Armadillo Home 

 

         Rush Hour, Chicago

 

Early evening traffic's

rather heavy.

Autos armadillo home

 

along the Outer Drive

as out of mouths of buildings 

people enter mouths

 

of anything that moves

wherever every evening

they are going. Tonight

 

they interrupt the passion

of another person’s day,

the crone astride the hydrant

 

who once again this evening

bows and swoops and curses

as she burlaps broken glass

 

gives the finger to nice people

propped in autos staring

as she lets the traffic pass.

 

Donal Mahoney

America Wants to Know

What will she do with him?

That is, if she’s elected.

She’ll have to take him 

with her to the White House

after keeping him in the doghouse.

Maybe the FBI can put

the doghouse out on the lawn.

He shouldn’t be a problem there.

Only men jump over the fence.

Donal Mahoney

All I Did Was Admire Her Aloud

 

“Quiet, please,” I tell her,

“I want to hear the music.”

She is sitting next to me again,

this time on a paisley couch,

a woman in a lime bikini I met

only this morning sprawled

on the Morse Avenue Beach.

All I did was admire her aloud,

not recognize her age, and an hour later

she brought me home with her.

Now she is curling into me again

and moaning at a remarkable pitch.

Finally she spits into my neck

what it’s all about

this time and every time

“Honey…I am…coming."

Donal Mahoney

Sally in the Alley and Joanie in the Weeds

Sarah makes sandwiches all day, 

piling meat and trimmings high

on pillowy bread she spreads  

apart before her customers' eyes.

Hardworking men love her sandwiches  

and sometimes date her after work 

but none so far has mentioned marriage.

This confuses Sarah who’s as open

as her bread in satisfying men. 

That’s not too wise, says Ethel, 

a granny clone Sarah chats with

after lunch-hour rush.

Ethel says when she was Sarah's age

women demanded a wedding first, 

except for two legends she remembers:

Sally in the Alley and Joanie in the Weeds 

were consumed by many men, Ethel says,

then tossed aside like sandwich wrappers.

Donal Mahoney

Beats Obamacare, He Swears 

When Homer stubs his toe

or bumps his elbow, the pain

is always piercing but 

Homer’s a pious man so

swearing isn’t for him.

Instead he screams

 

"Debbie Wasserman Schultz!" 

but that brings no relief.

In fact, the pain gets worse so 

he screams "Nancy Pelosi!"

but that’s no help either.

So Homer drops all piety

and releases a loud curse

that makes the pain disappear.

Beats Obamacare, he swears.

Donal Mahoney

AN APPETITE FOR MILES

                                                                        For Matthew

                                    I have the Saturday night set

                                    for breakfast on Friday in my silent way.

                                    Someone knows how to cook the basics

                                    and I almost taste the color—

                                    kind of cool and born of blue.

                                    It’s as filling as an Egyptian queen

                                    who’s done waiting for her prince to come—

                                    spiced like young girls from the mountains,

                                    sketched by a Spaniard. So I try

                                    the Friday set around midnight—

                                    full of Bud’s bells and Porgy’s Bess

                                    but light and hollow as a horn.

                                    All that’s left is that very rich, cool,

                                    very peaceful cup of bitches brew.

                                    I’ll tell you what it is later. Shhh.

                                   

Mark J. Mitchell

                                              

                                    MORPHY’S WATCH

           

                        For Morphy a game of chess is a sacred duty.

                                                            —Adolf Anderson

                        He was left untouched by a useless hand

                        like some forward pawn on an unmarked board.

                        The room remains empty, dust drifts like sand.

                        When did he enter this game? No one asked

                        him to play. He adjusts a shadeless bulb.

                        Things stay dark. He can see how this began—

                        He enters this room. He thinks it’s the last

                        door he’ll open. He thinks there’s reward

                        just beyond it. He wants this game annulled.

Mark J. Mitchell

                                              

                                                MACHO MAN

                                   

                        The man who was Thursday stopped by last Tuesday

                        to perform his ugly, simple office.

                        Each hole was perfect—the weight of his fist

                        enough to pierce a wall, the earth. He preyed

                        on solidity. He tracked down unmarked

                        surfaces. Any enemy would know

                        where he walked at all times. He broke windows

                        just to step on glass. He liked the stray barks

                        of half-wild dogs. Less a man, more a force—

                        a personal storm followed him around—

                        it was his mobile home, it warmed him

                        when the sun was too bright. You liked the course

                        of his duties to bring him by. The sound

                        of his day was crisp. You’re glad to see him.

Mark J. Mitchell

                                               

                                                EDITING ANGELS

                                                Their tears

                                                punch holes in pages

                                                of various Holy Writ.

                                                Knife-sharp feathers

                                                cut off chapters—they fly

                                                away like dandelions.

                                                There is no intent here—

                                                They don’t mean to confuse.

                                                It’s their job.

Mark J. Mitchell

                                              

                                                WHARF HAIKU

                                    On a white hydrant

                                                gumdrops in rainbow order

                                    lighting up gray fog.

Special of the Day

It’s Rocky’s Diner

but it’s Brenda’s counter,

been that way for 10 years.

Brenda has her regulars

who want the Special of the Day.

They know the week is over 

when it’s perch on Friday.

Her drifters don’t care about 

the Special of the Day. 

They want Brenda instead

but she’s made it clear 

she’s not available.

Her regular customers tip well.

Long ago, they gave up

trying to see her after work.

After awhile her drifters go  

to the diner down the street 

to see if the waitress there

is any more hospitable. 

Brenda’s regulars don’t know

she has three kids her mother

watched every day until Brenda 

took a vacation out of town,

then came back and helped her 

mother find a place of her own. 

Now Brenda’s back at the diner,

serving her regulars and 

discouraging her drifters,

while Marsha, her bride,

watches the kids.

Donal Mahoney

Tenement Scene, Havana, 1962

Woman in a window

brushing long hair madly

screams at a little boy

down in the street

licking an ice cream cone

some man gave him

some man she doesn’t know

not the man she’s 

brushing her hair for

who doesn't show up.

The man with the ice cream

may have to do.

Donal Mahoney

Waiting Room

First time seeing this doctor,

a specialist. Took a month

to get an appointment.

The waiting room’s packed.

I grab the last seat 

next to a lady in a wheelchair

knitting something,

perhaps for a grandchild. 

I pull out my cell phone 

like everyone else

but just to check messages,

not into games.  

No one’s looking at magazines,

it seems, any more.

It’s a cell phone world,

messages and Tic-Tac-Toe.

Half an hour later the lady 

stops knitting and whispers, 

“Sit back and relax, son. 

Life’s a waiting room.

We all have appointments.

Every name is called.

Even those who believe

no doctor is in."

Donal Mahoney

A Symphony Lost

Harvey at 80

is losing his hearing.

He can’t hear his wife

when she talks,

a symphony lost.

But at dusk

in the garden

alone in a lawn chair

with a glass of iced tea

cubes circling

Harvey can hear 

the whippoorwill ask

and the cricket reply

and that’s all the truth

that he needs.

Donal Mahoney

Ambrose and the Blind Man

Decades ago a small college

out in the boondocks

put Ambrose, a freshman, 

on a Greyhound Bus to attend

a student convention in New York. 

No other student wanted to go.

The college had to send someone.

On the bus Ambrose sat next 

to a blind man who spent most 

of the trip telling Ambrose, 

a farm boy, all about women.

Ambrose listened with awe.

Everything he heard was new.

Ambrose knew little about girls

but had always liked them.

For his high school prom, 

a friend set him up with a 

quiet girl who needed a date.

Ambrose liked Shirley.

Back then, TV sets were small

with the picture in black and white. 

“I Love Lucy” topped the charts.

It was Ambrose’s favorite show.

Back then, girls saved themselves 

for marriage so most of what 

the blind man told Ambrose 

was breaking news to him.

So many girls, what to do?

He didn’t have money to date.

Ambrose is now a retired farmer,

the father of nine, who often reflects

on the blind man’s advice when he 

sits in his rocker and wonders

after 50 years with Shirley if

the blind man was right to say:

“Son, it doesn’t matter how pretty 

a woman is because every woman 

has the basics any man needs.

Sample a few and find out.

Besides, you can trust me 

when I tell you they all look 

the same in the dark.”

Donal Mahoney

Man with the Can

Every morning 

before the sun comes up

there’s a feral cat on our deck 

waiting for a can of Fancy Feast.

It’s been that way for years.

It’s not always the same cat

because feral cats come and go

but barring a downpour of rain

or an overnight pile of snow

there’s always a cat 

outside our door, looking 

through the screen

waiting for service, 

sometimes licking its lips. 

The same cat can appear

at the door for weeks,

months, even years.

They’re close friends

with my wife but not with me.

We aren’t enemies but 

the cats favor my wife.

I understand why.

The cats find our house, I think,

not because the cat underground 

says the food’s good but  

somehow the cats know 

my wife was a farm girl 

that barn cats loved before 

she went off to college and 

took a job in the city.

I think they begin to believe 

my wife is one of them 

because almost every summer

she comes out in the afternoon

and sits on the deck and 

the morning cat comes back 

over the fence and hops up 

on her lap for a serious petting.

Over the years the cats and I 

have been acquaintances at best.

They know I’m the one who puts  

the can out before dawn

while my wife sleeps in. 

But not one of them has ever 

cozied up to me, the caterer, 

or why not call it as it is, 

the man with the can.

I have no problem with that

even if the best greeting

I can expect is caterwauling 

on the rare morning I’m slow 

popping the lid.

Donal Mahoney