​Easter at the Nursing Home
 
When bread
is this good
a morsel
 
will suffice
and when wine
is this good
 
a sip is enough
for the wraiths
and specters
 
coming toward
the altar now
on crutches
 
walkers
in wheel chairs
celebrating 
 
the last Easter
some of them
will know
 
as they await 
a resurrection
of their own.
 
 
Donal Mahoney

​Pheasant Wings
 
Autumn and the leaves
are crisp in the swirling air.
Pheasant wings everywhere
 
 
Donal Mahoney

​Parachutes
 
First leaves of autumn.
Slow parachutes this morning
almost at the curb.
 
 
Donal Mahoney

Hope in Winter
 
Robin on the lawn.
Three hops and stops to listen.
Somewhere must be Spring.
 
 
Donal Mahoney

Hair Suite by Piers Anthony, reviewed by Ally F
 
ABOUT THE BOOK
Quiti and the rest of the Hair Suits have just set up the Hair Suite, the embassy of the alien Hair Balls, when they learn they have competition. Alien cyborgs called Chip Monks want to win Earth for themselves. The two species must duel for control. These rivals discover a third alien species that threatens to destroy Earth, and have to join up quickly in order to protect the planet they are both seeking to win. Along the way, they get swept up in a world of intergalactic politics, wormholes, and role-playing. Will they be able to save Planet Earth in time? Piers Anthony, critically acclaimed author of the New York Times bestselling Xanth series, shows off his signature originality and wit in this entertaining and inventive sequel to Hair Power.
 
 
MY REVIEW - Ally
4 out of 5 stars
Not having read the first book, Hair Power, I was delighted by the accessibility of the sequel. You don’t have to read the first to understand the second; everything necessary is outlined in the short and simple Introduction to the text.
Hair Suite is exactly what you might expect from Piers Anthony: fun, unexpected, and more than a little wacky! I liked this book better than others by Anthony; the plot is not only intriguing but also fairly clever. The characters also felt more dimensional and developed than his usual style; relationships between these characters felt refreshingly natural and established. Perhaps the first book allowed Anthony a longer time to get in the characters head, thereby aiding both of these aspects, which are not usually a strong point in his novels.

Furthermore, I was impressed with the high level world building in Anthony’s novel. Right from the opening scene, the world feels established and lived-in. This is particularly impressive in light of the inclusion of aliens and a world order including both these aliens alongside humans.

Overall, this is one of Anthony’s best works yet. Hair Suite is perfect as either a standalone or the sequel to Hair Power. It’s an ideal quick read that will take you on a wonky and unexpected adventure.
 
DISCLAIMER: I received a copy of this book for free in exchange for writing a review. I was not obligated to give a positive review, and all thoughts are my own.
 
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Piers Anthony is the critically acclaimed author of the New York Times bestselling Xanth series, and many other novels. He lives with his wife in Florida.

​Back Then, Dandelion Greens Were Segregated Too
 
Martin, a very senior citizen, wants to get a bucket and knife and go hunt up some greens in a field in Alabama. But in spite of his yearnings for a big bowl of greens, he knows his wife, Martha, won’t want to cook them even if he brings back enough for a feast.
 
Like him, Martha also grew up poor in Alabama back in the Forties. It was a time when greens were a staple for the poor, black and white, who lived in the country, And they remained a staple for those who moved north to the cities looking for work.
 
Seventy years later they remain a staple today for many in rural and urban environments. For some they have become a delicacy. But not for Martin’s wife. She has had her fill of greens.
 
But if Martin can catch her in the right mood, she’ll cook up a batch for him in return for Dairy Queen’s largest milkshake brought home from town.
 
Martin can cook but he says his greens don’t taste as good even if he makes them exactly as his wife does.
 
When Martin was a boy during World War II, he and his parents would take a bucket and little sharp knives and head to the meadow below Nodder's Hill. They would look for dandelion greens.
 
The greens had to be tender and small. They would sever each one carefully from the ground and usually keep working until the bucket was full.
 
It was while hunting greens with his parents Martin developed a sharp eye for the little treasured greens that tasted so good served with his mother’s cornbread.
 
Some people harvested dandelions to make wine. But his mother didn’t cotton to wine. She believed dandelion greens should be eaten. And she loved to cook them.
 
Martin’s father would stand up in the field and announce when they had enough greens in their bucket.
 
He can still hear his father say to his mother, “Martha, we have a mess of these greens. Let's head home.” And then the family would head back to their shack so his mother could begin her magic on the stove.
 
That night all three would eat much better than on many other nights.
 
His father would thoroughly wash the greens while his mother got the big pan ready with salt pork. After allowing the salt pork to boil for a considerable time, she would cram the greens down in the water on top of the nearly cooked meat.
 
As a boy Martin liked to peer in the pot and watch the greens wilt and see all those greens dwindle down to a few. The pot liquor would ride greasy to the top. His family wouldn't eat that but he knew and still knows families who do.
 
While the greens were cooking, Martin remembers the ungodly smell that filled the kitchen. Oblivious to the stench, his mother would begin to make cornbread.
 
When the bread was baked and the greens were cooked, she would put the greens and salt pork in a bowl for each of them and then pour apple vinegar over the greens.
 
Cornbread made the meal complete. Sometimes there would be an apple for dessert. They’d cut it up and split it.
 
Martin says he has never seen greens cooked on the Food Network now that he’s retired and that’s too bad from his point of view.
 
Greens, he said, were peasant food when he was a boy, one of his favorites in the limited genre of that cuisine.
 
Down in Alabama in the Forties, hunting, cooking and eating good greens were one of the few things black and white folks had in common.
 
Hunting for greens in a good field would sometimes bring them together when the time was right and the weather was good.
 
Martin says he and his parents would be out in the same field with black folks and other white folks looking for the best greens they could find. Not much chit-chat. They were all about business—harvesting the best greens.
 
He doesn’t remember, however, enjoying a meal of greens and cornbread with blacks. No picnics or anything like that.
 
In the Forties, he says, greens were segregated too although he recalls in his family no active animus toward blacks.
 
Back then, if you were in the field hunting for greens, whatever your color, you didn’t have much money.
 
Besides, once the greens had boiled down, there wasn’t a whole lot to share. Leftovers were never a problem.
 
 
Donal Mahoney

​A Different Wall
 
Three times a day
a train roars through
a field a farm away
 
booming like an Angus bull
looking for companionship.
Nearby in Henson's field
 
Guernsey cows eat their grass
behind a redwood fence
and moo in blissful peace.
 
They’ve heard this bull before.
No need to raise their heads.
He can’t come through that fence.
 
 
Donal Mahoney

Rock, Scissors, Paper: The Clifford Olsen Murders by Richard Stevenson, reviewed by Ally
 
ABOUT THE BOOK
In the early 1980’s, serial killer Clifford Olson rampaged through the lower mainland of British Columbia, raping and murdering eleven victims. His heinous cash-for-bodies deal foreshortened his trial, and resulted in the law currently on Canadian books that forbids criminals from benefiting financially from their crimes.
Olson was just the pimple on the hide of a misogynist culture, as this long poem sequence attests.
Sometimes a book project chooses its author, as this one did when the author recognized one of the victims from her photograph.
 
MY REVIEW- Ally
4 out of 5 stars
Stevenson’s novel is an interesting and unique profile of a murderer and criminal. Rather than write a nonfiction biography, he narrates the story through poetry. Each individual case draws you quickly in as Stevenson’s language provides just enough of the right details to keep you hooked. He demonstrates a true talent for wording as he tells a compelling and complete story while taking minimal time.

The perspectives of the poems change, but it’s interesting that many of them address the killer directly. They speak to him, asking questions as though to confirm certain parts. It adds another level to the story with an almost interactive experience. It also puts the audience in the killer’s headspace as they’re addressed as though they might be him. Largely, it’s impossible to truly understand how someone might commit murder. However, this format brings the audience closer to understanding than any other form I’ve read before. As only poems can, the book conveys acute emotional strands that the audience picks up on both consciously and subconsciously, digesting the motives and truths within the story.

DISCLAIMER: I received a copy of this book for free in exchange for writing a review. I was not obligated to give a positive review, and all thoughts are my own.
 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Richard Stevenson was born in Victoria, B.C., in 1952 and has lived in western Canada and Nigeria. A college English teacher by profession, he taught English, Canadian and African literature, Business Communication, Creative and Technical Writing, E.S.L., and humanities courses in high schools and colleges. A former Editor-in-Chief of Prism international, he served in various editorial, jury, and writing/arts group executive capacities. His own reviews and poems have appeared in hundreds of magazines, anthologies, e-zines, and journals published in Canada, the United States, and overseas. He performed with the jazz/ poetry group Naked Ear and rock music/YA verse troupe Sasquatch, and occasionally puts other ensembles together for book launches and performances and reviews books.

​Anathema in '52
 
Tattoos were anathema in ‘52
on any man who got one
after an all-night drunk
 
or to impress a girlfriend.
But not a word was spoken to
a man who made it home
 
tattooed after serving
with his company in Korea.
Any man who made it back
 
was welcomed whether
he had Popeye on his bicep
or his girlfriend's name
 
even if the girlfriend married
someone she had met while he
was digging foxholes in Korea.
 
 
Donal Mahoney