Sheep are by a goat while cattle are like swine, prodded, ye… cattle go by hammer while swine are by the hind leg hung then swung about to spigot.

I’ll have to ask some preacher what if he comes when it’s inconvenient when I’m bowling or lifting a stein of lager

They’re in the kitchen, drinking coffee, the kids, in their fifties now, figuring out what to do about Dad who’s

He doesn’t have to prove anything to me. The Holy Spirit, that is. I’ve always known He’s there, from childhood on, even if I ignored Him for many years. But like others growing older, ...

It’s not the beach. It’s a lake of fire, if it’s there. That lake we heard about in

Let’s stop the crying, Millie. It’s true our friends are dying. They’re old like you and me. Why not celebrate instead that 80 years ago you and I

Millicent was the daughter who danced ballet and sang until she met Butchie on a rainy day. He was in coveralls and cowboy hat and fixed

Do I write in the third person or only in the first? Do my ideas reign supreme or do other ideas work as well? Do I know I’m always right

A spindly young fawn wanders away from its doe. Coyotes must eat. Donal Mahoney

Every evening, up in my rooom, I try to finish a poem but Chicago is hot and it’s better outside,

This is Granny in the Ozarks call… Please come down before spring goes away for summer. The geese are coming through and landing on the pond

I was very small the day they bombed Pearl Harbor but I remember my mother dashing around the kitchen saying nothing to me

One by one young nurses crisp in their white caps bring the old folks out crumpled in their wheelchairs from this towering building

Mae mailed Christmas cards today, fewer again this year because death has made her address book a skeleton. She has a son in Russia

On holidays I hear from Paul, who’s 80 if a day, who may have won his war on poverty without help from his friends. He won’t accept a cent.