Donal Mahoney Poems

Rudy in his wheelchair gets around pretty good. He has a good job and transportation via a special van. He shops at local stores and everyone is nice except at the drug store where the clerk seems to have a problem with Rudy.

Rudy has noticed the clerk is always nice to people ahead of him in the check-out line. Rudy may be paralyzed from the waist down but he isn't dumb. Trying to figure out what the clerk's problem is, Rudy has watched him carefully over several visits. He has come to the conclusion that the clerk has a problem with disabled people. That's not an uncommon problem and it can result from various reasons. But Rudy figures that's why the clerk treats him rudely and why he has to wait so long to be checked out.
...

Fred and Martha have always voted
the same way since their marriage
long ago but not this time
and Fred wondered why Martha
...

I love my wife
and so I licked it lovingly
at the very tip
...

Natural Family Planning
has its ups and downs
so to speak but it often
...

Wally made the long drive home
from vacation on Election Day
because he wanted to vote.
...

An old friend lost an old friend the other day. Jim said they were both getting up in years and he just happened to outlast Herman. Jim was black and Herman was white but that had never mattered in a town where some thought it should.

Herman had been mayor of their small town for 24 years. He was not only the mayor. He was Jim's dentist and his good friend.
...

Six men were sitting at the table in the Day Room, as they call it, at the Whitehall Rest Home. They were playing poker and they had a newcomer in their midst. It was Bill, a retired farmer,73, who was the youngest in the group and the target of needling by the other men, all of whom were natives of the big city surrounding the fancy home. Bill was a stranger in their midst and he really didn't fit in. But there was nothing they could do about it. So they needled him.

Whitehall had all the amenities one could ask for and Bill had had a hard time getting used to it. He had lived frugally all his life on a farm both before and after his wife, Nancy, had died. He still missed her, especially her chicken and dumplings and her carrot cake dessert.
...

The tale's a parable
and it scares Bill
more than
any creepy clown
...

It's a kindergarten soccer team
and Jack's the biggest kid.
His father is the coach.
...

He's at least 70 now and has
never forgotten his childhood.
He lives with that child every day.
He remembers that Thanksgiving Day
...