Donal Mahoney Poems

It was the first time that senators had been asked to go home and address parent-teacher meetings at all the middle schools in their states. Each had been given a sheet of talking points to make the task easier. But Senator Stumpf found the task difficult inasmuch as he would have to speak at half the middle schools in his state while the other senator from his state addressed the other half. Both had to do their best to explain an executive order signed by the president on Labor Day,2085. It would result in major changes in how people live.

Senator Stumpf chose to arrange his first middle school meeting in a small town in the rural part of his state. He thought that might be a good place to explain how wonderful this new program was. More than 300 parents were sitting in the gymnasium when he took the podium. Most of them were farmers, and they had worked hard that day.
...

This August evening
so many hummingbirds
helicopters of the garden
...

Dexter Dalrymple had no idea why anyone would want to interview him. Who would care at this point what he'd have to say. Maybe his family and a few old friends, in deference to his age and wealth, hoping to find themselves in his will some day soon. But he had agreed to this interview and there he was now, at 82, sitting across from this financial reporter, a young lady, perhaps 22, the age of his granddaughter who had just graduated from college.

His granddaughter was the light of his life. He would leave all of his money to her if it wouldn't make everyone mad.
...

Harold, I'm sorry to call you at three in the morning
but you're older than I am and you may have less time
to relish a word you may not have heard of.
It's 'rejectamenta, ' and I stumbled upon it
...

After a day in the fields
plowing and sowing,
the old monks see
sundown is near so
...

In the wind
a butterfly clings

to a marigold while
...

The Sixties almost killed Will,
a wasted man who sobered up
long enough to vote for JFK.
...

She lives by a lake.
After a heavy snow
she looks out the window
and sees black swans
...

They've been married 50 years
and never a sorry day,
Wally likes to say.
Melba's been a great wife
...

Herb's wife says the grass
needs cutting and Herb agrees.
She says the neighbors are
upset he hasn't cut it
...