A still life
in aodhains place. saturday;
chrysty’s away. I haven’t had that
much to do. we plan having wine
tonight. slices of cheese; some ham
and a fireplace. we’re pretending
we’re respectable. wonderful – aodhain
has turned off the lights. the room is a plum
on a dust-wooden table – a still life
in oil paint on the wall of a museum,
and we are still, we are talking
of things. in aodhain’s place the sofas
are really upholstered.
there’s carpets. the house
is a long empty body with bones.
and it’s old – gets mentioned
in the ulysses funeral chapter.
and he’s 31, still lives at home
the time being. still trying for work
at the colleges. I truly admire it – not to give up
on the thought that things might
be yet known, though he gigs on the side.
right now it’s the census, and he thinks
to me quietly that he might
buy a car with the money.
I did it too, once, and we talk some
about it – I didn’t make his
kind of cash. the sun sets quite late –
the clocks just went forward. but still
we stay later. when I go out it’s dark as a sofa.
Landscaping and maintenance staff
sun’s bright. I’m visiting sites today
instead of at my office computer.
I always do this – tell clients sunlit
is the best way to see buildings well.
weeds loiter up out of corners of footpaths
like men outside petrol stations smoking.
grass growing groans from each garden, each open
green common-held space. you bump into people.
talk to them and note their complaints
about the landscaping teams and the painting
and maintenance staff. occasionally
take a photo of a mattress standing
up next to communal bin stores.
take photos of bikes locked to fenceposts.
the team employs strong
and affordable men. there are some comments
made about workmanship. “why those flowers?”
“would they not have done the sills
when they were doing up the walls?”
I agree that the work could be better.
it could. but felipe and patryk and eddie
know tools and can take an instruction.
we don’t want them taking initiative
too. everything ages. it costs too much money
to stop. and we don’t have that money
so we do what we can when we can.
we note down complaints and get on with things.
A flame
my fridge is taking off. a powersurge –
it’s suddenly humming, or maybe it’s just
that I’m suddenly hearing the hum. sounds like an engine
warming up on a runway – outside
on a wing to your left. and I like to sit over
the wings when I sit on an airplane. to look at the flaps
as they flitter to steer and to picture a flame
like a flower through rocks. and today in the office a contractor
dropped over late christmas chocolates
and wine. we all had a party, then drove home around
4pm. and I hate to drive drunk, but I hate
to say no to a colleague, and the evening
was good. thank god for bad traffic
and brake-lights and thank god for luck.
though the wine was just terrible – warm as a broken
refrigerator. bitterly chardonnay and fruitily malbec
and grigio as weak as a whisper, ugly
from lunchtime-stained mugs.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
DS Maolalai 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)
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