Donal Mahoney Poems

My parents were
far from preachy.
They went to church
separately and I went
...

A notice appeared in the paper recently with the names and faces of eight men who have a combined wealth of $426 billion. According to Oxfam International, in 2015 this would have equaled the amount of wealth held by half the world's population, the poorest half.

Oxfam International is a confederation of charitable organizations in 90 countries seeking to stop the injustices that cause global poverty. They have been tracking wealth and poverty in the world for a long time.
...

A homeless man
hangs himself from a tree
at night in the city
...

My wife's amazed
when I station myself
at the computer
...

I get an email every day
from a man I don't know
and doesn't know me.
Many people receive
...

I have an old friend who was told some time ago he had six months to live. We live far apart now and he told me about this in an email shortly after the doctor told him. The six months passed some time ago. He hasn't mentioned it again.

Recently, however, he sent me an email that made me sit up straight. Maybe it's the season of Lent, in addition to his terminal condition, that prompted this email, so different from the others he has sent over the years. I have yet to respond. I don't know what to say. Perhaps you will understand once I tell you what he said.
...

In 1961, Newton Minow said
television is a vast wasteland.
I was reading four papers a day then
and seldom watched television,
...

Do I write in the third person
or only in the first?

Do my ideas reign supreme
...

When Fred was a boy, he heard his mother
talk about Grandpa going to town during WWI
to sell the bounty of his harvest.
...