Those Good Tomatoes
Chicago, South Side
Late July and I am waiting
for those good tomatoes
brought to the city from farms
on trucks with a swinging scale,
brought to the city
and into the alleys
by Greeks and sons
in late July
and early August,
tomatoes so red they reign
on the sills of my mind all winter
too perfect to eat.
Donal Mahoney
Olé! Olé!
shouts El Chapo,
prison escapee
on the lam from Mexico,
riding a burro
to San Francisco,
that sanctuary city
by the Bay, where
the local gendarmes
are free to let him go
and drive a food truck
and sell tacos,
heroin and cocaine
until Congress decides
illegal immigrants are on
a path to citizenship
which could happen
unless The Donald,
our new John Wayne,
locks up El Chapo and
shouts Olé! Olé!
Donal Mahoney
One of those Yanks
believe me
one of those Yanks
who never before
the Charleston massacre
thought about
the Confederate flag.
I spent most of my life
in Chicago, that city
of big shoulders
and short tempers, where
the Confederate flag was
not often seen and whites
and blacks laughed
and fought in public.
I live in St. Louis now
not far from Ferguson
where whites and blacks
are a pile of wood
on a back porch
waiting for a match
and some oaf to strike it.
Donal Mahoney
