Donal Mahoney Poems

In this college town
three girls of Spring are fresh bread
brown before the noon of May.
...

Back in 1957, kissing Carol Ann behind the barn
in the middle of a windswept field of Goldenrod
with a sudden deer watching was very special,
let me tell you. Back then, bobby sox, poodle skirts
...

Birds and possums,
coons and squirrels
frequent my wife’s garden.
...

In this college town
three girls of Spring are fresh bread
brown before the noon of May.
...

In 1962, I was a caseworker, not a social worker, in the Cabrini-Green Housing Project in Chicago. In that era, the difference between a caseworker and a social worker was simple. A social worker had a degree or two in social work and was qualified to work with the poor. A caseworker usually had a degree but not in social work. And a caseworker usually had too many clients to have time to do social work even if he or she had a social work degree and knew how to apply it.

To be hired by Cook County Department of Public Aid as a caseworker in 1962, all one had to have was a degree in anything and the ability to pass a test. I passed the test and was assigned as a novice caseworker to Cabrini-Green, perhaps the “toughest' housing project in Chicago at that time. I was assigned to two high-rise buildings with 458 families. I remember their addresses as clearly today as the address of my childhood home. Some things one always remembers.
...

If The Donald gets his way
Lupe will no longer
clean toilets in America
...

She’s forgotten how great I am,
although I do my best to remind her
after all these years of marriage.
...

When you get old
it’s nice to have all your marbles
even if you can’t count them
...

1) 'I am the Lord your God you shall not have strange Gods before me' (Ex 20: 2-6, Deut 5: 6-10)
- except for power and money, of course, and as much pomp as you can afford.

2) 'You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain' (Ex 20: 7-8, Deut 5: 11-12)
...

A poor man comes to the door
after the storm last winter and

asks if he can have something
...