Donal Mahoney Poems

After reading too much Aquinas

Would an aphid reside in an onager's ear
if the onager's master spoke Twi?
...

Bernie the Con Man swears
he's on the straight and narrow

but he scoots when he walks,
...

Housing Project, Chicago

Where I am now
there are no leas, no
...

Here in Chicago I sit
in the sun of an Indian Summer
high on the Water Tower waiting,
chapped hands in a visor
...

As I've told my wife too many times,
the meaning of any poem hides
in the marriage of cadence and sound.
...

Where will the lovely lady go
on her diurnal walk?
One child in 30 years she bore,
now they do not talk.
...

They seem to be everywhere now,
women who walk like men.
With hair cropped in a paint brush,
bullets for eyes and knives for noses,
...

I sit on the Water Tower waiting
chapped hands in a visor over my eyes
looking toward Durham
...

This beautiful mule
of a woman
old and balky
squatting on
...

Father spoke in code
Mother understood.
She would cry
once he went to bed.
...