Donal Mahoney Poems

If The Donald gets his way
Lupe will no longer
clean toilets in America
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Why not go over and see Aunt Maude.
She was told yesterday she’s dying
of cancer, and drop in her afghan
...

1) 'I am the Lord your God you shall not have strange Gods before me' (Ex 20: 2-6, Deut 5: 6-10)
- except for power and money, of course, and as much pomp as you can afford.

2) 'You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain' (Ex 20: 7-8, Deut 5: 11-12)
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A poor man comes to the door
after the storm last winter and

asks if he can have something
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A drunk on the subway
tells another drunk something
a bartender told him.
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They never held hands
when they were a couple
young and newly married
as much in love as they were
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They've been here for years
two blue jays who live in our yard
year round.
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During the day
there might be three cars
parked at different places
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No, Freddie can't say he mourned when his father died and his father's third wife found Freddie's number and gave him a call to give him the news. His father had been responsible, worked hard, saved his money, put Freddie and his brothers through college but when his mother died and all the boys had grown up and left home, his father disappeared. No forwarding address. After awhile Freddie didn't think that much about him. So he was surprised when this widow he didn't know called and told him his father had been hit by a truck that ran up on a sidewalk and flattened him. Declared dead at the hospital.

Freddie didn't mourn his mother either when she had died although he had spent two years taking her to the best doctors hoping one of them would save her from cancer, not realizing that back in those years there was nothing doctors could do for a cancer so severe and caught so late, certainly not the big-time surgeon who said that he could. He was number one at a teaching hospital and wanted to fatten his mother up so he could operate on her again so all the residents and interns could watch and learn from him as he attempted to do the impossible.
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