Saturday, April 16, 2011

Donal Mahoney - Two Poems

The Landlord

When finally at 80 Sammy died
Polly gave me from the pantry packets
of dry noodle soup that Sammy
to the end drank down as supper.
Tureens of it, with swallows
from the pint I'd smuggle in, kept
Sammy blinking at the light
the final weeks. I lived below them
at the time and needed more than soup.
But in the parlor where they laid him out
we sat on high-back chairs amid the flowers
and marveled at how straight our Sammy lay.
Who prepared him must have brought
his gnomic back, twice at least,
full force across a knee.



Armadillo Home

Rush Hour, Chicago

Early evening traffic
rather heavy.
Autos armadillo home

along the Outer Drive
as people out of mouths
of buildings enter mouths

of anything that moves
wherever every evening
they are going. Tonight

they interrupt the passion
of another person’s day,
the crone beside the hydrant

who once again this evening
bows and swoops and curses
as she burlaps broken glass

making faces at the people
propped in autos staring
as she lets the traffic pass.



Donal Mahoney has had poems published in Carcinogenic Poetry and other publications in the United States, Europe, Asia and Africa.

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