Her single bouquet
of white roses
slowly expire,
in a cheap crystal vase,
atop a dust-laden
bookshelf.
Petals crying
a lover’s lament
are overheard by
out-patients of Eros
and other
nameless receivers.
She scrapes
her flushed face
against the claws
of a stuccoed wall.
Hidden cutlery
shares space
with buried photographs.
Scores of broken nails
and bleached hair follicles
float so neatly
in rusty brass tureens
filled with tears
of disgust.
Cursing pervades
heavy black corners,
piercing ozone canvas –
breaking codes
of respected silence
and calm.
Desirable wishes
remain empty
and pitifully abandoned;
a Levolor drawn
across the sun’s eyes.
She yelps
a mournful vendetta
against an elusive fate
and a cheated Genesis.
A regurgitated revenge -
a counter play towards
many things…
Inclement weather
and rain-slicked lanes
speeding Hummers
and Hennessey -
chauffeurs and Chivas -
as a limousine bids farewell
to a church filled with ecstatic
onlookers.
Categories:
tureens, loss
Form: Free verse
The Landlord
When finally at 80 Sammy died
Polly gave me from the pantry packets
of dry noodle soup that Sammy
to the end drank down as supper.
Tureens of it, with swallows
from the pint I’d smuggle in, kept
Sammy blinking at the light
the final weeks. I lived below them
at the time and needed more than soup
but in the parlor where they laid him out
we sat on high-back chairs amid the flowers
and marveled at how straight our Sammy lay.
Who prepared him must have brought
his gnomic back, twice at least,
full force across a knee.
Donal Mahoney
Categories:
tureens, fantasy
Form: Free verse