Not about being there
DS Maolalai (Atlantic Technical University, Ireland)
I think about airplanes
often. and ferries – seeing
land disappearing. think
about travel, I suppose
in a way – about going there, not
about being there. the long
yawn of roads between
cities and petrol station
coffee stops. places
which hang between places
as the knots in old wood
made by corners of wild-
grown trees. getting
a coffee and watching it cool
on the top of the car
while you piss by some siding.
feeling the radio struggling with stations
like a long conversation
when you’re getting blacked out
and keep thinking you should go
to the patio, try bumming
cigarettes, making new friends.
DS Maolalai has been described by one editor as “a cosmopolitan poet” and another as “prolific, bordering on incontinent”. His work has nominated eleven times for Best of the Net, eight for the Pushcart Prize and once for the Forward Prize, and has been 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).
