalai's is work has been nominated 12 times for BotN, 10 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)