Donal Mahoney Poems

At newspapers in the Sixties
typewriters reigned and rang.
Computers were a fantasy.
...

Tim was long dead
but Opal had the story
in her diary and kept it
in a safe deposit box
...

after reading too much Aquinas


Would an aphid reside in an onager’s ear
...

Another mass shooting.
This time a young white man
shoots nine black people
in a South Carolina church
...

Homer’s never owned a gun,
thinks they should be banned
along with bombs and missiles.
...

Harry Tompkins hadn't been to church for many years. He still believed in God but going to church didn't interest him. Then on a warm Saturday afternoon in August, he met Jayne, a lovely woman, at a company picnic. He liked Jayne a great deal and he thought he might improve his chances with her if he accepted her invitation to go to church on Sunday morning. Jayne had a way about her that Harry liked. Besides she looked like a woman who would bear good children.

'What time should I pick you up? ' he asked her. She told him 9: 30 would be fine. 'That will give us plenty of time to get to the ten o'clock Mass.'
...

'Damn the vernal equinox! Full speed ahead! ' is all that Cootie Murphy would ever say when he sat on the last stool at the end of the bar in The Stag & Doe Inn. He wouldn't say it very often, only when provoked by someone or stirred by thoughts known only to him. Mostly he would simply sit at the bar in silence, staring straight ahead, tapping his fingers now and then, and sipping his Guinness.

Cootie had held the rights to the last stool for more than 50 years, ever since he returned from Korea in 1953 after two years spent in conflict. Some people thought he suffered from post-traumatic stress syndrome, although they didn't call it that back then. Others thought he was nuts before he went to Korea and had simply come back a little nuttier. Both sides would find their opinions confirmed on nights when the moon was full and Cootie would throw his head back and howl like a wolf. Regular customers were used to it by now and they'd sometimes join in. The bartender would only say, "It's best to leave Cootie alone."
...

'You need help in your garden, Grandpa? '

Jack's only ten and eager to help so I have to say yes. He looks like Tom Sawyer. Sometimes I think his mother, my daughter, married Huckleberry Finn, when I look at my grandson. Yet she keeps telling me he looks like me. I seen no resemblance except for the red hair and the cowlicks. Years ago my hair was red. I still got the cowlicks.
...