Crow-music

sweet birds sing softly
and crow-music crackles,
their dumb, unlettered cawing
which tears the air to pieces,
like pages from old notebooks
and my vaguely
versing words. on the far

northside end-point
of the malahide road
near darndale, the airport
and the M50
motorway, a bus
pushes traffic
like a dog
in a flowerpatch, and on dirty

wasteground patches
across from hotels
and busy crossroads
horses stomp restless
with their noses in nettlepatches.
their tails scrape
skinny counterpoints
on their xylophonic ribs.

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DS Maolalai has been nominated four times for Best of the Net and three 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).