GOOD CITIZEN CRASH

Bottles CRASH as the crescendo rises

For once I’m being a good citizen and doing my recycling

The kitchen has reached critical mass

As the drinking has continued and empty bottles are everywhere

It got so bad I couldn’t rach my cooker or fridge-freezer

I knew the time was right to do my duty

CRASH they go into the bin outside some other poor sods house

And god knows what they must think, is it the Sidewinder or that lowlife who lives on the corner

As CRASH they go out of my flat so at last I can finally get something to eat

Bradford Middleton

BACK ON THE ROAD

A rust-bucket of a car heading out on the highway

Full of punk rock poets off to blow some minds

Punk rockers on dope and full of hope

That tonight they’ll find some kindred spirts in a faraway place

The nearest faraway place to their collective home

What awaits them there

Well none of them are sure

For tonight they read to strangers, a crowd of fruits and dangerous reptiles

A few of us are used to the sights from the car

But me, well I ain’t been this far west since I went to Minehead for an ATP

The visuals are spectacular and I’m simply struck by awe

I get called, jokingly, a townie, a city boy, as we move on to another town

For tonight we hit Southampton knowing the town could be ours

But tonight the real treat for me is the road-trip there

Recalling memories of past times when the road was the king and I’d follow him to the end. 

A WEIRD ONE ON MONDAY

Sitting in a bar on a Monday afternoon I feel at ease with my surroundings

Far more than I would now on a Saturday night

Now it’s just me and the same old faces, the same damn faces that I see

Whenever I’m compelled or frustrated enough to go to the pub on a Monday afternoon

Today’s been a strange one, had 6 more poems accepted and then saw a picture

In this months’ copy of The Wire of a girl I know, a pioneer of something called noise poetry

I thought about it on the way home and how I’ve always liked her poetry but

Gave up reading that pretentious tome many years ago

The article read like an advertisement for Brighton, how young, dynamic and down-right audacious we all fucking are

Freaking out the un-cool with our subversive home-grown brand of weirdness

But the night they wrote about has always just done my head in which I guess makes me one of those unashamedly un-cool

But for me now, aged 43, I can handle being considered like that by readers of The Wire as I cling to my Neil Young records in tatty blue denim

The bar today is nothing unusual and I’m glad just for some kind of normality

As I sit nursing my pint and watching the time fade away as nothing really happens

Except the drink is drank whilst outside lives move on yet in here we remain

Firmly stuck in the most remote of cul-de-sacs, going nowhere and remaining firmly underground

 

A DAY AT HOME

Sitting in the garden of the house that will one day be mine

Home at last with lots of time to relax

Sit back and

Open a beer

Sip down its warm contents as Dad refuses to chill his beer

And after an afternoon when the thermometer almost broke

As 45.7 degrees

My feet almost burnt as I walked out into the garden

It’s all too much for me

The beer would normally feel warm but right now it just refreshes

Whilst I sit here in this garden that will one day be mine

Flies go about their business

Annoyingly they swoop

Aiming for my arms

My pen

My god damn beer

But out here in cow country they know they simply rule

Outnumber us by at least a billion to one

On the inside I know my Dad is watching the news

And he’s sure to have stuff to moan about when I return

Bloody Tories, bloody Labor they are all the same

Whilst Mum is sitting quietly reading Harper Lee

All afternoon I been sitting, thinking as I wait for a reply from one of them

But no words, not all day, so all I can do is sit outside and drink this poem

Trying to keep distracted by our cats’ lack of effort at catching the mice and vermin who perambulate our garden

But in this heat all he wants to do is sit in the shade and eat

As I sit opposite, staring at him, drinking in the shade finally realizing that maybe me and him are almost the same.

Bradford Middleton

A CYCLE LANE IN BRIGHTON LIBRARY

This is a cycle lane the mad man shouts

As he rides his bike around the racks of books

I want to shout at him and tell him this is a library

But he won’t listen he just wants to cycle

I dream of decapitating him somewhere in the crime section

I dream of him being abducted whilst near the sci-fi zone

But most of all I just hope he bloody well stops!

Then at last a librarian, a diminutive young woman

Throws herself in his way

Get out my way, he shouts, this is a cycle lane

No it isn’t she retorts this is a library and you are creating a disturbance

And with that the mad man has gone

Off to pester someplace else telling them wherever he rides

That this is a cycle lane so get out my way

Bradford Middleton

WHAT YOU DOING UP THIS EARLY?

This woman I know messaged me to wish a happy birthday

Despite it being only 7.30am I replied almost immediately

Shocked, she recoiled

Why are you up so early she asked?

Well, I explained, I’m at my parents’ house

And there ain’t much to do except drink and sleep

Yesterday I started at 12 noon and passed out about half 11

Slept through the worst wind storm this village has experienced in many a year

And this morning woke, bright and early, at 7am

And now, well it’s my birthday, so I’d better get drinking...

Bradford Middleton 

 

 

PENDULUM        [Stefanie Bennett]

 

 

... Like a Mapuche National

I dream of sunken ships,

Shadows that walk

The Milky Way

And the empty nests

Of telegraph poles.

 

The grass grows

‘Second sight’

High

While

 

The date tree

Blends

Its form

Of exorcism –,

 

Waiting. Waiting on

The bright

Onyx and gold

UFO to arrive.

Going to Planned Parenthood Again

“We had the other ones done there,” says Tammy. 

"Why not go there again? Everything went well.

No complications. Who cares about the publicity? 

Bunch of do-gooders with hidden cameras.”

“I don’t care about the publicity,” says Jason. 

“But if I’m the father and they’re going to sell 

the heart, brains and liver of my fetus, I want 

a share in the proceeds. There would be no

fetus, parts or proceeds if it weren’t for me. 

They wouldn’t have anything to sell.”

“You’re absolutely nuts,” says Tammy, 

“absolutely nuts. If they pay you, 

they’ll have to pay every other 

guy who gets a girl pregnant. 

What about me? I’m the pregnant one. 

I’m the one they’re taking it from. 

Why shouldn’t I get paid, Jason?”

“We should both get paid,” says Jason. 

"Let’s go down there and tell them 

either we get a share of the proceeds 

or you’ll have the baby instead. 

Then we’ll add to the population,

use disposable diapers, flush the toilet 

too often and eventually make 

the world warmer than it is.”

Donal Mahoney

Apples

One thing 

we all have 

in common is 

we're ripening 

for the harvest.

Donald Trump 

and Pee-wee Herman,

Bill Gates 

and Eliot Spitzer,

Warren Buffett 

and Anthony Weiner

are different 

in many respects 

but like the rest of us, 

they, too, are ripening

for the harvest.

They hang with us

from the same branch,

apples, big and small, 

ripening in summer, 

withering in fall,

waiting for winter

to conduct its harvest. 

Some of us hang

from that branch

and wonder 

what in the name 

of God is next.

Others just hang.

They appear

not to care.

Donal Mahoney

An Old Nun’s Opinion

An old nun sitting 

on a bench in front of her convent

saying her beads was

interrupted by a young nun

coming home from school

to the convent for the night.

She asked the old nun if she had heard

about the Supreme Court passing 

the gay marriage law

and the old nun said she had.

The young nun seemed surprised. 

“Well, Sister, you don’t seem upset!”

The old nun looked at her beads

and said, “This isn't Roe v. Wade.

This law won't kill anybody."

Donal Mahoney

Those Poems, That Fire

 

I stood in the alley, still

in pajamas, somebody’s shoes,

another man’s coat, my eyes

on the bronc of the hoses.

Squawed in the blankets of neighbors,

my wife and three children sipped

chocolate, stood orange and still.

Of the hundred or more I had stored

in a drawer, I could remember,

comma for comma, no more than four,

none of them final,

all of them fetal.

 

Donal Mahoney

    

Surprise, Surprise

The mother's dead. 

Thirty years later 

you meet the daughter 

and realize the daughter 

is the mother again, 

poking her finger 

in your chest half an hour

after her plane lands. 

The same laugh knocks

folks in the elevator 

back a bit.

Every time the daughter 

grabs your arm 

to emphasize a point

the way the mother did,

you want a ticket

to the Maldives

or maybe Bulgaria.

Sofia in the summer

might be nice.

This time, however,

you stay put.

She found you

on the Internet.

You must admit

the freckles 

across her nose 

scream she's right: 

You are her father. 

Surprise, Surprise.

Her mother never said.

Donal Mahoney

That Valentine's Day in Manhattan

You're standing on a window ledge

on the 50th floor of your building.

It's Valentine's Day in Manhattan, 

clouds cruising, sun everywhere, 

a nice breeze tossing your hair,

the taste of that woman always there.

Do you wonder what happens after 

you jump or do you simply not care?

Does God meet you half way down

and say "What a foolish thing to do." 

Or does Satan appear and shout

"Here's the Magnus Doofus of my day."

Do you begin to wonder when 

you're a foot above the asphalt 

whether you'll hear the splat or 

do you jump and simply not care?

Donal Mahoney

The Human Condition

Did I forgive her, you ask?

What a silly question.

Why wouldn't I forgive her?

The mother of my children,

she's been dead for years.

Our long war died with her.

Did I attend her funeral?

I'd have been a distraction.

But I pray for her, 

the repose of her soul.

She belongs in Heaven,

no denying that, up front

in a box seat after all 

she's been through.

If I'm lucky, I'll find 

the side door to 

Heaven unlocked.

I'll sneak in quietly

and if Peter doesn't  

throw me out, I'll sit

in the bleachers.

The question is, 

will I wave if she 

turns around?

Donal Mahoney

    

Those Good Tomatoes

 

          Chicago, South Side

 

Late July and I am waiting

for those good tomatoes

brought to the city from farms

on trucks with a swinging scale,

brought to the city

and into the alleys

by Greeks and sons

in late July

and early August,

tomatoes so red they reign

on the sills of my mind all winter

too perfect to eat.

 

Donal Mahoney

El Chapo Comes to San Francisco

Olé! Olé!

shouts El Chapo, 

prison escapee

on the lam from Mexico,

riding a burro

to San Francisco,

that sanctuary city

by the Bay, where 

the local gendarmes

are free to let him go

and drive a food truck

and sell tacos,

heroin and cocaine

until Congress decides

illegal immigrants are on 

a path to citizenship

which could happen 

unless The Donald,

our new John Wayne, 

locks up El Chapo and  

shouts Olé! Olé!

Donal Mahoney

One of those Yanks

I’m white as a sheet

believe me

one of those Yanks

who never before 

the Charleston massacre

thought about 

the Confederate flag. 

I spent most of my life 

in Chicago, that city 

of big shoulders

and short tempers, where 

the Confederate flag was 

not often seen and whites

and blacks laughed

and fought in public. 

I live in St. Louis now 

not far from Ferguson

where whites and blacks 

are a pile of wood

on a back porch  

waiting for a match

and some oaf to strike it.

Donal Mahoney

Harvesting Pumpkins

From villages in Iowa,

Indiana, Minnesota and Nebraska

and from towns in the Dakotas,

Wisconsin and Michigan,

there stream to Chicago in spring

parades of lithe girls

looking for boys 

who will look at them

but who find instead

the men who will wine them

through summer,

who will wait until fall

to thresh in the fields

one summer can ripen,

the men who will watch

till a pumpkin falls from the vine.

This is the courtship

village girls dream about,

laugh about, hope for.

Come fall, these are the men

who fill silos of girls

from Elkhart and Davenport,

Ely and other small places,

lithe girls who in spring

come to Chicago looking for boys

who will look at them

but who find instead

the reapers, the men.

Donal Mahoney

Email to a Son

Hard to believe you graduated 

from college 25 years ago.

Anyone who can climb 

from ruffian in a juvenile home

to university graduate to 

business owner is remarkable.

One day your sons

will come to understand that.  

Your siblings as well.

Couldn’t be prouder of your trek, 

a magnificent one, done the hard way, 

something I viewed from the valley. 

My father had a passbook 

with cash for me to go to college. 

He always had work, hard work,

highly skilled, with no layoffs. 

There’s always a demand for hot wire

electricians willing to climb 

tall poles and high towers, 

attack voltage in any weather. 

Life never steps back, forever upstream, 

and then suddenly we're salmon. 

A final thrust or two and we die. 

Thank God we have souls. 

Donal Mahoney

Wildlife in the Garden

Birds and possums, 

coons and squirrels

frequent my wife’s garden.

Dawn to dusk I spy on them

from an upstairs window

next to my computer.

They remind me of the city

poor foraging in Dumpsters.

This morning a coon dispatched

a possum that had 

frightened away two feral cats 

I feed every day at 4 a.m. 

When I went out on the deck

and waved my arms to dispatch

the coon, he sat on his rump

and stared at me with a glare

I saw 50 years ago in the eyes

of a girl who became a nun. 

She is still a nun today. 

She said cut it out back then.

As did the coon today. 

Donal Mahoney

July 4th Barbecue

for Kermit Gosnell, M.D.

Every year Dr. Gluck,

the famed gynecologist,

invites his nurses to his ranch

for his July 4th barbecue.

The nurses and their husbands

drive miles to watch the doctor 

twist the necks of 20 chickens 

before he dips the fowl, some 

still wriggling, in a big vat 

of boiling water to remove 

the feathers before he tears 

the legs and wings off 

and places the parts 

neatly on the grill.

Everyone agrees the meat 

is wonderful, as is the sauce. 

No knife is needed except 

to butter the fresh-baked rolls.

The slaw and potato salad 

have no peer, the nurses say. 

They claim the same is true 

of his ice cream and pecan pie.

The perfection of this feast

is no mystery, really.

Every July 4th Dr. Gluck

celebrates America and

demonstrates outdoors 

the skills he's honed 

indoors for 30 years. 

The nurses agree, however, 

the fetuses don't wriggle 

as much as the chickens do 

and it's nice the fetuses 

go in a bucket 

and not on a grill.

Donal Mahoney

Physical For An Old Woman 

Picked Up Wandering

 

Between her legs 

the doctor found a goatee

gray as city pigeons

flying through factory smoke

a goatee that hadn't been combed

that hadn't been kept

that quit in fangs

an inch above her knees

 

 

Donal Mahoney

The Odyssey of Pastor Harold Schnabel

Listen up! It's Deacon Simon here, 

reporting on Pastor Harold Schnabel,

the minister we long ago defrocked.

Remember how he went to Holland

years ago. Hard to believe but 

he's coming back a millionaire 

who made his money   

running a bordello for midgets 

with Peyronie's Disease

in downtown Amsterdam.

He hired his staff carefully, 

favoring double-jointed women who 

understand the geometry of angles, 

isosceles and otherwise. 

He's coming back to take advantage 

of an American Renaissance 

in porkpie hats. He says men 

will wear them once again 

this summer and possibly forever. 

It will be the same porkpie hat 

made famous by Buster Keaton,

the beloved comedian, 

who for years was chief custodian  

in Harold's congregation, long before 

we deacons finally defrocked him

for simony, calumny, 

heterosexuality and serial fraud.

Anyone who thinks Harold's wrong 

about an American Renaissance

in porkpie hats needs to remember

the startling success he's had 

running that bordello for midgets 

with Peyronie's Disease. 

The staff of ladies he recruited.

made Harold a millionaire.

We defrocked him for cause but 

he's an entrepreneur extraordinaire.

He knows midgets and porkpie hats. 

So, please, join me at the airport 

Sunday morning after services

so we can make Harold's return

to our beautiful city a boffo event.

He's giving out free porkpie hats

to everyone who comes to greet him.

And big discounts to all midgets

with Peyronie's Disease planning

a trip to Amsterdam this Spring

to admire--what else?--the tulips.

There will never be another Harold.

Let's welcome Pastor Schnabel home.   

Donal Mahoney