{"id":12762,"date":"2019-09-05T09:32:10","date_gmt":"2019-09-05T07:32:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/egophobia.ro\/?p=12762"},"modified":"2019-09-13T09:35:34","modified_gmt":"2019-09-13T07:35:34","slug":"poems-by-ds-maolalai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/?p=12762","title":{"rendered":"poems by DS Maolalai"},"content":{"rendered":"

Our industrial roots<\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

we come<\/p>\n

from two lines<\/p>\n

of long-feuding families<\/p>\n

and I hope<\/p>\n

we don’t end up<\/p>\n

ending up<\/p>\n

the same way.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

it seems like<\/p>\n

every generation of ours<\/p>\n

has some minor squabble<\/p>\n

over god know what;<\/p>\n

land<\/p>\n

or parentage<\/p>\n

or just plain blood<\/p>\n

mentality. our mothers side<\/p>\n

I guess<\/p>\n

can be all too easily<\/p>\n

forgiven. they’re from<\/p>\n

West Cork<\/p>\n

after all.<\/p>\n

and pointless feuds<\/p>\n

a growth industry.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

but<\/p>\n

god knows what Seo’s side did<\/p>\n

to get so deep into this<\/p>\n

petty shit. I’m not talking Sile.<\/p>\n

she’s crazy, sure<\/p>\n

but no-one<\/p>\n

doesn’t love her.<\/p>\n

or I do, anyway. their cousins though –<\/p>\n

god know what happened there. mad piano playing<\/p>\n

and tinderbox feuds in shyness<\/p>\n

that never start properly<\/p>\n

until they never get resolved<\/p>\n

and people don’t get invited to weddings<\/p>\n

and only then realise<\/p>\n

they’re in a fight.<\/p>\n

what were they thinking?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

look, Roisin, Donal,<\/p>\n

I can’t promise<\/p>\n

that we’ll never<\/p>\n

hate each other<\/p>\n

or tear ring off the fingers<\/p>\n

looking for diamonds<\/p>\n

in dead parents’ clay.<\/p>\n

I can only promise<\/p>\n

that if we ever end up<\/p>\n

fighting<\/p>\n

I’ll make sure that we both know it<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

and until that happens<\/p>\n

as in, right now while I write this,<\/p>\n

I love you both<\/p>\n

and don’t care for money<\/p>\n

more than you<\/p>\n

and I can’t imagine<\/p>\n

right now<\/p>\n

anything happening<\/p>\n

that would change that.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A person in blue.<\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

art,<\/p>\n

sequenced and clipped<\/p>\n

ran down his arms<\/p>\n

like frightened spiders.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

and I sold this one for 50 dollars.<\/em><\/p>\n

well, technically I sold it<\/em><\/p>\n

but the guy never came to pick it up<\/em><\/p>\n

nor give me the money.<\/em><\/p>\n

this one, it’s a little busy,<\/em><\/p>\n

nobody else seems to want it;<\/em><\/p>\n

I might scrape it up and start over on the canvas.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

he said he’d taught himself perspective<\/p>\n

by painting down sidestreets,<\/p>\n

watching trash and bad graffiti<\/p>\n

vanish to a point<\/p>\n

and burst outward.<\/p>\n

said that abstract art<\/p>\n

was finally dying<\/p>\n

thank god<\/p>\n

and representative art was making a go again.<\/p>\n

he said when he painted a person in blue<\/p>\n

that was representative art<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

because blue was the exact colour I mean,<\/em><\/p>\n

believe me.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I said when I called something a swan<\/p>\n

I did it for the same reason – each word is the word<\/p>\n

and the art is the order<\/p>\n

and the image is the image<\/p>\n

like the spider legs<\/p>\n

of his splayed paintbrushes.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

you paint with light,<\/em> I said, I try with a keyboard<\/em>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

god, I was a prick. we both<\/p>\n

were. but swans<\/p>\n

do move like swans<\/p>\n

and a person in blue,<\/p>\n

images like magnificent ships in evening.<\/p>\n

all verb, no adjective<\/p>\n

doing things.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The anchorite.<\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

he lay in bed<\/p>\n

with the doors locked<\/p>\n

indoors once<\/p>\n

for 3 weeks at a time<\/p>\n

until even the walls<\/p>\n

were talking. yellow<\/p>\n

paint<\/p>\n

sprayed out like smoke,<\/p>\n

and roses<\/p>\n

in the wallpaper<\/p>\n

above the toilet<\/p>\n

twisted chains<\/p>\n

against his neck.<\/p>\n

he’d been allowed<\/p>\n

to work from home<\/p>\n

a while<\/p>\n

in the expected<\/p>\n

bad weather,<\/p>\n

but none could have predicted<\/p>\n

that the storm was due to stand.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

3 weeks<\/p>\n

they were snowed in<\/p>\n

until his carpet was kicking<\/p>\n

like a bull at a lion<\/p>\n

and the window<\/p>\n

cracked cold jokes around him<\/p>\n

and laughter<\/p>\n

at the owlishness<\/p>\n

of the coffeepot.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

when he eventually<\/p>\n

got out<\/p>\n

he was clean shaved<\/p>\n

for the first time;<\/p>\n

blinking and pale<\/p>\n

as an eyeless fish.<\/p>\n

like a boat on a river<\/p>\n

he had expected<\/p>\n

the world would travel;<\/p>\n

it was a shock<\/p>\n

when the stores<\/p>\n

were still there<\/p>\n

in brisk business<\/p>\n

and the bus-stop.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

worst<\/p>\n

was how loud his voice felt<\/p>\n

and how<\/p>\n

it seemed to echo<\/p>\n

when he asked for a cup of tea<\/p>\n

and fumbled<\/p>\n

with his change.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Our industrial roots   we come from two lines of long-feuding families and I hope we don’t end up ending up the same way.   it seems like every generation of ours has some minor squabble over god know what; land or parentage or just plain blood mentality. our mothers side I guess can be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1394,77],"tags":[1404,1395,1123],"class_list":["post-12762","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-egophobia-59-60","category-english","tag-ds-maolalai","tag-egophobia-59-60","tag-english"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6DakB-3jQ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12762","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12762"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12762\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12763,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12762\/revisions\/12763"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}