Bubbles
music, just bubbles
in silence. some concerto,
wild opera, then later
vaudeville theatre, then later
rock and roll
and rap and country, singer-
songwriters, mixed music, the creased
avant-garde. all of it: a river
flowing backward. influence just
a variety of stones. I love that bit
in beethoven
when cannons fire
suddenly, and rhapsody
in blue, shooting all lightbulbs
out. love all
modern music;
rap best – if it must
have words, make it
have a lot of them. make
words go to music –
air gets everywhere!
in mountain streams
bubbles! in a lake
there are bubbles!
The tease
he was quite drunk. we
both were, on the bus upper deck
an hour after bar-close,
going toward golders green
through hampstead from camden.
and we’d talked,
though I don’t know
what about. drinking. and anyway,
he’d invited me
to his place for a drink
and now we were there, sat
in an untidy apartment
with a warm can apiece
and this terrible gulf. I’d realised
only when he opened the door
what I’d done to him – I’m not gay,
after all, but I’m not
a tease either –
and he was on the bed now
with the space there
beside him. listen, I said,
I’ve got to get going. I’m pretty drunk,
it’s late, and I think
we’ve misjudged things.
you can finish the beer
if you want, or I’ll take it?
he understood – honestly
must have been really
a very good man. it
was late, as I’d said, and I guess
that he’d gotten me. let me
take the beer
for the walk even. hugged me
when I went to the door.
and I was smaller than him,
and there were dumbbells
in the corner. could have
crushed me. I was 22, loved
the girls, and of course didn’t learn
any lessons, though the lesson was obvious
and I wasn’t a fool.
Biography
DS Maolalai has been nominated eight times for Best of the Net and five times for the Pushcart Prize. His poetry has been released in two collections, “Love is Breaking Plates in the Garden” (Encircle Press, 2016) and “Sad Havoc Among the Birds” (Turas Press, 2019)