Wednesday, September 9, 2015

Donal Mahoney- Three Poems


Fast Food at Midnight

A drunk comes into McDonald’s
staggers to the counter
is waited on by a young lady 

who looks like his wife
years ago when he proposed.
Drunk says nothing, just stares,

mouth agape, until the 
manager hustles forward,
sensing a sale

leans over the counter 
says to the drunk,
“Want fries with her?”

 

Con Man Willy

Willy’s old.
Still a con man
but bewildered now.

Spent his life
screwing people,
rich and poor alike.

Never discriminated.
Made millions 
he tucked away

in stocks and bonds
and foreign banks.
A few gold bars

under the mattress
for emergencies.
He’s dying now, 

a shrill curse 
his final gasp.
No plea for mercy.

One might think
death would be 
a con man’s finest hour, 

a last chance to cut
the biggest deal.
But Willy loves Sinatra.

He's proud as hell
he’s done it 
his way.



Author Interview

The author tells the reporter
from the New Yorker he has 
no electrical power in his cave
and that’s why he writes

with quills on parchment
stopping for a couple of hours 
of sleep and a couple of bats  
from the ceiling to eat. 

He writes in a cave, he says,
to avoid the world and lives
in stories to forget the cave 
unless the stories are bleak 

then he writes poems about 
long-legged ladies with smiles 
like angels, eyes like suns 
and waterfall hair, ladies who 
won’t visit because he’s a gnome.



Donal Mahoney lives in St. Louis, Missouri.
 
 

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