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
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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