by DS Maolalai
one day I won’t
bring my guitar.
haven’t made music
more than ten years,
and I don’t miss
the making of it
either very much.
music doesn’t miss me:
I have never had the finger
to pull tunes from timber,
and singing I’m nothing
but unpoetic bad – lead-
flat and heavy,
like a man removing boxes
from the open back of a truck.
but still, it comes with me
when I find an apartment.
it stands in a corner
alongside a number
of plantpots –
gathers dust beautifully
without the vibration
of strings. an object to get
in the way of our furniture.
something to trip on
and carefully replace.
DS Maolalai has been described by one editor as “a cosmopolitan poet” and another as “prolific, bordering on incontinent”. His work has been nominated fourteen times for BOTN, eleven 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)