Flicks and rolls,
It works in a wondrous way
Though some wish it would not obey
as the brain slowly tolls.
I enjoy how the lines flow
like they’re sought in the sky afar,
and though they leave the soul ajar,
it pays off what I owe.
As it aches slow and decadent
and helps litter my anatomy,
this is not a regret to me
as my pains are now evident.
Controlled by will
and yet none to be found
therefore no need to ground
what can be perfectly still.
The joint is my lover,
ligaments let the blood flow,
hidden and more on show,
all will be worn and washed over.
I have worked myself young,
creeks, grinds with naivety
skint with offers for prosperity,
so my wrist is what i have brung.
Life throws a curve
It's overdue
A thumb is clearly
Under screw
The wall so cold
Against my back
Lightening strike
Now charred and black
"Nine lives all spent"
Purrs leaping cat
Nowhere left
To hang my hat
A parachute
With twisted lines
An absent ear
For bell that chimes
Cruel Critique
When poem rhymes
Once friendly chat
Now voiceless mimes
A sense of lostness
Overwhelms
Now love resides
In separate realms
CV
02.12.23
multiple petals
in a big beautiful rose
with many small pins
pins and needles sewn across the bed in threads of yellow-brown and rosy, red stitched across my sheets and embroidered to my bed and pillow eye to eye with pins and needles a prickly pair pinned to my bed and pillow
There're rolling pins in heaven
oh, there must surely be
For Grandma was a baker
she often baked for me
Double Chocolate layer cake
Orange and Buttercream
Meringue atop a Lemon pie
to decorate a dream
Her Fruitcake for a holiday
would summon family taste
Especially Aunt Ethel’s
who worried for her waist
And speaking of Aunt Ethel
who’s also up above
Her Cherry Pies and Cup Cakes
left nothing not to love
It was a competition
a “Cake off”, “Bake off” match
If one came out lop-sided
must not have been from “scratch”
There’re rolling pins in heaven
they’re baking up a storm
I think, when I hear thunder
“Just keep my Muffins warm”
Watching your fave
In the closest of matches
Feels like having an itch
With no way to make scratches.
You sit there on needles
And pins on your seat
Hoping that his opponent
Will suffer defeat.
The crowd starts to cheer
As the underdog inches
Much closer to winning;
They hope that he clinches.
Yet you cling to hope
With your stomach in knots.
If your fave doesn’t win
You believe you will plotz.*
The minutes tick by
And you can’t comprehend
That the match may not go
How you want it to end.
*to be overcome by strong emotion (Yiddish)
Four kegs, they’d left on the rye field’s bare crest
gone were the skittles and the balls of wood.
Four kegs empty of magical brew, strewn
upon the hill’s breasts, where gnomes had stood.
They’d left long ago, twenty years today.
Here’d been a mountain, where now a farm stood.
They had left their tipple as each strike thundered
to lambaste lightning from stacked firewood.
On the rye field’s bare crest now shrouded in snow
beneath a Wedgwood sky, stood kegs of wood.
On the rye field’s bare crest each keg turned stone
marking the bones where rebels once stood.
Gone ‘till tonight, the gnomes and jack tars
until the moon’s magic topped the keg’s wood.
Gone till tonight were the hard balls and pegs
this night spirits would dance where we now stood.
Published 2017 by Illumen
if its long
no matter how strong
can get out controll
so be bold
pull it up and cup
that s how to win
its
HAIR AND PINS
its get near
anuther year
so get ready
get mind steady
so you can always win
time to put party on a the hook
get ready for
PIN PAPER AND BOOKS
some are long
on some it belong
comes down
need be sound
so will not trip
stop this whip
do it whip a grim
for self be fair
its PINS AND
HAIR
Time to quit ribbons, pins, and rubber bands
I don't need them to take a stand
The bracelets cut blood flow to my hands
And the pins just hurt my nipples
Red, Blue, Green, white, Pink, Yellow, black
Show just what causes that I back
The rubber bands, just hurt me jack
And the pins....they hurt my nipples
Donations work and show my support
But, damn those pins, they really hurt
I'll take the makers all to court
Their pins...they hurt my nipples
Most people don't know what they mean
Be it white, or blue or black or green
Wear them all on one side, and you will lean
and those pins..just hurt my nipples
I leave the ribbons home instead
And the bracelets stay beside my bed
The pins go on my hats instead
They done ripped apart my nipples
Imagined pins and needles
Hobbling my swarth
Homes sweet hearth cradling your whim
The sound and safeness of home farmed hands
The vastness invites in colour hued
But shadow and soul will not conform
Stepping over limbless torsos of people falling to pieces
Devil shunned faces turn inwards
As outside stays outside
Her eyes are warning flags
Especially when they're smiling
They hold me intensely like pain inside her teardrops
And I'm hanging on to the cliffs of their waterfall
Because I don't ever want to see her cry
These pins and needles of brittle air I breath around her
Sew the torn shreds of my soul into a love supreme
She's the warm, soft ball of thread that remains
Whenever she takes my breath away
Because I need somebody to die for
Her heart's a roaring dragon's den
Glowing a love so pure and golden
For just an ounce she might be willing to share
I'll be the red heat in her conflagration
Just to feel her rush through my bloodstream
Let's take these pins and needles
That we're always sitting on
And sew up this relationship
Before it goes completely wrong
Piecing it all together
These used lives, tattered and torn
We'll make a quilt from wanting hearts
Into something beautiful
Beneath the bowling-alley
bar marquee
the rain tonight
hammers off
the concrete.
Inside, beer flops
bottle into glass.
Beyond the bar,
bright lights
reveal a Bowler’s day:
fluorescent shirts
red, yellow, green,
and everywhere
a roar so loud
one can barely hear
the genocide of pins
slain by balls
a lifetime now in transit.
Donal Mahoney
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