all day the thoughts came.
it was like being pecked at
by birds. in the office
in the baldonnell business
park. on the road into dublin.
he hadn’t smoked anything
for ages. hadn’t had beer
and had mainly been eating
a vegetable broth which he made
to save the hassle of cooking.
that night he’d slept badly.
his wife was away. the afternoon
had threatened rain for hours
without ever raining. would it be better
to just rotate the wheel
into traffic? to lay your eyes shut
and kick down?
Poem by DS Maolalai
Image by Adam Strong
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)
Backwards Trajectory 