Psalm

You have many names
And no name just as
You are both nowhere and everywhere

Everything they say about You is true
And false

You are us
Yet
There is a separation
We sense
You are also You

You are immortal
Yet You die thousands of times
Invulnerable
Yet You suffer
Each day
But only through us

You are

Both inside us
And at incomprehensible distance
Both Bad and Good
Our Protector and Provider
Our enemy and victim
All-powerful
Powerless

Eternal, Almighty
While we are like the yearly grass
Alive for a season
Only to wither and die

There is nothing more unique
Than Your point of view

People who say they understand You
Scare me

Although You are
the Simplest
Truth

-- Tom Rubenoff

Language of the Xylophone

If a man lives
with a woman
long enough
it doesn't matter
what she says.
She can say anything
and she may,
barring chronic
laryngitis.

What matters is
the xylophone she plays
when she says it.
Tones can range
from dulcet to
cacophonous
depending on her goal.

Tones can tell him
if the sun
shines on him at
the moment or if
Hurricane Jane is
swirling toward him
from across the table

so every man
must learn
the language of
the xylophone.
But above all
every man
must never marry
any woman who
plays the tuba.

-- Donal Mahoney

The Constant Dinosaur

Some day soon
Wall Street giants
will walk on their hands

never sit or sleep.
They will eat
with their feet

as nostrils drip
and neckties droop.
With toilets extinct

they will launch
missiles that blot out
the sun and moon

while in the dark
the constant dinosaur
of greed will roam

the avenue and eat
the little people  
one chomp at a time.

-- Donal Mahoney

Every Step

I can mind each step  
Marry my breath to it  
Raise my eyes  
To the rarest beauty  
That can only be seen  
Now  

The harmony of my bones  
Animated  
By circumspect  
Innocence  
Carries me forward  
In grace  

I comfort the future  
As it clamors  
For my attention  
All will be well  
Because  
All will be  

I forgive the past  
With compassion  
For unlike me  
Unlike now  
It cannot change  

Noting birdsong  
Life-filled leaves  
Sweet air  
Breath  
I live  
Every Step

-- Tom Rubenoff 

Dancing on the Fourth of July

All that hair
trapped in a braid  
silver to the waist
Opal this morning
nude in the mirror
brings the braid up
between her breasts
and around her neck,
a python of her creation

that she promised Elmer
she would cut off
for a pixie hairdo
like Audrey Hepburn
if he would take her
on the Fourth of July   
to the Senior Dance,
something Wilbur
would always do

if she wore high heels
and that red dress
and those black
nylons he found
with the seams
like the ones she wore
the day he came home
all crew cut and cowlicks
from Korea.

-- Donal Mahoney

Horns Over Hooves

You meet all kinds of women in pubs,
women far different than women
you meet in church on Sunday
when you're in a pew with your wife

which is why I was surprised to hear
this beautiful woman two stools over
ask me if I believed in angels
before I had ordered a drink.

Well, as a matter of fact, I do,
I said, happy to get the small stuff
out of the way before we got down
to business, whatever that might be.

What kind of angels do you believe in,
she smiled and asked, sipping a Guinness.
Well, I believe in seraphim, cherubim,
principals, thrones, dominations, all

the different choirs of angels
listed in the Bible I studied in school.
What about guardian angels, she asked.
Do you believe you have one?

Indeed I do believe I have one, I said,
although I saw no reason why guardian angels
couldn't be women if angels had genders
which as pure spirits they don't have.

And what does your guardian angel do,
she inquired, getting rather personal.
Well, I said, my guardian angel is busy
from the moment I get up at dawn

till I fall back in the sack at night
because Satan or one of his minions
is always trying to worm his way
into my mind, memory or imagination

trying to get me to do things
forbidden by the Ten Commandments.
For example, whenever I see a beautiful woman,
Satan always says I should introduce myself

and I always ask my guardian angel if I should
and he always asks what my wife would say
and I always ask if I have to tell her
and he always says I should keep walking

while he does what guardian angels do
and knocks Satan horns over hooves
back into Hades, something he does for me
several times a day, especially when

I stop at this train station pub for a
root beer on ice when my train is late
and a beautiful woman two stools over
smiles and asks if I believe in angels.

-- Donal Mahoney

keys

the pen finds me 
possessive holding the conceptual coin
of proverbial sides

drafting

momentum shifts, yet I am still
right handed

these keys
they call them keys
they are...keys

straddling the obtuse,
fusion takes hold
I hit the key
and fade to a vapid tone of
purpose

each write
I delete myself

-- Rob Dyer

upright notions of bipedal hipsters

she swore that dolphin were fish
despite their inability to swim with her
so I acquiesced and bought the next round
 
"tell me...who does your nails?
"I admired Pol Pot for a while, but lately
I prefer Lennon, John"
 
there is a myth
that the way to a man's heart
is through his stomach
surely I have eaten enough to know better
yet I was willing
to let the last bite of sad desire
ruin my appetite
 
"walk with me"
 
her cherry trees always bloomed early
under milk fed moons
the balance of which remain unpaid
 
knowledge is the one infinite resource
we run out of
but a dream...well, a dream
lasts forever
 
"good night, Love
thank you for making me more than another expense"
 
feeling her need for a promissory note
I reminded her
"one day, I will be rich and famous
and dead"

-- Rob Dyer

uncomfortable

I get uncomfortable
when I smile at car crashes
or see a kitten lying
motionless
and remark how tired it looks
knowing the bi-racial couple next to me
can't hear what I'm thinking
about her insecurity and his
desperation to be seen with her
and how I deny my heritage when
too many Jews in the room
want me to talk about my Grandfather
a man I never knew, much like
his Son who breathed Catholicism
into me each Sunday while joking on the way home
about how many points you got
if you ran over the little black ones
and I laughed, never knowing that one day
the jokes would not be funny and
I would be
uncomfortable

-- Rob Dyer

muliebrous

Times Square
madness in miniature
as viewed from the hierarchy
 
face footed fools racing toward their dead....
line...
a mythical place where futility meets denial
 
except Marty...he hated that name
he was Martin and he was aware of that
but the nature of the nurturing injected in him
denied his existence
 
no one  noticed him...easily
grey, his color of force,
blended in well...Mother said so
 
and Doris....Doris
a title relegated to her from the start
she was not a Lover or a friend
just a wife....another woman
he could not escape
 
but escape he did...daily
amidst storefront copings and sales pitches
along the crusted venues of a city
the grey of it all protecting him
 
walking small, never looking down,
he dreamed of levitating one day
to hover down West Forty-Second
and put them in their place
beneath him
 
and on this bored Wednesday
misted over with noxious reminders,
he turned the corner, head up
and saw Her...staring
through him...into him...past him
 
larger than his worst dream,
she saw him when no one else did
"Marty", she whispered..."Marty"
 
"my name is Martin" he declared with no assertion
 
"I've been watching you for a long time, Marty"
"and I'll be here forever"
 
shocked and disturbed, Martin...no, Marty
stood there
and wept a lifetime of humiliation at once
 
tortured with the notion of discovering
the overlord was not as advertised
Orwell had it wrong...
 
Big Sister, was watching
 
again, a woman was controlling his world
and yes, Marty listened

-- Rob Dyer

Found in an Attic: World War II Letter to a Wife

When I get home
things will be the same.
I haven't changed.

The sling  
comes off the day
I get on the plane.

I'll be able 
to cut the grass,
rake the leaves,

shovel the snow,
all the stuff I did before.
And every morning

in summer, fall,
winter and spring, 
when we wake up, 

I'll draw rosettes
with the tip 
of my tongue

on your nipples,
await your orders to 
bivouac elsewhere.

Nothing has changed.
I'm feeling fine. 
We'll cleave again.

-- Donal Mahoney

Al Dente

Separated by body and perspective
Our lines of sight like dry spaghetti
Scattered on the floor
A few brittle strands
Several thousand geometric shapes

While sitting motionless
We travel at a velocity
Sufficient to bend our spaghetti  
And skew the shapes it forms
Into dynamically evolving angles

Intersections and interstices
Layer upon layer in constant flux
Nine billion versions of the same reality
Bubble up and disappear
A boiling cauldron of alternate perception  

Okay enough philosophy
Al dente sounds good
Pour the Pinot Grigio
Love your red sauce, baby
We make beautiful dinner together

-- Tom Rubenoff

BATH TIME

What did Mom feel
after her daughter left a ring
for her to lower her body into?
She never got anything
except dirt from her child
just to save on water.
While Dad stuffed a wash rag
into the overflow to fully
partake of all his water,
clean water from faucet
to drain with no before, no after
except a thorough cleaning
with Mom on her knees
thankful for her family.

-- Diane Webster 

OLD LADY RISES

Like a popup figure in a child’s book
the old lady lifts out of her chair
by pushing up with her hands on the table top
where screws groan silently with the wish
to just let go and hear wood splinter
against her face with puffs of rouge
dusting into the air like tiny souls
gleefully free of wrinkles and moles
to dance with dust motes disappearing
from sunshine rays highlighting
distorted lipstick kissing wooden grains
like eyes trying to focus on feet
standing beneath her or not
before untethering from the table
and wobbling down the aisle toward
her exit destination.

-- Diane Webster 

LOST EARMUFFS

Huddled together for warmth
the blue earmuffs languish
on the pavement.
Frost feathers each tuft
of fake fur bristling
to ward off cold permeation
like the cat’s pelt
all fluffed out as she
runs into the house
before the sun rises.

-- Diane Webster 

Ice Cream Honeymoon

On a sunny day
in Harvard Yard
blonde from Norway weds
son of chieftain
from Rwanda after
both receive degrees
with high honors.

They drive off
in a silver Porsche
touring America
on their honeymoon
until they're stopped
in a small town.
A taillight's out.  

The officer says
"You're the first
salt and pepper  
I've ever ticketed"
and the bride says
"Sir, we're your first
hot fudge sundae."

-- Donal Mahoney

The Widow Next Door

Every Saturday 
when the sun is out
and it's hotter than Hades

Monica next door 
raises her garage door
early in the morning 

and leaves it up 
long past noon as if 
Herm will walk out

at any minute 
oily and greasy
needing to clean up  

the way he used to 
every Saturday
for 30 years until 

liquor ate his liver.
At night Monica
can still hear  

the tall Marine
fingering Taps 
over Herman's grave.

-- Donal Mahoney

First Day on Parole

Sometimes a person
can go too far,
Mickey said,
two stools over
downing another beer,
his first day on parole.
Someone like that 
cops can find dead,
he said, after 
newspapers start
littering the lawn.

A bullet in the temple
that no one hears
because of a silencer,
he pointed out,
is sometimes 
the culprit.

Such a good person,
the neighbors say
about the deceased,
and that may be true,
Mickey admitted,
but sometimes a person,
even a nice person, 
can go too far,

say the wrong thing
to the wrong person
at the wrong time
and take a bullet
in the temple,
Mickey said,
because it's hard  
to put a cobra 
under a bed.  

-- Donal Mahoney

White to the Waist

 
That line of trees beside apartments 
marches neatly east and west, 
painted in place to prevent 
deviant happenings. 
The trees of childhood 
wore those same pale leggings 
against insect bites, I always believed. 
Those unravished barks 
were rough as we hugged them, 
foreheads bowed, eyes closed, 
the count to ten fraught with 
the next moment when we 
must run, scamper, become 
free of our last failure to escape. 
Touching base first seems 
to offer salvation, so I have 
my trees sprayed, cover the pond 
to protect the goldfish. Someone 
must still believe neat white makes pure. 
Tom Sawyer was tricky with whitewash, 
and I was once coated over in Mexico. 
They called me La Fantasma de Monterrey. 
I knew, though, no matter how pale 
I looked, I was still sun-burnished 
beneath and much compromised. 
Today, I think, we ask for stronger medicine. 
I take my dose and wait for something, 
or someone, to call me cured.

-- Carol Hamilton 

Hubble's Successor

We talked of the problems 
 the early Hubble 
 the disappointment 
 
of its launchers 
 They projected 
 it could look back 
 
to the Big Bang 
 The thought of seeing 
 my own creation 
 
 
in real time turned me 
 inside out 
 Such a sight 
 
could swallow us up 
 and we laughed 
 that the universe said 
 
"Not so fast!" 
 Space walks and repairs 
 turned the Hubble 
 
into a wonder and the future 
 promises more 
 I wonder still 
 
how much kneading 
 time will take 
 how many eyes 
 
I would have to have 
 to watch the back 
 of my head 
 
 -- Carol Hamilton