usDonal Mahoney was nominated for Best of the Net and Pushcart prizes. He has had poetry and fiction published in The Galway Review, Revival, ROPES and other publications in North America, Europe, Asia and Africa. Some of his work can be found at http://eyeonlifemag.com/the-poetry-locksmith/donal-mahoney-poet.html

_________________________

One of the Ha-Ha’s from Old Staball Hill

Ballyheigue
County Kerry
Ireland

That man over there
with his head in the well,
his thumbs in his ears
and his arse in the air
like a zeppelin at moor,
if he can write poems
the Ha-Ha’s will read,
all of the Ha-Ha’s,
no matter the breed,
even the Ha-Ha’s
from Old Staball Hill,
if he can write poems,
then poems he will.

_________________________

This Mick on the Next Stool

in a pub in Ireland

So this Mick on the next stool,
who’s as serious as Yeats
but looks like Wilde,
stares at me,
with eyes crossed,
sipping Guinness through the foam.
Finally he burps and says,
“I’ll bet that growth is cystic.
If it were on my nose,
I’d light this match,
hold a straight pin over it,
then prick it.
Poof! There’d be
a belch of goat cheese, sure.
But what of it?
You’d need a Q-Tip,
maybe a drop of p’roxide.
But in two weeks
new skin would bloom
smoother than a baby’s bum.
With your luck, Yank,
it would freckle.”

_________________________

Dingle, Ireland

The bathroom carpet,
wall to wall, is blue,
the lightest blue,
to complement
the bowl and ceiling.

Apropos the moment:
I bend the waist
and heave the gristle
from last evening’s steak.

Tomorrow I shall row again
to see those ancient men
in caps and coveralls
stand like statues
while they talk
and tap gold embers
from clay pipes
forever glowing.

I’ll go there
at the dinner hour
and see them once again
fork potatoes,
whole and steaming,
from big kettles filled
at dawn by crones
forever kerchiefed
and forever bent.

At dawn you hear
these women
sing their hymns
like seraphim
a cappella
as they genuflect and dip
big black kettles
in the sometimes still
sometimes foaming sea.

_________________________