Mike Finley

THREE POEMS

Toothbrush

My brother and I peed into the toilet,
our streams dueling one another,
the amazing hydraulics of a 7 and 9 year old.

Then we brushed our teeth and Pat bumped me
and my toothbrush sprang into the unflushed water.

If we flushed away the evidence it might
break our grandparents' pipes.
If they came upon it they would surely be annoyed,
and I had made up my mind
I was not going in after it.

Grandpa Lawrence, thin and diabetic,
stood in the doorway and without a word
knelt and retrieved the dripping toothbrush.

We'll get you a new one, he said quietly,
and rinsed his hands.
We didn't know he was a farmer and lived his life in piss.

But we gaped at each other, the way kids do,
realizing someone was wholly on our side.

Kansas & Arkansas

Spring flows all around us or ought to
each field of corn is taut
with arrows and bows
Our hands can't contain
the gifts we are given

We subsisted on shucks
and gathered in sheaves

Blind as corn and armed
to the eyes
Stethoscopes hang from every ear
Everyone craves
the combination

In all this flatness we
keep needing to jump

Dukkha
in Buddhism, the inevitability of suffering

Some folks have to live in shit
Others live next door to it

No escape and if there is
The 'suffering of no suffering' is his

The pain of unfeeling, not being at all
A cavity that swallows the soul

So do not envy the next guy's grass
Everyone gets it up the ass

© Mike Finley 2012

Mike Finley is a Pushcart winner -- not a nominee! And he lives in St. Paul, where he operates a small foundation helping Mpls punks in trouble

Donal Mahoney

Raspberry Hives

The ancient man
with raspberry hives
on his cheeks
since childhood
will live alone
no longer.
He’ll marry, he says,
the first woman who’ll have him.
Till now
he has wanted
to die
as he’s lived,
alone in his room
with the radio playing,
the water in the bathtub
dripping.
The drone of hours,
however, has become
the drone of years
and the ancient man
with raspberry hives
on his cheeks
since childhood
fears death will convert
his hives into pocks,
take his body
but reject his soul.
For reasons
he can’t articulate,
he believes
if he weds
the first woman
who’ll have him,
death will have reason,
for the first time,
to do the job right.

© Donal Mahoney 2012

Donal Mahoney has had work published in MuDJob and other print and electronic publications in North America, Europe, Asia and Africa.
Some of his earliest work can be found at The Gravedigger's Son See also: Christmastime in America and In Memoriam