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