Saturday, June 13, 2015

Presidential Debates 2016

I fall asleep in my recliner
after a hard day at the computer
chasing my mouse.

My wife shakes me awake
and says I’ve been hollering,
asks if I had a nightmare.

She says I have never before
hollered in my sleep.
I tell her I was attending

the presidential debates in 2016
and behind the microphones I saw
Bernie Sanders and Rand Paul. 

Americans have a choice, I tell her.
Listen to Bernie and Rand in 2016 or 
take a plane and buy a tent in Nepal. 


Donal Mahoney


Wives and Girl Friends

A good reason to get married,
Tim told me before he died,
is you need a driver to take you

home from a colonoscopy.
When cancer runs in the family
and three relatives have had it

colonoscopies become frequent.
You get used to drinking the potion
the day before the exam but

depending on the test results
you may get the same day,
driving yourself home isn't

the wisest thing to do
no matter how long you may live.
A wife will take you home, Tim said.

A girlfriend might do it once
but then she will find someone else.
Tim had reasons to know.

Donal Mahoney


Misanthrope at Sunset Manor

Even as a child
Charles couldn’t forgive other children
not for something they had done 
but rather for who they were.
They were inferior and couldn’t help it,
his parents both agreed.
Charles couldn’t stand any of them.
This continued his entire life.

Charles almost married a woman 
he had hired only to discover later 
she wasn’t perfect, no better than 
the little people he had hired to 
wrap and mail thousands of shirts
manufactured in Bangladesh.
He sold the company at 80
and retired a multimillionaire.

Charles never liked himself either
but he had fewer flaws, he thought,
than anyone he had ever met.
Now in old age he trolls the halls
of Sunset Manor in an electric wheelchair
other residents on canes and walkers 
call his tank, making sharp turns while
looking for someone he might like.


Donal Mahoney
       

Helpless I do not know if good intentions prevail among the elected, among the appointed, leaving me apprehensive that the fate ...