The Parish Carnival

That's Bernie's wife on the carousel

laughing and waving her arms.

Once again she won't get off 

even though Bernie is yelling

next to the concession stand

jumping around in his wheel chair.

He's finished his cotton candy

and wants to go home. 

He probably has to pee.

He never goes anywhere 

except to the parish carnival. 

He loves the cotton candy.

He says it's the same as when 

he was a kid years ago 

before he fell out of the tree. 

He needs Stella more than ever now

to push his wheel chair and she does

except when she comes to the carnival 

and gives old Bernie a big plume 

of cotton candy and hops on the carousel

laughing and waving her arms 

once a summer every year.

Donal Mahoney

The Only Place to Go in Tipperary 

Father Kelly has always claimed

the only place to go in Tipperary

once you're dead is Eagan's Mortuary.

Father Kelly says Eagan lays a client out

as if a body were a mackerel from the sea

glistening in the bottom of a boat 

once the mad thrashing is over.

Father Kelly has always claimed 

a dead mackerel deserves a nap

before the flames of hell take over.

The late Tommy Dugan arrived at Eagan's

a day or so after he'd been shot 

and Eagan laid him out perfectly 

with both eyes open and a plastic 

booger peeking from his nose,

a cosmetic touch Tommy had requested

when he came to Eagan's the week before, 

chomping on an unlit panatela.

Tommy came that day to make 

final arrangements, as they say. 

That same day Tommy asked if he could be 

waked in Eagan's finest casket upside down, 

his pants pulled down around his knees 

and a sign across his arse saying "Kiss this!"

as a final salute to his mother-in-law.

But the law in Tipperary specifies

no sign of any kind in any casket so 

Tommy settled for the plastic booger in his nose.

He knew his mother-in-law would curse it 

at the family viewing prior to the wake.

At Eagan's you can make arrangements 

years before you die and Eagan guarantees 

he'll lay you out the way you specify 

provided everything's within the law, of course.

But Tommy Dugan's widow swears 

Eagan must have been possessed to put 

a plastic booger in a dead man's nose. 

Rosie Dugan can't believe her sober Tommy

would ever ask for anything like that.

But after Mass on Sunday friends remind her

Father Kelly has always claimed

the only place to go in Tipperary

once you're dead is Eagan's Mortuary.

Father Kelly says Eagan lays a client out

as if a body were a mackerel from the sea

glistening in the bottom of a boat 

once the mad thrashing is over.

Father Kelly has always claimed 

a dead mackerel deserves a nap

before the flames of hell take over.

Donal Mahoney

Veterans Cemetery

Families come

on Memorial Day

depending on the weather;

otherwise the Fourth of July, 

if it’s not too hot.

You can hear them coming,

adults in the rear,

reminiscing and talking,

children who can read

announcing the names

on the stones until they 

discover the right one. 

Then they shout.

Adults bring flowers, 

placing them softly

in front of the stones 

near our heads.

Children stick little 

flags from parades

in our waistlines.

Some ladies bring towels

and wipe down the stones;

others towelettes to remove

gunk from the lettering. 

All mean well and we 

appreciate the visit and wish 

we could say something.

It’s a thrill to hear voices.

Otherwise it's lawn mowers,

leaf blowers, snow plows 

the rest of the year.

Donal Mahoney

       

Homemade Whipped Cream

did not get made tonight for my mini lava

cakes, paleo-diet-friendly treats for PMS,

because the holder for the nitrous oxide

bullet was missing from the box. You are

outside building a chicken coup

so that I can have hormone-free eggs

for this new menu that is annoying

everyone in a house full of carb lovers.

Things that do not go unnoticed:

how you give me everything I mention

wanting, construct from wood

first one, then another deck to make

my swimming pool something more

of an oasis, to make a home

for foul to roost and produce perfect

eggs. I am ovulating twice a month,

shedding my unfertilized yolk, bleeding

too little to ease the twisting pain.

My sons are growing like the clover

that has taken over the bed

of lilies, their orange strangling

on too little sun, too much rain.

Our gladioli rotted in the ground, never stood

a chance of reaching vertical, purple

blooms that stretched skyward last year,

a distance that seemed so short,

so perfectly possible then.

The Road to Wraparound Road

is a street cornered by twenty-something’s

caught in the crosswalk of adult and childhood,

an expectant, entitled, self-centered populous

that does not know the difference between

questions and their answers, cannot recognize

the forest for the fallen trees. Big pictures

elude them as they dance from one diagnosis

to the next. Collectively, our children are called

clients, cases, cause for complaint.

We pass the most sacred of gifts

to hands that know nothing of loss.

We Meet Again in the Middle of the Night

Two strangers who have forgotten

what skin feels like on skin in the dead

of winter, warmth to share, steal, forgotten

the way two people can fit together, fruit

can taste on hungry tongues. I have

waited the length of four loves and twice

as many bodies to find you. Here you are

mine to discover tonight, forget tomorrow.

April Salzano

SPELLCRAFT          [Stefanie Bennett]

 

 

Forget the shale and thorn-tree.

That boulder

Just lay there

                    Static

Between the okra

And the eggplant

                           Until

Besotted smoke-plumes

And an eruption

Scuttled

Around the bend like

A leap year’s

Psychosis...

 

Hi-ho –, Sisyphus!

The worst

Is over –.

Young Man on a Bad Trip

The stench came first,

the young man remembers.

It was as if someone had

grabbed him by the ankles, 

turned him upside down

and dunked him in a latrine.

Not good, he says.

Then all the hissing 

and the forked tongues

only he could see, 

flickering as if vipers were 

slithering around him.

Very bad.

A nurse told him 

he was out of it for days,

yelling and cursing

jumping out of bed 

running around.

It took three orderlies

to hold him down.

All he remembers is 

the stench and hissing.

When he came out of it

he thanked a priest

his parents had called 

when doctors said they

could only sedate him. 

The priest came back 

the next day and asked 

if he wanted to pray.

He told the priest 

he didn't believe in God

never mind Satan. 

The young man said

the problem was a guy 

had sold him bad stuff.

Simple as that.

But if it happens again,

he hoped the priest 

would come back,

light his candles

and work his magic.

He’d appreciate the help.

Donal Mahoney 

All Aboard

Next to me on the train

going home to the suburbs

is another guy stuck in a suit 

reading his paper,

a normal-looking guy

who suddenly says

it’s terrible, what’s happening

in Syria and Iraq, 

terrorists killing people.

Then he says if he believed 

what the terrorists believe

he wouldn’t care either 

whether he died in battle.

If 77 virgins were waiting for him,

he’d be happy to die

a martyr for the cause,

but since he’s an atheist

he knows no one is waiting.  

Then he looks at me 

and asks if I'm a believer.

I’m a lot bigger than he is 

so I say I’m a Catholic,

and he says if he believed

what Catholics believe—

that Jesus Christ,

the Son of God, is in a wafer

waiting in that little house 

in the middle of the altar--

he wouldn’t walk into church,

he would crawl up the aisle 

every Sunday and lie there,

face down, praying.

He asks if I get his drift, 

shaking his paper.

I say I certainly do, but 

Catholics know what they have

and don’t like making a scene.

It’s in their genes from the time

they spent in the catacombs

praying not to be killed.

He says he understands

the importance of propriety

but says if Christ is God 

and is on that altar, how can 

Catholics just sit there,

mannequins in a pew,

standing and kneeling 

once in awhile to avoid 

clots in their legs.

I agree that’s a good question.

Finally he yells,

loud enough for all to hear:

For Christ’s sake, 

the next time you go to church,

act like he’s there

and do something!

He shakes his paper again. 

The train rolls on 

and there’s a loud moment of silence.

The man has a point, I say to myself.

Finally I say I’ve enjoyed talking

and have learned a lot

but the next stop is mine.

I have to get off.

Donal Mahoney

THE YARDS      [Stefanie Bennett]

 

 

Hubris has its own analytical

Empty hammock

That commands

A regency affair –,

Impeccable lawn

And hedge height –,

In-ground pond

And systematic lolly-water

Circumnavigating

Nightshade salad greens

And what-nots...

 

Sipping an imagined

Rose’, humbuggery’s

Commonality

Is a cane-toad gnome

That croaks

A recreated

Folksy rumour

As poverty’s daylight

Rain

       Skims

The fringes...

The soak-holes.

In Chesterfield and Spats

The father of the girl

I stare at now,

as we wait for our morning bus,

stands across the street,

tall and proper in his 

chesterfield and spats.

He is waiting for a bus

that goes in the opposite direction.

He wears a derby,

swings a silver cane,

smokes a green panatela.

Suddenly he pirouettes

and smiles at my daughter.

She takes the same bus

to school every morning.

That night at supper,

I ask her about him.

"Dad, he's super!"

At 12, she knows.

"Dad, he rides the same bus

as me every morning.

He checks my homework

and I ask him questions.

Dad, he knows all the answers."

My Therapist’s a Lady

 

It’s all so simple now,

yet it took 30 years

to begin to understand.

It’s as though someone

stole the primer I had

and gave me another

in my own language.

It’s because you are

who you are

that I’ve begun

to become who I am.

That sounds too dramatic.

All you did, really, was scream

when you opened the bathroom door,

saw me wrapped in a towel,

standing at attention on a mat,

waiting in my thirtieth  year

for the steam to clear

from the cabinet mirror,

waiting for someone

to shout, “At ease.”

 

Donal Mahoney

SCION OF STOCKHOLM... 1913-2015

T. Transtromer     [Stefanie Bennett]

 

 

 

He said, clinging to life,

“It is hard

To believe in

A bland phenomenon

When you’re the known

 

Optical source

Of the baker’s dozen,

 

The Magi who chants

A fond lullaby,

 

And an airtight

Chapter of doom...”

 

With that, the room

Spun its

Meteor shower.

Its welcoming mat.

Its Divine Comedy.

 

 

 

GONE       [Stefanie Bennett]

 

 

Seeing as how no-one’s

Tied to any

Shore anymore –,

And we’re

- Most of us,

Kicking

Over the traces...

 

Why then is it

Grandpa’s

Got

Double-braces

On!

A Singular Repast

We are to each other now

many decades later

what we were the day 

we got married, a couple 

at the kitchen table on 

a summer night—she  

a slice of watermelon, 

corners touching the ceiling,

covering my face in juice 

and I the corn she butters 

before she devours it. 

We eat as fast as we can.

Donal Mahoney

Makes Forever Shorter

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

The Canyon Dwellers

There’s this canyon 

between two cliffs

and Tim Boyd has a foot

planted on each cliff.

He’s spread-eagled 

but very steady.

He's been stretched

over the canyon since 

he got back from Iraq.

After he took his position,

he thought someone 

would eventually look up.

There are others

spread over the canyon

in front of Tim. 

They’ve been there

since Viet Nam and

getting a bit wobbly.

In back of Tim

are the new arrivals

spread-eagled as well.

They’re fresh from

Afghanistan and they're

getting their feet set. 

The rest of us below

have jobs and are busy

with families and lives. 

When a canyon dweller falls 

and makes a terrible mess, 

we find the time to look up.

Donal Mahoney

MAP AND KEY OF EXTINCTION

Map and key of extinction

Generates a Planet Space-Scape

For Human and Species.

What do you see? Tragedy

What? Hope

And?

Everywhere we are flawed and horrible:

There are those who dress, refine

And defend horrors

We near greatest tragedy:

Extinction.

No¡

Extinction shows to us

The ancient living Planet

Underneath is revealed

Deeping continuity among species

And a necessary identity

With processes of the Earth itself.

Anything you please.

-Daniel de Cullá

THE BABEL TOWER

Listen:
Drag branches comeback
Across the forest floor:
Knowledge of the rough¡

At water’s edge
I gather some things up:
Memory of nothing.

We’ve the time to give the Babel Tower
A close reading Awful good, Thou
As Roy A. Rappaport’s
Ritual... as Communication and as State.
Our preferences might be
Toward more emphasis
On species places:
Smooth textures of dead wood
Knowledge of our hands on arms
The body-art of bullshit
Drinking cocoa
And tend to the faith
With a Vampire’s short stick
That smells of infinite urine. 

-Daniel de Cullá