Halloween: Flashlight in the Gangway
The lack of visitors is uterine
and that is why you porcupine
in this dark corner. Here
who can see the cobra
slither from your lips, spray
the phrases of your mind,
slip back to its moist nest?
Here, who can hear the jeer
of cheetah eyes? “Come,”
they cry, “pour on the light.
Your heart I’ll lacerate
with razor fright.”
Donal Mahoney
When Every Day is Halloween
It used to bother me
to see odd people
leapfrog parking meters
and shout every day
is Halloween until
I realized I'm as odd as
they are, always will be.
That's the way it is.
Not much I can do about it.
On Halloween I ring doorbells
without a mask or costume
and whisper "Trick or Treat."
My neighbors do not know me.
We may never meet.
If they put candy in my bag,
I say nothing more than "Boo!"
That's the way it is.
Not much they can do about it.
In time you learn to live
with who you are even if
both of you are strangers
who may never meet.
Normal people are the ones
you have to keep an eye on.
People with monocles are fine.
That's the way it is.
Not much I can do about it.
Donal Mahoney
Another Election
You can’t vote for him
and you can’t vote for her
and you can’t vote for the others
you've never heard of.
The others may not be as odd
but in your mind
their platforms are wobbly
one way or the other.
So you plan to write in
Justice Ginsburg,
who fits in with the others
in being out of the ordinary.
But you are fond of her smile.
It reminds you of Halloween
and this is just one more election.
What the hell.
Donal Mahoney
Long-Term Unemployed
Before he's had his morning coffee
he puts a silencer on the pistol,
goes from room to room, puts
a bullet in the head of those
sleeping in their beds, takes
a drive in the country and calls
his neighbor Walt and asks him
to check on Martha and the kids.
He’s at their country home, he says,
closing it up for the winter,
something he does every year
the weekend before Halloween.
He tells Walt that Martha and the kids
should be home from church by now
but no one's answering the phone.
Donal Mahoney
Angels, Devils and Halloween
Three are known by name,
Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael,
but there are a zillion angels,
pure spirits who have no wings
like those we draw on Cherubim,
the baby angels, or the wings we add
to Seraphim, that mighty choir
of angels singing Hosannas
day and night in heaven.
You see, it’s the Guardian Angels
I’m partial to, not the ones
who patrol Central Park
separating guns from joggers.
I mean real Guardian Angels,
the ones who fight fallen angels,
the real devils who create hell in us
while kids wear horns on Halloween.
If Guardian Angels had wings
I’m sure they’d be battered and torn
after fighting the devils we entertain
every day not just on Halloween.
Donal Mahoney
