DONAL MAHONEY - POEMS

Donal Mahoney, a native of Chicago, lives in St. Louis, Missouri. He has worked as an editor for The Chicago Sun-Times, Loyola University Press and Washington University in St. Louis. His fiction and poetry have appeared in various publications, including The Wisconsin Review, The Kansas Quarterly, The South Carolina Review, The Christian Science Monitor, Commonweal, Guwahatian Magazine (India), The Galway Review (Ireland), Public Republic (Bulgaria), The Osprey Review (Wales), The Istanbul Literary Review (Turkey) and other magazines. Some of his work can be found at http://eyeonlifemag.com/the-poetry-locksmith/donal-mahoney-poet.html#sthash.OSYzpgmQ.dpbs

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              A Modern Fairy Tale: Trumpelstiltskin


Trumpelstiltskin is a fairy tale
not written by the Brothers Grimm.
It’s written every day by Fox and CNN.

America hears it every hour
and half the nation loves it
but the other half hates it. 

Let’s remember though
we Americans will never know
what might have been.

Had the vote gone otherwise 
Bill would be in the White House
and all the interns on the run.

Private server Huma would be
grilling wieners for the press.
Golly Gee, you say, that sounds

like a lot of fun.
For Fox and CNN, yes. 
Not so Hillarious for us.


                                    After Services


After services on Sunday
the old Marlboro man
puts his Bible under his arm
and talks to his pastor


through a hole in his neck. 
His wife waits in a nice frock
and lovely hat and sees smoke 
coming through his nose.



                        A Poem for Catholics


Natural Family Planning
has its ups and downs
so to speak but it often  


works quite well.
But when the calendar
says not tonight


I ask my wife to please
go in another room
with that banana.




                                        Bulbs Alive


A doctor by day 
Ralph spends his nights
ordering tulip bulbs 

from Holland
beautiful and rare
to arrive in autumn


to plant and think about 
for months ahead until
spring arrives and the

tulips become a rainbow 
beautiful in his garden. 
Ralph talks about tulips 


at the office every day
where he pulls small bulbs  
from the gardens of patients.

Unlike his tulips 
those bulbs don’t grow,
never become a rainbow.



                               Twilight Song


Sometimes she sits there
and listens to him.
Sometimes he sits there
and listens to her.

Sometimes they know
what the other will say.
Sometimes they
surprise each other.

As the years go by they  
say the same things:
“I felt it again last night.
What do you think?"

But they’re careful about
what they tell each other.
Neither would want  
to frighten the other.

But more often now  
the key phrase is this:
“Should I call the doc now
or wait until morning."