Selected Poetry by Don Farrell

Photo Source: Unsplash

mechanic shop

they still smoke in there, heavily...hits you

before crossing the threshold, the waft...

fuel, cigarettes, brake cleaner, grease.

damn, that deep part of me

deserves a cold case of pheiffer,

a pack of marlboroughs,

a dirty girlfriend, maybe

some mushrooms and weed.

all the way home

on my clothes, in my hair,

the upholstery, into my house until

i change and shower.

the next morning and every day

for a week, it waits in my car

like a leapord in a tree...part of me

wanting to share my liver with that cat

12/12/25

erik john werner

when we arrived, you were gone, maybe

one minute away. so now

still warm, still

smells like you in your hair.

we are left

with winter. the snow not falling

delicately, it is pelting our face...

curled over, we bend into it.

your wife, your mother and father, falling from the sky.

we catch them like shrivelling balloons cooling

to the ground. we hold tightly

to this shaking earth, this soaking

wet room.

we say we are so sorry,

so sorry, for this wind pinning us

to our knees like deer in a blizzard.

Don Farrell’s work has appeared in more than twenty publications, including Bodega Magazine, Thimble Literary Magazine, The Orchards Poetry Journal, and other places. His first full-length collection, there are soft and beautiful things in the world…please find me, is forthcoming from Fernwood Press in 2027, and his chapbook, blastoma is being released by Finishing Line Press in 2026.