How They Do It in Syria Today
First, we place the neck on the block
and put the basket underneath
the head and then make sure the blade
is sharp enough before we ask the person
one more time just to be polite:
Are you sure you’re not one of us?
And if the answer’s no, we
pick up our bullhorn and announce
loud enough for the others
waiting in their orange to hear:
"Going once, going twice."
Then we pull the rope and
the blade drops and that one’s done.
Then we uncage the next one and tell him
to put the head on a pole and bag the rest
before we position him on the same block
and politely ask him the same question:
Are you sure you’re not one of us?
Donal Mahoney
Multi-Tasking Drug
In California the governor
has signed a law permitting
doctors to use a drug
ending the life of the
terminally ill so they can
die and not suffer.
In Oklahoma the governor
has halted all executions
until a drug can be found
that will kill the condemned
without causing them pain.
Some think a phone call to
the governor of California
from the governor of Oklahoma
asking for the name of
the drug that ends life for
the terminally ill is in order.
Others prefer lynching.
Donal Mahoney
Stranger Comes to Town
Beautiful fall day
in a potter’s field
outside a small town.
A funeral is underway
but that doesn’t stop
the leaves russet and gold
a few still green
falling among the stones
without a name.
The minister reads a verse
over the grave of a man
found by deer hunters.
No idea who he is or
where he came from,
a body dumped.
Four people from
the clapboard church
with the wayward steeple
over the hill gather 'round
heads bowed, hands clasped.
An old worker with a shovel
stands like a soldier
near the shed and
waits for everyone to leave
so he can finish up.
It’s almost lunch time.
One by one cars pull away
and now it’s just us, the dirt
and a gold leaf falling on me.
Donal Mahoney
A Certain Look
Some things you can’t undo.
A remark, perhaps, you can retract
or try to with an explanation.
But a certain look can
burn forever in the mind
of its observer, a missile you
never knew you launched.
Maya Angelou was right.
Some folks can’t recall
years later what you said
but they remember instantly
how you made them feel.
Donal Mahoney
Remainder Bin
We write the stories
of our lives between
the bookends
of birth and death
They stay on the shelf
as long as we live
and then go in
the remainder bin
after we die.
No one buys them
and the paper’s recycled
to print the stories
of millions of people
yet to be born
except for the stories
that are never told.
They are the stories
Planned Parenthood sells.
Donal Mahoney
I died from a rattlesnake bite
and found myself in line with
other zombies in front of a bank
of elevators, the doors opening
and closing as if by metronome.
Every time a door opened a voice
called the names of 12 zombies
who boarded the elevator single file.
As the doors closed, Led Zeppelin
or Bing Crosby played in the background
depending on whether the elevator went
up or down according to the light
winking above the door.
The rest of us waited our turn
as more zombies arrived
and lined up behind us.
I saw no one I knew except
a couple who looked like
Martha Stewart and Mel Brooks
discussing the future.
Mel was on stilts so he looked
Martha straight in the eye.
When the rattlesnake bit me,
Martha and Mel were alive on Earth
so I had no idea why they were there
with us zombies but nevertheless
I listened as Martha told Mel
she didn’t care which way
the elevator went as long as
she found prime rib and a glass
of Dom Pérignon waiting
when she arrived.
Mel didn’t care either, he said,
as long as he found a steamed
Nathan’s Hot Dog with two squirts
of mustard, lots of relish,
raw onion and sport peppers
hotter than hell and a
tankard of seltzer iced.
Seltzer is better, he said,
than Dom Pérignon.
Ask any sommelier.
Another elevator arrived and Martha
and Mel, arm and arm, boarded.
This time I didn’t hear Led Zeppelin
or Bing Crosby in the background.
I saw Martha stare Mel in the eye,
wag her finger and tell him to try
prime rib because too much
cholesterol lurks in hot dogs.
Enough to kill you, she said.
Donal Mahoney
