He publishes poems
by writers who find
no publishers elsewhere.
They suffer rejection
and he gives them hope.
Some improve
and some do not.
But hope isn't always
the best thing.
It’s not hopeful to tell
a child with clubfoot
to take ballet.
Donal Mahoney
Sometimes it's like a bloodletting
and the womb is the target.
Open your legs and let me be
sucked up into the bloodstream.
Come, we will walk hand in hand
down lighted streets
as I construct an idealism more damning,
more hysterical, since sometimes I
feel infinitely outmoded, infinitely second hand.
It is so ludicrous now, I feel compelled to laugh.
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