This Mick on the Next Stool
So this Mick on the next stool,
who's as serious as Yeats
but looks like Wilde,
stares at me,
with eyes crossed,
sipping Guinness through the foam.
Finally he burps and says,
'I'll bet that growth is cystic.
If it were on my nose,
I'd light this match,
hold a straight pin over it,
then prick it.
Poof! There'd be
a belch of goat cheese, sure.
But what of it?
You'd need a Q-Tip,
maybe a dropp of p'roxide.
But in two weeks
new skin would bloom
smoother than a baby's bum.
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poem by Donal Mahoney
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Old Romeo Puts His Bible Down
Almost toothless now,
old Romeo puts his Bible down,
relaxes in his rocker,
pours brandy in his snifter
and scribbles in his ledger
memories of Mary,
dead some 40 years now.
When Romeo was young
and dark and dashing, Mary
was the perfect foil.
He can see her dancing
and hear her laugh, a note
no mockingbird would try.
He tells his chauffeur,
'Bring the car around.
I need to buy a diving board
for the swimming pool.
The doctor says I'm terminal.
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poem by Donal Mahoney
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Cleats
The way I walk these days the tips
of my soles and the edge of my heels
wear out too fast for a man with children.
So I tell Rocco, cobbler nonpareil,
'Tack on four steel cleats,
two in front, two in back'
so I can walk home between
two full shopping bags
and whatever pride I can summon.
All four blocks of concrete,
I'll keep those cleats from clicking.
Decades ago I wore cleats
as big as doubloons;
I struck them so hard sparks
flew from the sidewalk.
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poem by Donal Mahoney
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Apples
One thing
we all have
in common is
we're ripening
for the harvest.
Donald Trump
and Pee-wee Herman,
Bill Gates
and Eliot Spitzer,
Warren Buffett
and Anthony Weiner
are different
in many respects
but like the rest of us,
they, too, are ripening
for the harvest.
They hang with us
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poem by Donal Mahoney
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Beulah Needs Another Man
Beulah needs another man who'll take
the garbage out at dawn and not
bring it back again at midnight, something
Jasper's done many nights for years.
Beulah knows when Jasper's found
another woman but she never says a word
because Jasper always mows the lawn
and rakes the leaves and fixes
things around the house unlike
Homer who was never handy.
But yesterday the doctor said Jasper has
six months to live so Beulah wants to meet
another handy man at Jasper's wake.
She met Jasper at a wake the day
he dropped the lid on Homer's coffin.
poem by Donal Mahoney
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Jabberwocky Redux
After reading too much Aquinas
Would an aphid reside in an onager's ear
if the onager's master spoke Twi?
Or a Gascony scop with a leper elope
if a civet leapt out of a tree?
You doubt it? Read Thomas and see.
Would an addax in Denmark gyrate
if an emu in Sweden bore freight?
Or an eland in Chile complain
if jerboas in Goa refrain?
You doubt it? Read Thomas and see.
For really I thought ‘twas the onager taught
the aphid the tenor of Twi, and that
Gascony scops with Norwegians eloped
when Danes had lepers to tea.
You doubt it? Read Thomas and see.
poem by Donal Mahoney
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The Honey Room
Brother Al, in his hood,
is out in his field
making love to his bees.
From my room I can see him
move through his hives
the way people should move
among people.
The bees give him gold and the gold
turns orange in the jars
that he sells in a room
near the door of the abbey.
The Honey Room, everyone calls it.
Besides Brother Al, only I
go into that room full of honey.
I go in there and bend
and look through the jars
on the shelves and the sills
till there in the orange I see Sue
standing straight
in a field of her own
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poem by Donal Mahoney
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Boysenberry Eyes Awhirl
A Caseworker's Nightmare
In a corner of the room
scribbles of loose yarn soar,
interweave and dive
like coasters at a carnival.
At dusk rats slither from the drain
and barrel through the room
stirring atom puffs of dust
beneath the paper sprung
tongue out from each wall.
Tails wound tight, the rats
skate their figure eights
between the table legs and swirl.
They pause to supper on salami bits,
gherkin nodes, crusts of ancient bread.
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poem by Donal Mahoney
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The Old Padre and the Tarpon
with apologies to Hemingway
Beyond the frippery and folderol
of bishops and the like,
Father Murphy's on vacation
with just a week to cast
for bigger fish than pike.
And so he sails the peaceful bay
casting every kind of bait,
praying that a tarpon
suddenly will strike.
Hook the big one, Father claims,
and it will thrash around
as if Satan were a submarine
cruising in its wake.
A fish that big, claims Father,
is always worth the wait
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poem by Donal Mahoney
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Satin and Grace
Here in Chicago I sit
in the sun of an Indian Summer
high on the Water Tower waiting,
chapped hands in a visor
over my eyes, hoping I see
you in that gown,
all satin and grace,
float like a feather
back to Chicago.
I don't care if you stop
by Confederate streams
to pick phallic rocks
on the way from Savannah
so long as you rise,
release all your hair,
take to the air
and float like a feather
on to Chicago
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poem by Donal Mahoney
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