If love’s real, not the puppy kind, it’s not just a feeling but an act of the will a constant giving
Someone you respect does something that sticks in your craw like a fish bone dining in a crab shack. You try to cough it up
In a storefront laundry on North Clark Street brown draperies release this quiet man who has my shirts.
Beneath the bowling-alley bar marquee the rain tonight hammers off the concrete.
The beauty of gray I never noticed until the other day I saw this mockingbird, a quiet beauty in gray,
The older I get the more beautiful they are without exception Donal Mahoney
Some things you can’t undo. A remark, perhaps, you can retract or try to with an explanation. But a certain look can burn forever in the mind
Every day comes praise for Him everywhere in nature a cricket chirps a wren sings
On a clear day in the day room he will tell anyone he has had an askew life. When he was a small boy out for a Sunday walk
Neighbors were happy to see Fred and Opal come back for the annual block party. Old Bill asked Fred why they moved and Fred said
You’re an old man in a nice suit and tie out with your wife at a fancy function with nice people
Miss Goody Two-Shoes’ sweaters aren’t too tight, skirts aren’t too straight and heels aren’t too high. She’s a swan gliding
My parents were far from preachy. They went to church separately and I went to the children’s service
Sagebrush on Broadway a Big Mac wrapper tumbles softly down the street Donal Mahoney
A student asks the old poet why he has spent so many years writing. The old poet says no one’s asked him that before. He needs a minute to answer.