​Autism
by John Kaniecki
 
Can I let you in?
(I never knew you were out)
Autism
A schism
Could you understand?---- perhaps
In compassion
Lend a hand
 
I see the world in twirling waves
Words butterfly by
Concepts crash in crescendos
Running only to stand still
Climbing always climbing the hill
I guess I eternally will
 
There I am
An object on a shelf
Here I am
Caught up in my self
Please
Don't disregard
Life is sometimes hard
But God created me
Unique
And wonderfully
 
Take the time
To cross the line
My humanity
Begs dignity
Autism
Count it not as a shame
No guilt, nor party to blame
I too am a child of the Earth
I too have my worth
Come comprehend
Be my friend

​After His Wife’s Last Operation
 
He often got bored with her hobby talk   
but this weekend he looks forward to 
hours of cooking shows on television 
 
while he talks with her about her quilting. 
He finally accepts that she is dying as
the doctor told him after her last operation.   
 
She is still his core, he knows, his centering, 
and he tells her often now he loves her
but she will never know how much.
 
If he could tell other men one thing
it would be to cherish who and what
a wife is while they have one.
 
Donal Mahoney

​Advice from His Cardiologist
 
His cardiologist says
Fred's doing well
for a man of 80.
It won't be his heart
that kills him.
But he needs to
exercise more.
 
Fred goes home
and tells his wife
he needs to exercise more.
She reminds Fred  
he can't get out of bed
without her help.
And her back she says
is a wolf howling.
 
So Fred sits down
and wiggles his toes
n his old recliner
and waits for the day
the hearse pulls up
and takes him away.
 
 
Donal Mahoney

​Those Poems, That Fire
 
I stood in the alley, still
in pajamas, somebody’s shoes,
another man’s coat, my eyes
on the bronc of the hoses.
Squawed in the blankets of neighbors,
my wife and three children sipped
chocolate, stood orange and still.
Of the hundred or more I had stored
in a drawer, I could remember,
comma for comma, no more than four,
none of them final,
all of them fetal.
 
 
Donal Mahoney

​Be Nice to Bill
 
Before dawn
Bill stoops under
crimson leaves
of the low-hanging
Japanese Maple
and reaches for
the Sunday paper
tossed too far
by a boy on his bike.
A breeze informs
the branches Bill just
got up, no coffee yet.
Tap his head
and say Good Morning.
He’ll be back
in a couple of hours
to prune you.
Be nice to Bill.
 
 
Donal Mahoney

​Apocalypse
by John Kaniecki
 
Four horsemen
Galloping in the garden
The tree is bare
And nobody seems to care
Where barrels of nuclear pain
Prove mankind is insane
As we hurry down the road to nowhere
Unwilling even to share
As digits on the computer rise
Wealth the most ludicrous of lies
Some fall to starvation
Others in continuous black celebration
See the armies start to deploy
Weapons of mass destruction aimed to destroy
Somewhere in this transgression of God's laws
In the futility of our lost cause
We will not even compromise
But embrace sinister wicked lies
Like man knows best
And the most brilliant
Achieve conquest
 
"Apocalypse"
A word whispered upon my lips
The unveiling
Of the unfailing
Love of God
 
For friend
In the end
There is rest
If you last
And past
The test
 
"The piper's piping and the drummer's drumming"
"We're getting ready for the second coming"
Oh how at my heart it rips
Apocalypse

​Bears Starving in the Woods
 
Long article in the paper
this morning stops Tim from
gobbling his bacon and eggs.
 
Bears are starving in the woods.
Too many cubs, too little food.
There’s a plan to feed them.
 
But no plan yet to feed people
in the city nearby waving signs
about working for food.
 
 
Donal Mahoney

​A Garage Band Sayonara
 
Jack Bogan died last week, the last
of the Whippets, a garage band big
in a small way back in the Sixties.
 
The Whippets had a following
in Chicago and its suburbs.
They played high school dances,
 
holiday parties and graduations.
Like other bands they believed
they would fill Yankee Stadium.
 
They practiced late at night
entertaining friends and strangers
and driving the neighbors nuts.
 
Perhaps with the right break
they would have made the charts,
appeared on American Bandstand
 
with Dick Clark, his hair perfect,
praising them to the sky before
bringing out the superstar.
 
Lightning struck for a few, it’s true.
But as it did for Jack last week
the music finally died.
 
 
Donal Mahoney

​A Serendipitous Feast
 
Dither of blue jays
bickering at the feeder.
Doves eat well below
 
 
Donal Mahoney