{"id":8732,"date":"2023-08-12T17:43:50","date_gmt":"2023-08-12T23:43:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/?page_id=8732"},"modified":"2023-08-12T18:18:18","modified_gmt":"2023-08-13T00:18:18","slug":"two-poems","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/?page_id=8732","title":{"rendered":"Two Poems<\/strong>"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

DS Maolalai<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Quarterly building review<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

lightbulbs cracking
open like so many
oysters. a bin at a sea-
food buffet. if I were a teenager\u00a0
living here now, I suppose that I’d also
break buttons. the locks on the front\u00a0
doors don’t work and the fire
extinguishers have long become\u00a0
decorative, used up as tattoos
and as dangerous. inside the drywall,\u00a0
damp moves its hands\u00a0
like an octopus under a rock\u00a0
and the overhead seagulls
have made hell as well of the gutters
and are pulling out wiring.
the monocouche wrinkles
to sunburn, old leather and coke cans.\u00a0
I calculate budgets, make\u00a0
notes and take photographs.\u00a0
list various things we can’t do.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

A cube of the night<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

rain falls at angles
and lands on the windowpane\u00a0
in a series of sloping cat-
scratches. inside the extractor
fan hums and its light casts
a warmth across everything; pots\u00a0
boiling over and scorch marks and
everything else. my stove is a pattern
of overlapping circles; a map of the orbits\u00a0
of planets in burned soup and black.\u00a0
and my house is a cube\u00a0
of the night sectioned off
from the night by a thick growth\u00a0
of ivy and walls\u00a0
and a manfully struggling\u00a0
lightbulb. the world
is outside\u00a0
and it’s terrible.\u00a0
and in here it’s terrible\u00a0
too in a manageable way.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

DS MAOLALAI<\/strong>\u00a0has been described by one editor as “a cosmopolitan poet” and another as “prolific, bordering on incontinent”. His work has nominated eleven times for Best of the Net, eight for the Pushcart Prize and once for the Forward Prize, and has been released in three collections:\u00a0Love is Breaking Plates in the Garden\u00a0<\/em>(Encircle Press, 2016);\u00a0Sad Havoc Among the Birds<\/em>\u00a0(Turas Press, 2019); and\u00a0Noble Rot<\/em>\u00a0(Turas Press, 2022).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

DS Maolalai Quarterly building review lightbulbs crackingopen like so manyoysters. a bin at a sea-food buffet. if I were a teenager\u00a0living here now, I suppose that I’d alsobreak buttons. the locks on the front\u00a0doors don’t work and the fireextinguishers have … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":8726,"menu_order":6,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-8732","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P15duy-2gQ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/8732","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8732"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/8732\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8740,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/8732\/revisions\/8740"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/8726"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8732"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}