Donal Mahoney Poems

Melanie was waiting for the light to change
at 12th and Broadway when a large fellow in
a big truck and 10 gallon hat roared up
...

Walter Branham, a retired teacher, and his wife Victoria went to Applebee's, the chain restaurant, for lunch one day last week. First time they had gone there. Usually they go to an ethnic restaurant but Victoria wanted a salad. Walt as always was obliging.

The restaurant host was a young man who as a child had attended the middle school where Mr. Branham had taught for years.
...

Everyone who has money
should drop it in a vat and
anyone who needs money
...

Some things can't be fixed
any other way says Bill
in his bedroom
...

Linda's an animal person
who puts her money where
her mouth is, owns a ranch
...

Fred prefers a mouse
connected by a wire
to his keyboard.
Walt prefers a mouse
...

Grandma Gretchen's in her rocker and she has something to say.

She tells a visitor, a young man from the city, if he plans to write a book about life on a farm in the Fifties, he likely has a lot to learn. She knows about that life because she was there. She says he needs to know about the little things as well as the big things if the book is going to be accurate.
...

Dad hit me only once, an uppercut to the solar plexus. It nearly lifted me off my feet. I was 17 then and already fairly tall,6'1." He was 48 and of medium height,5'8, " a fireplug who if provoked could whirl like a dervish if you can picture that.

He had been a prisoner of war in Ireland and then became a boxer in the United States after the English expelled him from Ireland around 1920.
...

What we are
not who we are
matters to the world.
...

An odd bobcat
my father was
looked more like
...