Donal Mahoney Poems

This is a true story told to me recently by a friend who wishes to remain anonymous. It explains his experience with the legacy of Monsanto and Dow and the ongoing effects of its product, Agent Orange, the lethal spray used in Vietnam during the war.

My friend's brother died a slow death from the effects of Agent Orange. And the other day while at the mall he met someone now going through what his brother went through prior to his death.
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Old Yoshiko in Tokyo can't sleep
because her husband snores
so she sits in her kimono
and eats a few rice cakes
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Thirty years ago, long before ISIS started executing Kurds, Muslims and Christians, I hired a Pakistani Muslim as an art director in Chicago. I was an Irish Catholic editor putting out a small national magazine. I hired him because his work samples were good and he had worked for the United States embassy in Pakistan for more than a decade. The embassy facilitated his emigration to America. It didn't hurt that he had seven children and I had five. I too knew the misery of being out of work with a family.

Different as we were, Mohammed and I were also much alike. Deadlines and details were important to both of us. Other than the two of us, the staff was female. It helped on occasion to have another man around the office.
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The old priest who won't retire
despite his bishop's hints
rides his bike around the parish
every day for exercise.
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The phone conversation had been in progress a long time. Mr. Throckmorton had called Ralph Peters to see if he had received the information on the $100,000 annuity Ralph had requested. The annuity would provide income for life for Ralph and his wife. They were getting up in years and needed a safety net. His wife had been badgering him about getting one for years. The problem was the information the company sent was incorrect. It provided information for a single-life annuity for Ralph only and not a two-life for Ralph and his wife. His wife was very upset and had been making life miserable for Ralph. She had been a bird-watcher all her life and Ralph thought she sounded like a crow.

"Yours is the third company that has sent me the wrong information on a single-life annuity when I specifically asked for data on a two-life annuity, " Ralph kept saying in different ways over and over and over again.
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Miyuki is old enough to have been a child during World War II. Indeed, some of her students are that old as well but they are eager to learn and listen to her carefully.

She is a teacher of floral arrangements in the Japanese style of Ikenobo but her face always seems sadder than the flowers in the beautiful arrangements she makes. Her life has been a mixture of grief and joy.
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The story goes Pa met Ma in the city when he drove a truckload of pigs to market. She was the young waitress who served him cup after cup of coffee and gave him three eggs instead of just two along with four slices of bacon.

Pa liked Ma as soon as he saw her so he told her he'd go back to the hotel and clean up and come back and take her to a movie if she'd like.
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Jim Clowes had a red '53 Ford that looked terrible. The paint on the car was almost all gone, although there were still patches of paint mixed with patches of rust. The clunker was an unsightly quilt in their small town surrounded by family farms. Even in the Sixties, few people in this rural area had ever seen a car as rough as this one.

Jim had a small pension and couldn't afford a better car. He and his wife Emma would sit on the porch day after day in the summer talking about anything. Emma would use the hand fan that had Eagan Funeral Home on it to keep the flies away and to stir whatever breeze there was during the late summer.
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