Donal Mahoney Poems

The teacher tells the third grade
the order of the seasons
cannot be changed.
...

Hair salons for men
are everywhere now.
Not many barbershops
like Herman’s any more,
...

Bangladesh is a land of money for clothing firms that pay very low wages to workers in 400 garment factories near the capital of Dhaka.

Consumers in Western nations benefit from low retail prices for items of clothing these low wages produce.
...

Olé! Olé!
shouts El Chapo,
prison escapee
...

Waiting in his Cadillac, silver gray,
Dr. Oates swerves his lighter

to his green panatela.
...

It’s bad news, I admit,
having these great seats
for a big game like this
...

The old guy on the next stool is half drunk and I’m not but he had walked into this lounge in Manhattan many hours before me. As soon as I sat down and opened my iPad, he started talking, long before and long after I had been served my first drink.

'I have been alive a long time, young man, ” he said, 'and I have spent much of that time watching politics. It started after I had to pull my red wagon home from the grocery store in the Forties during World War II. It was my task as a kid to bring home the groceries with my mother. She would use ration stamps to buy oleomargarine, as it was called then, instead of butter. A can of Spam or Prem, sliced and fried, would often be the entrée for dinner. Couldn’t tell the difference between the two. Still like Spam. Don’t know if they make Prem anymore.
...

Find the book
and blow
the dust off.
...

Bill Gelz hadn’t seen his old high school classmate, Tom Pierpoint, in years. After taking a degree in mechanical engineering, Tom had moved to Detroit to work for one of the large automakers. He hadn’t been back in town for a decade at least although his mother, a widow, still lived up on the hill behind the grammar school that Bill and Tom had both attended a long time ago.

But that was Tom, Bill was sure of that, on this sunny Saturday morning, wandering around the Farmer’s Market, carefully picking out some fruits and vegetables. Bill was happy to see him. Both had been Eagles Scouts together.
...

“We had the other ones done there, ” says Tammy.
'Why not go there again? Everything went well.
No complications. Who cares about the publicity?
Bunch of do-gooders with hidden cameras.”
...