New Poetry by DS Maolalai

How to be funny 

- for Michelle 

I can't help it – I say things 

that are needlessly, 

thoughtlessly cruel. I'm sometimes 

a snob, and I sometimes think how  

to be funny is by telling people  

they aren't clever  

in ways they won't notice, 

or not right away. in work  

there's this girl – we get on 

but I talk her down often, 

as if we weren't exactly  

the same sort of fool – both  

answering emails and phones 

to be snarled at by strangers eight 

hours each day. but she gets in a bother  

(she cares about people) 

and I can't help then  

but laugh, because I do  

less often than she. a poem like this 

will end generally  

with a pat little metaphor.  

I need more of an instinct 

for how to be kind.

- © DS Maolalai 2022

DS Maolalai has received eleven nominations for Best of the Net and seven for the Pushcart Prize. His poetry has been 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)