Sunday, June 28, 2015

Donal Mahoney- Three Poems


Apples

One thing 
we all have 
in common is 
we're ripening 
for the harvest.

Donald Trump 
and Pee-wee Herman,
Bill Gates 
and Eliot Spitzer,
Warren Buffett 
and Anthony Weiner

are different 
in many respects 
but like the rest of us, 
they, too, are ripening
for the harvest.

They hang with us
from the same branch,
apples, big and small, 
ripening in summer, 
withering in fall,
waiting for winter
to conduct its harvest. 

Some of us hang
from that branch
and wonder 
what in the name 
of God is next.
Others just hang.
They appear
not to care.



Email to a Son

Hard to believe you graduated 
from college 25 years ago.
Anyone who can climb 

from ruffian in a juvenile home
to university graduate to 
business owner is remarkable.

One day your sons
will come to understand that.  
Your siblings as well.

Couldn’t be prouder of your trek, 
a magnificent one, done the hard way, 
something I viewed from the valley. 

My father had a passbook 
with cash for me to go to college. 
He always had work, hard work,

highly skilled, with no layoffs. 
There’s always a demand for hot wire
electricians willing to climb 

tall poles and high towers, 
attack voltage in any weather. 
Life never steps back, forever upstream, 

and then suddenly we're salmon. 
A final thrust or two and we die. 
Thank God we have souls. 



Wildlife in the Garden

Birds and possums, 
coons and squirrels
frequent my wife’s garden.

Dawn to dusk I spy on them
from an upstairs window
next to my computer.

They remind me of the city
poor foraging in Dumpsters.
This morning a coon dispatched

a possum that had 
frightened away two feral cats 
I feed every day at 4 a.m. 

When I went out on the deck
and waved my arms to dispatch
the coon, he sat on his rump

and stared at me with a glare
I saw 50 years ago in the eyes
of a girl who became a nun. 

She is still a nun today. 
She said cut it out back then.
As did the coon today. 


Donal Mahoney lives in St. Louis, Missouri.
 
 

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