|
Click title to download PDF microchap
Cover art:
Starry Night Over River Liffey
by Lauri Burke
•
|
Even Dublin has one
the colour this evening
is thick as oil
paintings, not that
that really
makes a thing
to recommend.
and I once had a girlfriend
who bragged
that she'd touched
a picasso, as if he didn't
leave canvases
crumpled like over-
used tissues –
even dublin has one
and toronto had several
and I wished I could paint
to impress her,
and tried like picasso –
in those blocks
of flat colour
which lean from the wall
like something which might just
fall over. and these flowers
in the memorial garden
near to the brewery in autumn –
they make such bright
colours, in such
jagged blocks,
it's picasso.
and I left that old girlfriend
and came back to dublin.
and I couldn't
paint there
and I didn't
paint here.
•
The Amateur Aberdeen Writers Club
sitting in
for an evening
with the aberdeen
writers club,
in a bar
staying empty
until people
play darts. listening
to poems
and wondering who's
fucking which
of these sensitive
teenagers,
as words
become smoothed
to neuter
and granite
like statues
in persistent
rain.
|
Drinking a lemsip
drinking a lemsip
on this fine
sunday morning, because it's all
that I can find
with paracetamol. flavouring it
with honey
and a small splash
of whiskey – I won't
catch a cold
and may have
a good time. last night
was a good time of course,
without question,
but this morning? ha!
the day lays its plans
like a disciplined
firing squad. the sun
through its window
like a bird
at my neck.
•
The dog snores
because of inbreeding,
I guess. a skinny thing –
a king charles
spaniel – my girlfriend's preference. honestly,
I’d have preferred
some sort of mongrel; my first
was called pluto,
after the cartoon, and a kind of sheepdog/greyhound/
springer mutt. he lived to 16,
as lazy as I was. fantastic. such wild
colours. but I must admit,
she’s grown on me – even if sometimes
she snores too loudly
and can't breathe
quite right. and she's stroppy –
my girlfriend spoils her, and expects the same
of me. but love comes
all sorts of ways
and one way
easier than the others;
it's nice
after so many empty
studio apartments
to come home
and feel welcome
knocking down walls.
•
DS Maolalai © 2020
|
