This morning I woke up early feelin’ good, feelin’ the way I felt 50 years ago, no aches, no pains, can’t wait to shower, hop on the El, go back to work,

Blooming for one day a lily welcomes the sun. Bumblebees drop in. Donal Mahoney

Thirty years ago, long before ISIS started executing Kurds, Muslims and Christians, I hired a Pakistani Muslim as an art director in Chicago. I was an Irish Catholic editor putting out ...

One, a nun, has her transfer in her hand. She’s silently praying. Another, a hooker, has her income in her purse.

A friend in England rings me up and we talk about this and that. He asks if my president’s in touch with all that’s going on and I say he should be in touch, going to

November’s lovely in the rain, she… from her rocker near the window to no one in particular although the butler’s waiting for her groce… having walked her Pekingese.

Walt told the cops later his moods come and go like crows on the high wire above his art studio. They land in a swoop,

Mrs. O’Malley from across the alley has another small job for my father to do which makes my mother

You think it’s easy, embalming bodies in these nightmares I have every night, bodies a vulture

A row of lilacs covered with a summer snow. Ten white butterflies.\ Donal Mahoney

Used to be she’d tell him what to get at the grocery store and he always brought it back. Now she makes a list.

Where I live the press says teen use of heroin is epidemic. I thought an epidemic was a widespread disease afflicting thousands caught in

If he were perfect he wouldn’t be Dan the Handyman, laying tile in crooked rows,

Paul’s in his backyard on a Sunday afternoon barbecuing burgers. His wife and kids are hungry in the house.

No one goes to the patio now except at night when Ann goes out to spread old bread and sunflower seed on the small table for birds