While Cataloguing Catacombs
in ancient Kathmandu
he chanced upon a Catamaran
from nineteen sixty-two.
He Categorized Caterpillars
in an old Catalpa tree
he grabbed a limb that wasn't there
it was a real Catastrophe.
At night his Cat would Caterwaul
out back behind the house
but he Categorically denied
that he smoked Catnip with the mouse.
He had Cattle on his acreage
and Catfish in the lake
he knew a mighty Catamount
who went by the name of Jake.
He retired to Catalonia
where he grew Catawba grapes
but Cataplexy did him in
from which there's no escape.
With a Catafalque for his coffin
inside the Cathedral tall
they Catered in a dinner
and mourned him one and all.
A mountain man is Fillmore
but there are no mountains
where Fillmore lives
deep in a hollow.
He's never had a job
and doesn’t want one now
spends his days huntin’ coon
squirrel and possum
and that catamount
lore says is black.
At night he reads by
lantern light with pit bull
Satan poised at his feet.
Folks in town know Fillmore
doesn't feature people
so no one comes callin’.
He feeds Satan
but not too much.
He wants Satan hungry
when the thief of night
comes through the window
the way that stranger did
a few years back and Satan
had a midnight snack.
Since then Satan waits
poised at Fillmore’s feet
primed for another snack.
Donal Mahoney
Someone smart
told me yesterday
you never really
know the meaning
of a word until
you meet
someone or
something
that fits the word
perfectly and then
the word becomes
a catamount leaping
into your mind.
I didn’t agree
until yesterday
when I met you.
Odds are you feel
the same way too.
Donal Mahoney
I can't blame the teenage girl for being forward,
then passive aggressive. It shouldn't make one angry;
she has her interests and that which bores her.
Or the adolescent boy for being antsy, a little loopy
and aloof. Under that hat he wants to be good,
is deeply disappointed with the world (and the food).
Robert Francis: the finest poet no one reads.
We care not. Such prisms of philosophy need
no acknowledgment. The catamount is only believed
to be extinct. The wildlife tree, a mere bole,
deep in the forest, far off the road, when it falls
takes many squirrel turbines and spider spans down with it.
Noon, Julian has nothing much to do
and likes it that way. That way nothing much gets done today.
Every man, every tree, lives with disabilities.
Crooked finger, rotten bole, under stars, over soils.
The I in my old poems is no longer me. The one
in this one will be someone else soon.
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