Contributor: Donal Mahoney

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After two thousand years
we still have folks
who blame the Jews

for killing Christ even though
Pilate the Gentile could have
let him go and kept Barabbas.

This would have meant
no crucifixion, no resurrection.
Heaven’s gates would still

be closed—perhaps forever,
thus making it impossible
for anyone to blame the Jews

for doing what they had to do
for Heaven’s gates to open.
And those who blame the Jews

would still be waiting for a Savior
the way the Jews await the Messiah
they believe will come.


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Donal Mahoney lives in St. Louis, Missouri.

Contributor: Donal Mahoney

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At newspapers in the Sixties
typewriters reigned and rang.
Computers were a fantasy.

Being a “rewrite man” back then
was a dream job if one enjoyed
“improving” other people’s copy

rather than writing one's own.
Harry Murphy loved that job.
Harry said “rewrite" let him

adopt thousands of children
rather than give birth to one.
Far less painful, Harry said.

He was the midwife between
reporters in the field
who scurried after facts

and the editor who said
a story was fit to print.
Reporters phoned in stories

in the age before laptops
and Harry the Bard wrote them.
Harry’s motto was simple:

Even an obituary deserves
a touch of music, a polka for a Pole,
a reel or jig for an Irishman.


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Donal Mahoney lives in St. Louis, Missouri.

Contributor: Donal Mahoney

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It was an ancient city.
All the young people left
as soon as they could

but the old remained
in their mortgaged huts
surrounded by evergreens

that offered a haven
for cardinals and jays,
robins and finches.

No matter the season
birds flew from tree limbs
to feed on seed and suet

put out by too many widows
in slippers and aprons and
too few wives wearing

rouge and lipstick
for terminal husbands they
planned to stack on pyres.


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Donal Mahoney lives in St. Louis, Missouri.

Contributor: Donal Mahoney

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Lying in bed
on a Monday morning
I watch my wife towel off

after showering and think
why can’t I be that towel
rolling over her knolls

basking in her garden
rather than rising
and going to work.


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Donal Mahoney lives in St. Louis, Missouri.

Contributor: Donal Mahoney

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Many churches today
have a food pantry that never
had a pantry before.

I attend a church like that.
Some folks are well-fixed,
others poor, most betwixt.

Some had money before
but not enough now to pay
the mortgage and then buy food

so the pantry helps them
the same way it helps clients
it has helped for years.

Some folks in the pews quietly
support the pantry with
checks and canned goods

enabling the nouveau poor
to stand in line with the
forever poor on Mondays.

A neighborhood baker slips
into the church Sunday mornings
just prior to the end of service

and quietly stacks his trays
of unsold bread in the dark foyer.
He says nothing and disappears.

No one seems to know
who he is but the hungry
love his bread and word

of its excellence has reached
the woman who leaves church early
and always grabs two loaves

of French baguettes and is
out in the parking lot long
before anyone else and

drives off in a red Mercedes.
Perhaps she’s on unemployment,
low on food stamps or is still

making payments on the car.
It’s not for the usher to ask.
I simply hold the door.


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Donal Mahoney lives in St. Louis, Missouri.

Contributor: Donal Mahoney

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In 1920 he came on a boat
from Ireland and found
his way through Ellis Island.

He found a room
in a boarding house
catering to his kind and

went looking for a job
but found instead signs
in windows saying

“No Irish Need Apply.”
A cemetery asked him to
dig graves and lower the dead.

In America today
there are no signs like that.
Black and brown

apply and whites
sometimes hire them.
My father was white.

But in 1920 his brogue
was a long rope that
almost lynched him.


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Donal Mahoney lives in St. Louis, Missouri.

Contributor: Donal Mahoney

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It is easier for a camel to pass
through the eye of a needle
than for one who is rich

to enter the kingdom of God,
Jesus told his disciples.
Centuries later Warren

an investor in America
heard about this and
asked Fu a manufacturer

in China to make
millions of 12-foot needles.
Then he asked Ahmad

a bedouin in Oman
to breed smaller camels.
Look for the IPO on Wall Street.


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Donal Mahoney lives in St. Louis, Missouri.

Contributor: Donal Mahoney

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Seeing is believing
smart people
often tell me but

no one ever told me
believing is seeing
except this blind lady

I help across the street
who taps her cane
and tells me

you’ll find out
when you leave Earth
and whirl among the planets

and soar behind
the sun and moon
on the way to your place

believing is seeing
someone some say
isn't there.


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Donal Mahoney lives in St. Louis, Missouri.

Contributor: Donal Mahoney

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Every time something breaks
like the pipe in the wall
we heard gushing

this morning
my wife wants to call
a repairman because

I can’t fix anything
except split infinitives
and dangling participles

and I usually agree
but this time
I mention the kayaks

in the attic and say
why don’t we hop
in the kayaks

open the front door
and sail down the street
wave to the neighbors

cutting their grass
planting their peonies
worrying about crime

and shout best of luck
we’re tired of the good life
we’re sailing away.


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Donal Mahoney lives in St. Louis, Missouri.

Contributor: Donal Mahoney

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Walking in the forest
as morning comes
I hear piccolos

of wrens and robins
offer hymns to God
some say isn’t there

and isn't anywhere.
The piccolos, some say,
are simply fallout

from the Big Bang.
I tell the wrens and robins
but they play on.


- - -
Donal Mahoney lives in St. Louis, Missouri.

Contributor: Donal Mahoney

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He remembers loving her
lost in an orchard
peaches, pears, apricots

falling on his head
every day
always out of breath

stunned, dizzy
seeking shelter
he never found

then hating her
the night she sent him
whirling into space

dodging stars, planets
no sign of life anywhere
wondering whether

he would ever hear
a songbird welcome spring
or kiss her again.


- - -
Donal Mahoney lives in St. Louis, Missouri.

Contributor: Donal Mahoney

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One day the faucets of the world
became irate when people
turned them off too tight and so

they chose to drip in anger,
a cacophony only they could hear.
When their demonstration ended

water flowed out the windows,
down the streets, flooding villages
and cities everywhere, a tsunami

sweeping everyone away.
No faucet could refuse to flood.
They have a union now, you see.


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Donal Mahoney lives in St. Louis, Missouri.

Contributor: Donal Mahoney

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From my stool in the diner I watch
the old woman with elm tree arms
command the big booth in back

and roar for a menu,
take a half hour to read it
before placing her order.

Watching her eat, I realize
life for her is a dollop of whip cream,
a twirling ballerina, on a diamond of Jello.

I raise my water glass
in a silent toast. Bravo, I whisper.
I wish her good cheer.


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Donal Mahoney lives in St. Louis, Missouri.

Contributor: Donal Mahoney

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Father spoke in code
Mother understood.
She would cry
once he went to bed.
I never understood the code.
My sister didn't either.
As we got older, we quit
asking Mother what he said.

A feral cat claimed our yard.
It would leap the fence
when anyone appeared.
Except, of course, Father.
When he came out to walk
around the garden after supper,
the cat would sit straight up,
then rub against his leg
and look at him as if it understood
what others never could.

My sister used to say
the two of us were proof
Father and Mother
got together twice.
I told her I wasn't so certain.
I looked a lot like Mr. Brompton,
the next-door neighbor.
He used to buy us sugar cones
from the ice cream truck.

My sister, by the way, didn't look
like anyone in the family either,
but that was 40 years ago
when I last saw her.
I went away to college
and she got married.
We were never close after that.
Not even Christmas cards.

Forty years is a long time.
Now, we plan to get together
for a weekend this summer
before one of us dies.
I suggested we wait
till one of us is terminal.
What's the rush, I said.
But my wife told her
I was only kidding,
that we'll be coming
and not to make a fuss.
Burgers and hot dogs
will do just fine.

I know what Sis and I
will talk about that weekend,
the two people we'll always
have in common, no matter
how many years and miles
may lie between us.
Father and Mother have been
dead for decades now
but they're still alive in us.
I talk in code, my wife says,
and my sister cries a lot,
now that her husband's dead.
The one thing I want to know
is if my sister knows
what happened to the cat.
It knew the code,
may have had some answers.


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Donal Mahoney lives in St. Louis, Missouri.

Contributor: Donal Mahoney

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After the poetry reading
the lights go on and a lady
under a big hat rises
behind dark sunglasses
and asks the poet why
he never writes about sex.

He says for the same reason
he never writes about war.
What more can be said
about missiles in flight
and land mines that need
the right touch to go off.


- - -
Donal Mahoney lives in St. Louis, Missouri.

Contributor: Donal Mahoney

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When you sit in this chair all day
and look out the window for years,
the garden is calendar and clock

declaring the coming of seasons.
You know when to expect them
but spring is always a surprise.

After surviving long winters
you forget after so many years
the daffodils will shout again

and blooms on the redbud cover
leaves that will hide young robins,
their beaks open for more.

Winter is all you remember until,
for reasons only God knows,
spring smiles again.


- - -
Donal Mahoney lives in St. Louis, Missouri.

Contributor: Donal Mahoney

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When a bullet goes in
and doesn’t come out
you read about it
in the paper, hear
about it on TV.

A person takes a bullet
near the heart and learns
a surgeon can't remove it.
It's part of him forever.
Happens like a drive-by

shooting when a loved one
makes a comment no
apology can remove.
The loved one doesn't
know there’s a problem,

doesn’t realize lightning
through the cerebellum
is by far a better option.
Doesn't let the victim linger.
Makes forever shorter.


- - -
Donal Mahoney lives in St. Louis, Missouri.

Contributor: Donal Mahoney

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I understand
the next spaceship
goes to Mars.

The Moon’s old hat.
We went there long ago.
Our flag is planted.

I’d rather go
where old monks go
on wings of prayer.


- - -
Donal Mahoney lives in St. Louis, Missouri.

Contributor: Donal Mahoney

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Let’s not worry about it, Dearie,
life gets better, life gets worse.
We’re no different than

the seasons of the year except
we’re luckier than most having
lived our lives in summer.

We're falling now among
the leaves of autumn
and we have winter yet

to face with ice and snow.
Let’s put the kettle on for tea,
grab a blanket and stay warm.

We'll light a fire and discover
if we’re evergreen or tropical
when spring arrives next year.


- - -
Donal Mahoney lives in St. Louis, Missouri.

Contributor: Donal Mahoney

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I told my guest
it’s just a poem
doesn't mean a thing

a salad tossed
with colors bright
while listening to

piccolos of
wrens and robins
overcome by spring


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Donal Mahoney lives in St. Louis, Missouri.