Thursday, April 2, 2015

Donal Mahoney- Three Poems


First Tulip

Sometimes you sit for days
sucking yourself in 
praying the right words
will fall in your ear
toboggan over the whorls
pierce the canal
and settle in your brain, 
an embryonic delight.
Sometimes you sit for days
and finally the words come
and they're always a surprise
like the first tulip in April
or a sudden
orgasm for your wife.



The Two of Them

After all these years
the two of them,
one of them alive 
the other dead, 

scare me still
despite the prayers. 
It’s been that way
since childhood.

I love them both.
I’m deeply grateful
for all they’ve done.
Always will be.

But I don’t think Dad,
dead for decades,
would understand.
I hope God does.



Six-Pack Uncle Jack

Sing a song of six-packs 
and quickly tell me where 
Uncle Jack has gone 

drunk but debonair. 
He can’t remember where
he left his Philomena

tall and fetching fair.
He wants to find her.
She’s the one  

he wants to marry
but he's lost her number 
and is now afraid 

he may never dance 
with her again unless
perhaps in paradise where  

she’s waiting, he has heard,
lighting up the brightest star 
far from hades where 

Jack has a reservation. 
He’ll cancel that to dance 
with her among the clouds 

but this will halt all revelry 
for Uncle Jack on earth.
Not even one more six-pack.


 
Donal Mahoney lives in St. Louis, Missouri. 
 

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