Public Republic

Donal Mahoney

Photo: bsabarnowl
Rogers Park, Chicago
This brilliant winter morning finds
waves of snow on every lawn
and red graffiti dripping
from the walls
of Temple Mizpah
once again
as down the street
stroll ancient men
who every morning
shuffle here for prayer.

Donal Mahoney

Photo: Lady-bug
My wife has a problem
with any poem
I give her to read
for a second opinion
especially when the poem
has no message
and my goal is
simply to hear
what I’m saying
and not care if
I understand it.

Donal Mahoney

Photo: Marco Fedele
To lie in bed
this morning of a snow
when neither of us
has to go
anywhere for hours
at least. To sprawl
and talk of what
we hope for.
Better, what we know
the years will bring
and contemplate
just knowing
we can see it all
up there
on the ceiling
all aglow,
our life
played out
in color now,
this morning of a snow.

By Donal Mahoney

Photo: aloshbennett
Two men tall,
one from here
and one from there,

Donal Mahoney

Photo: sir_mervs
After 30 years together,
Carol tells me late one evening
in the manner of a quiet wife
that I have yet to write a poem
about her, something she
will never understand in light
of all those other poems
she says I wrote

Donal Mahoney

Photo: lepiaf.geo
Thomas said
you can’t go home again
but I did for my sister
and the christening of her first.
Everyone, on folding chairs, against
the whitewashed basement walls, was there
for ham and beef and beer, the better
bourbons, music, argument and talk.
Maura came; she hadn’t married.
Paddy, fist around a beer, declared
I owed my family the sight
of me more often.

Donal Mahoney

Photo: Rocklin
Autumn’s over.
Wheat cake odors flood
the wood front porch. Andrew Block,
in mackinaw and overalls,
tamps first tobacco of the day
and estimates his morning.
In an open field
beyond McDiver’s Creek
Andrew Block can see his colt,
palamino apricot and snow,
nip grass between great gallops
and the shock of trees.

Donal Mahoney

Photo: lepiaf.geo
Stunned by July in a hammock
he remembers the apricot wife
no longer here
one curler more and the flutter
of leaves in the orchard
the sound of trees

Donal Mahoney

Photo: giuvax
In my hand, I squeeze
this trinity of walnuts tighter till
louder than the tot
who’s rapped her elbow
off the radiator, I can hear
clearer than the sirens
I’ve heard all these years
real fear as walnuts whimper

Donal Mahoney

Photo: lepiaf.geo
Through the window I see
the sun fire up
for the last time today.
There are jays
in the trees near the meadow,
crows in the grass
I cut with a scythe
early this morning.

Donal Mahoney

Photo: arwen-abendstern
white hips a soft fist
for the wrist of your waist
black hair in a spill
on your shoulders
small whirlpools
your ankles

Donal Mahoney

Photo: mikebaird
Although we’ll never again
be body to body or mind to mind,
you and the place and the years
are alive every night in the letters
I’ve stored in my room.

Donal Mahoney

Photo: Daylight.
Down the patio walk,
white stones, through the garden,
under the trellis toward me
yellow frock, yellow hair
rising and falling