Judgment Day
If I knew I’d live forever
I’d never send a poem out.
No poem ever comes with
ten fingers and ten toes
so I’d keep revising, add
what’s missing, remove
what shouldn’t be there
and put in the right fillip.
One can only write
while the sun streams in
because too soon
the moon comes out
and in the dark
one can’t fix a thing.
Once you’re dead
your poems live on,
warts and all, naked
on a sheet of foolscap
or afloat in cyberspace
for all to read and fault.
It’s Judgment Day.
Donal Mahoney
