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John F McCullagh Jul 2015
Nothing lasts forever without ceasing.
For every laugh, somewhere a tear drops down.
When you lose someone your steps feel so uncertain.
No longer do you trust the solid ground.
For so it chances in the lives of men
That day comes when their fathers go before.
The flesh and blood becomes a ghostly presence.
The veil has dropped between them ever more.
When dialogues becomes soliloquies,
The things you meant to say mean that much more
because they will forever stay unspoken
save to his stone in moments spend alone.
For Pop
352 · Nov 2016
Someday
John F McCullagh Nov 2016
My grandfather never lived to see Bryant and Rizzo play.
The Cubs won last back in 0- eight which was before his day.
His lifelong love of baseball he passed on down to me    
I took up his forlorn cause as mine each time I watched them play.      
For sixty seven summers    I have watched Cubs come and go;
seen good team fade in summer’s heat, adding to our goat- cursed woe.
I’ve seen them jinxed by black cats in the summer of sixty nine.
Watched Bartman wreck our changes;, what will it be this time?
Now they looked nearly down and out; shut out by the Tribes’ fine Corps
But they got up off the canvas and began to hit and score.
The Series now was tied at three, could my heroes count to four?
Our manager’s moves were questionable; I don’t care what you say.
He shouldn’t have taken Hendricks out (and let Baez swing away)
I sat through anxious innings and through the rain delay.
That’s when this old agnostic got down on his knees to pray.
They won it Eight to seven, Bryant made the final play.
My heart is filled with a nameless joy as Someday is today!
Written in honor of the 2016 Champion Chicago Cubs and their long suffering fan base.
351 · Oct 2017
The Silent Mandolin
John F McCullagh Oct 2017
My old friend, you sit in the corner of my room.
My neglect of you is a silent accusation.
How I  long to take you in my arms again
and make beautiful music together.
Alas I am not free. I have long loved another.
Now she has been stricken by a terrible fate.
A stroke has laid her low.
My beloved wife cannot speak.
Her whole left side is paralyzed.
I cannot leave her.
I must remain true to my hearts first love,
looking in her eyes I see
her wordless fear at the loss of her cognition.
Our world has shrunk to a small suite of rooms
Where a rented hospital bed cradles my Love
And the I.V. drips and machines monitor.
I who once sang for her in a beautiful baritone
and played for her my mandolin.
Now I know only songs of sadness and
I cannot play  with these tear filled eyes.
So I have put aside my Mandolin.
I hold onto the hand of my Beloved

and the silence overcomes us both.
A terrible misfortune has befallen a friend of mine. He has given up  his musical career to become sole caregiver for his wife who has suffered a massive stroke.
351 · Jul 2018
Now and at the Hour
John F McCullagh Jul 2018
The old man grabbed his knee with his hand
and held it stable to allow him to stand.
He reached for his blackthorn stick that served as his cane
and stared out in despair at the down pouring rain.
For weeks it’s been like this; his crops now would fail.
That’s life in the North Hills outside of the Pale.
Once he’d been young, handsome and strong;
Now he walked Stooped over and his sons all were gone;
to England and Canada, some  to the States.
He had infrequent letters to keep track of their fates.
Well, the cash from the quarry had not all been spent
And he owned this place clear; he owed no landlord rent.
It’s just him and his second wife, several pigs and a cow,
All the children had left them long before now.
“There’s no future for me here!” one son had enlisted
That boy died on the Somme and his Father still missed him.
He thought, too, of his favorite, his daughter Kathleen,
Who died of the Flu back in nineteen- nineteen
He reached for his fiddle and rosined his bow;
He sat for a bit, played a tune sad and slow.
This old place was his life, in the hills near Strabane
He had so longed to travel when he’d been a young man;
But those days are long gone, over and done
You are only permitted to dream when you’re young.
A poem about my Grandfather, James McCullagh,  in August 1942. He would pass on the next year from Pneumonia at age 88. He had a fine tenor voice and played the violin
351 · Mar 2015
Everlasting
John F McCullagh Mar 2015
In form and figure, in sweep and scope,
This is a masterpiece of art.
Its maker, long since returned to dust,
died of a broken heart.
In life his work was “Avaunt- garde”
and never won acclaim.
He passed away at forty three-
Not a penny to his name.
His eyes conceived light differently
than an ordinary man’s.
Street strumpets were rendered beautiful
by his knowing, loving hands.
This piece just sold for millions
and has garnered much acclaim.
(He sold it for a loaf of bread
To one who bought it for the frame,)
It might have made its maker smile
At the irony, in passing,
That what his age deemed worthless
Has brought him fame everlasting
The artist was a man who died young and his work was not appreciated in his own time. Now his name is spoken in reverent hushed tones and his few paintings sell for millions at auction.
350 · Oct 2018
Again?
John F McCullagh Oct 2018
She was ninety seven; arthritic, nearly blind,
when a madman with a rifle took her life before her time.
She was praying in the synagogue and, with her dying breath,
She performed a Mitzvah- one that we must not forget.
She fell victim to a hatred that won’t seem to die out.
In Russia there were Pogroms; in Germany, Kristallnacht.
If we thought such hatred was extinct; that the ovens had gone cold
We underestimate the hatred that still smolders in men’s souls.
It sparked to life in Pittsburgh;Eleven lives it claimed.
Antisemitism's ugliness is now our nation’s shame.
As she lay there bleeding, awaiting her own end,
She whispered with her dying breath;

“No Lord, not again!”
Written in memory of Eleven American Jews and against the ugliness of racial and religious hatred
349 · Apr 2015
An April Fool
John F McCullagh Apr 2015
If Love has made a fool of me is it not ever so?
To be Love’s Fool is more the rule than exception; This I know.
Those eyes, those lips, each stolen kiss bestowed upon your jester
makes my being a fool for Love not much of a disaster.
In Spring, a young man’s thoughts are of Love and not of the hereafter.
I’m drunk upon the sight of you, besotted by your laughter.
Donne on short notice
349 · Aug 2017
How I won the lottery
John F McCullagh Aug 2017
I’ve played it out of habit, bought the tickets, stood in line.
I’ve called the game “the stupid tax” at least a hundred times.
I’ve dealt with all the nay sayers who tell me I can’t win.
They’ll all be here with their hands out the day my ship comes in.
For on that day Champagne will flow and I’ll be of good cheer.
Bankers and accountants will all vie to have my ear.
All the long stemmed lovelies who ignored me heretofore
Will be slipping me their numbers and hoping they can score.
That day I’ll dress in bespoke suits and watch the Wall Street ticker.
They’ll call me “top shelf Johnnie” for my discerning taste in liquor.

Even with my new found wealth, I hope some things will linger.
I’m still with my first wife you see; I’ve never been a *******.
Through these years of losing tickets she always stood by me.
That day that she said yes was when I won my lottery
Yes I had all the winning numbers- just on six different tickets. Oh well- back to work    Love is more a game of chance than skill, but you have to be in it to win it.
348 · Dec 2014
Shades of Grey
John F McCullagh Dec 2014
The branches are enrobed in ice and hang down to the ground.
The air is sharp, clear and fresh, no other soul around.
The winter wind chills to the bone despite your coat of down.
It whispers to the branches with a low and mournful sound.
I’ve loved the park on days like this, since when I was a youth
This photograph in black and white, betrays a simple truth.
Each color needs the other; there is no other way
to capture, in this image a timeless winter’s day.
Each hue defines the other, in stark relief they play.
I am one accustomed to see in shades of grey.
As I was born color blind, I know no other way.
Earth’s greens and blues are beautiful; I’ve heard but never seen.
The doctor says that I was born with a defective gene.
Somehow I have adapted, I deal with it you’d say
To see the world in sunlight like you see at break of day.
A black and white photograph interpreted by one born color blind.
348 · Apr 2018
Time enough for Love
John F McCullagh Apr 2018
The call came late one evening
just before she would have been asleep.
Rob said "there's been  a hit and run."
"A stranger found Dad in the street."

She got herself dressed hurriedly
without an eye to style.
She left the kids with Steven;
A quick kiss as a goodbye.

She took Lyft to the hospital;
and as she watched the streetlights pass by.
She wondered how she ought to feel
If her father were to die.

The two of them were long estranged.
Had ever they been close?
Much easier to dress in black
if he had given up the ghost.

Rob called her from emergency
that Dad was fading fast.
His breathing was irregular
This night would be his last.

She joined Rob at the bedside
When she saw theirDad she gasped.
How could  he still be breathing
with all those tubes in place.?

The old man on the gurney
reached out and squeezed her hand.
Her father was too far gone  to speak
but hoped she'd understand.

There was no time for redemption
before the old man slipped above.
But, as she bent to kiss his battered cheek
there was time enough for love
With due apologies to Robert Heinlein
348 · Jun 2018
L'arbre de la vie
John F McCullagh Jun 2018
Un vieil homme noir, dans un mois chaud et sec,
assis à l'ombre du Baobab.
Les prairies autrefois verdoyantes
étaient secs avec la sécheresse,
victimes des vents du changement.

"Vieux, ils m'appellent vieux." Il pensait,
"Mes soixante-dix étés m'ont rendu gris,
mais cet arbre baobab est devenu grand et fort
Quand les légions romaines ont passé par là. "

Le vieil homme mâchait le fruit du baobab
et a coulé dans un état de transe comme.
Il était dans un état d'esprit;
Pas tout à fait endormi, pas tout à fait réveillé.

Il a entendu une voix: "J'ai soif".
Bien qu'il soit sûr qu'il était seul.
Cela ne semblait pas une voix humaine:
un monotone sec et sans discernement.

"Pour les générations, les hommes comme vous
J'ai cherché mon abri du soleil,
Mais maintenant c'est fini; la terre est desséchée
Et je meurs, mon petit.

Le vieil homme a pleuré pour entendre ces mots
Car quand ces arbres meurent, comme ils le doivent,
Ils s'effondrent sur le sol stérile
Donc, rapidement, ils reviennent à la poussière.

"Le monde a changé pour vous et moi,
Les vents sont secs sous le soleil.
Je pardonne au monde des hommes
Car ils ne savent pas ce qu'ils ont fait. "

Le vieil homme s'est réveillé avec un début
et s'est soulevé avec sa canne.
Il a pleuré de penser que cet arbre mourrait

mais les larmes ne peuvent pas remplacer la pluie.
Le Baobab est appelé "L'arbre de vie" pour le fruit dense en nutriments qu'il fournit en saison sèche en Afrique. Alors que le climat du continent change et que la désertification a lieu, le plus vieux des arbres meurt de soif
347 · Aug 2014
A hero of the City
John F McCullagh Aug 2014
When evil intrudes into our day
So many are silent or turn away.
They back away, stare at the ground
Scarcely a hero can be found.
It was on the “L’ train yesterday;
A man was beating on his child
A woman had the nerve to say
“Stop what you’re doing
For it is vile.”
You’ve heard the tale-
You know the rest
He turned on her
He ripped her dress
He lashed out and knocked her down
Our heroine lay there on the ground.
A heroine bloodied but unbowed.
New York would be a better town
If more like her would stand their ground
For evil cannot stand the Sun.
We need more heroes, but here was one.
An incident on the "L' subway as it rolled through Brooklyn
346 · Jul 2017
The Lone Piper
John F McCullagh Jul 2017
Here by the shore of the swift flowing Boyne
Where the Jacobite cause bled and died.
Here the piper had come to find his dead sons
that their loved native soil must soon hide.
What chance had they here against William’s cannon
Armed with muskets their grand sires bore?
Why had they been drawn to the sound of the guns?
A call they will hear nevermore.
While he searched he still harbored the faintest of hopes
That one of his sons still might bide.
But no, then he saw them as if they both slept
by the shore of the Boyne, side by side.
Beneath a great oak the man buried his hopes
His ***** turned the red clay aside.
His strong hands worked the earth for all he was worth
as a trickle of sweat stung his eyes.

I have heard that man play, on the cool evening’s breath,
Such a dirge as would make angels weep.
It’s a cry from his heart that escapes   from his pipes
to the place where his two heroes sleep.
07/02/1690 In the aftermath of the battle of the Boyne and old man seeks his slaughtered sons in the dust
346 · May 2017
Reflections on a Wall
John F McCullagh May 2017
They are forever here together, they shared a common fate.
Here are they, the first to fall, and those who perished late.
Some were slaughtered at Khe San, Others died at Hue.
All came home through Dover, buried in their native clay.
They are our older brothers who fought as brave Marines.
There are sons and fathers here and far too many teens.
Fifty Eight thousand names inscribed in ebony writ bold.
Time passes and the memories fade; their stories go untold.
I see my grey reflection as my fingers touch the wall
Across the years I think of one, so young, who gave his all.
A visit to the Vietnam memorial wall. An old man, a contemporary of the fallen sees a familiar name.
346 · Oct 2014
Good Night Harry
John F McCullagh Oct 2014
Hands joined around the table on the roof of the hotel.
Ten years ago this night he passed on to where spirits dwell.
A single candle, burning bright, illuminates our band.
Will Houdini deign to appear to any mortal man?
There is a whisper on the wind, how ill the taper burns.
Is it Harry come back from the dead to tell us what he’s learned?
Bess Houdini called his name and kissed his photograph.
Alas the chains of death are strong and hold her hero fast.
She, at length, blows the candle out and bids us to disband.
She said “Ten years is long enough to wait for any man!”
x Harry Houdini died on all Hallows Eve 10/31/26. For ten years thereafter his widow, Bess Houdini, held an annual seance on the roof of the Knickerbocker Hotel. Despite his dying promise, Harry never returned.
346 · May 2016
The door to yesterday
John F McCullagh May 2016
I walked this campus in my youth,
forty years ago today.
The air is sweet from recent rain
here on the quad lawn where we played.

It's changed, of course,
that building is new.
Jefferson Hall is next, they say.
I graduated here in May.
I need not give the year away
I 'll only say it was a time,
like now, of great uncertainty.

I remember you like yesterday,
Your eyes a deep cerulean blue.
Your long and flowing auburn hair.
Those bee stung lips so sweet and true.

On impulse, just then
I tried the door.
Surprised I was when it gave way
I entered in the Bursars room
and heard your voice just down the hall.

For sure, twas you.
I'd know that voice
if all the world should pass away
I made my way towards your voice
anticipating ecstasy.

A joyful union there awaits
to hold you once more in my arms
life beyond death to be united
with you so many years since gone.

I entered then into the room
in hopes that she I loved was there.
This was the place where we first met
a place where, sadly, none appeared.

A wistful smile, a final glance
from your poor poet of Romance.
too much a dreamer, most would say,
as I closed the door to yesterday
346 · Jul 2014
August 1914
John F McCullagh Jul 2014
Your King and Country need you, men.
Kitchener, glaring in full kit.
Khaki is the color of the day
and everyone must do their bit.
A mighty Empire girds for war
yet unprepared to bleed and die.
Then bands still played patriotic airs;
We cheered them as they marched away.
Belle France’s fields were soon entrenched;
protected with barbed wire fence.
A generation sent to war
will lie forever beneath those fields.
This was the cost too few foresaw
of this war to end all wars.
A cost paid many times since then;
paid in young lives by bad old men.
08/04/1914- Britain declares war on Imperial Germany on the pretext of defending Belgian Sovereignty.
345 · Jun 2014
Me and Shakespeare
John F McCullagh Jun 2014
He was the bard of Avon,
I hail from Flushing, Queens.
I labor in obscurity,
His fans were Royals it seems.
In portraits he’s shown with little hair
mine stood the test of time.
His spelling was atrocious
But spell check fixes mine.

His talent was not of one age
but meant for all of time.
My poetry is dated
And best performed by Mimes.
Its years since I last wrote a play,
Of Will that’s also true.
But players are performing his.
Mine, they never do.
So if my output pales to his
And sadly lacks his wit
What do we have in common?
Not a single manuscript!
Since I write exclusively in Word and do single drafts I have no paper manuscripts. In the last 500 years only one disputed partial play script is thought to be in Shakespeare's handwriting. The anti Stratfordians often point to the lack of manuscripts as suspicious, but there are many reasons why papers and parchments often don't survive the years.
345 · May 2018
Infinite Jest
John F McCullagh May 2018
He was thought to be a genius by those who knew him best.
His output was prodigious; himself a source of infinite jest.
He was said to be obsessed by one who would not be his wife.
He was suffering from depression on the day he took his life.

There is no cure for sadness or the shadows that pursue.
Medication only does so much when sunny days turn blue.
His essays and his stories had garnered much acclaim,
And once you’d read his novel you would not forget his name.

So one day in early fall; rope tied around his throat,
David used his exit strategy from a life devoid of hope.
That is how she found him; suspended from the stairs.
Swinging softly like a pendulum, there, beyond the help of prayers.
David Foster Wallace, dead by suicide 09/12/08. A prolific writer best known for his 1996 novel "Infinite Jest"
345 · Oct 2015
Turning Leaf
John F McCullagh Oct 2015
The fallen leaves of red and gold await me and my rake.
As I am in a reflective mood, they’ll simply have to wait.
I am in my sixties now, my body feels the cold.
I know I am no longer young, yet I do not feel that old.
I admire nature’s bold broad strokes; these brightly colored leaves.
(I would enjoy them twice as much if I didn’t have to clean)
Soon I’ll have them raked and bagged for the garbage man to take.
We used to burn them in years gone by, but that was a mistake.
I remember, as a child, jumping in the leafy mounds.
They yelled at me, my parents, but I suspect that they had grounds.
Now in the autumn of my life, on this crisp October morn,
My life’s choices have all been made and all my children born.
Time, surely I must yet have time to sing the song of life.
It’s time now to enjoy our quiet house, just me and my wife.
A time when I’ll compose my verse, time to taste the wine.
Yet who among us can be sure they’re not on borrowed time.
Should I fall, prematurely, like these leaves of gold and red,
I hope all I have loved in life speak kindly of the dead.
writing when I ought to be raking
John F McCullagh Aug 2019
El pintor de palabras se recostó con su café
En el viejo y maltratado sillón de color burdeos.
Deseó estar bebiendo borgoña
En una silla de color café, pero los mendigos no pueden elegir.

Ser un pintor de palabras no es tan lucrativo como lo era en el pasado.
Sin embargo, en el lado positivo del libro mayor, nadie era probable
Para pedirle que nade el Hellespont
y arriesgar su vida por la independencia griega.

¿Qué, entonces, debería escribir hoy?
Pensó en ella que una vez había usado su anillo.
Pensó en una niña encantadora, bronceada
Con mechones ***** azabache
y ojos latinos vivos.

Extraño, no había pensado en ella en bastante tiempo.
Bueno, pensó, después de todo, hoy es su cumpleaños.
“Feliz cumpleaños a mi querida Barbara Jeanne.

Me enseñaste lecciones de amor y pérdida
y me dejó con solo el toque de un poeta.
Feliz cumpleaños a una mujer maravillosa que era demasiado joven para apreciar realmente.
341 · Sep 2019
I’ll be along
John F McCullagh Sep 2019
I’ll be along my dear
In just a little while.
We will soon be reunited,
My heart gladdened by your smile.

I can’t forget your loveliness;
As you wore your favorite dress.
No more than I’d forget your love
Or  the day that we first met.

Yes this parting was a sorrow,
It’s no shame that I confess.
It’s true my heart felt heavy
From  this sudden loneliness.

We will soon be reunited
Dear companion of my heart.
Never more will we be lonely
When we’re nevermore apart.
A old man places a flower on his wife’s grave and promises that soon they will be together again
341 · Aug 2014
Lonely are the Brave
John F McCullagh Aug 2014
Lonely are the brave on this night before the slaughter.
Santa Anna’s troops surround us and they promise us “no Quarter.”
We are buying time for Austin that’s what Colonel Travis  said.
I hope these thirteen days suffice, for tomorrow we’ll lie dead.
Colonel Bowie is with the infirm, our round shot is nearly gone.
The long guns of the Mexicans will be limbered up at dawn.
A mournful serenade is playing, just beyond the wall.
They play the music of the dead hoping  to unnerve us all..
When morning comes we’ll hear the cry of two thousand charging men
And when they finally breach the walls then will our struggle end.
Until then we stand ready before Texas and the world
to fight them for our Liberty beneath a lone star flag.
When the last of us has fallen all will have earned an honored grave.
For the Alamo we give our lives. So lonely are the brave.
It is the night before the Alamo falls to the army of Santa Anna and one of the 186 defenders is honest with himself about the likely outcome of the fight
340 · Dec 2018
Wrecking Ball
John F McCullagh Dec 2018
This was a place of happy memories;
some sad ones, also, I recall.
It was a detached frame colonial
and, as such, doomed to fall.                                                            ­                                

Our old neighborhood was changing,
multi-families all the rage.
The zoning laws permitted it,
it was time to turn the page.

A new brick building has replaced
the home my parents made.
They've carted off the remnants
Not a single scrap remains.

The new building doesn't interest me,
It's the old walls I recall.
I felt as if my own chest caved in
when they felt the wrecking ball.
340 · Nov 2014
Requiem for a Queen
John F McCullagh Nov 2014
This Queen Anne was built long ago,
in a progressive age.
The man who built her passed away
before ****** took the stage.
His aged granddaughter had it last.
until it was her time.
A conservator has sold the estate
to a builder with designs.

The house is a time capsule
of America before the Wars.
The craftsmanship exquisite;
You can’t find this anymore.
Generations lived and loved
within these sturdy walls.
But now this house is empty
and awaits the wrecking ball.

I’ve been asked by some historians
of our society in Queens.
To photograph this lovely home
before it passes from the scene.
They’ll build a row, with common brick,
of attached two families.
They’ll destroy this house without a trace
And cut down all the trees.
The plan is surely profitable
but, to my mind, obscene.

When we erase our treasured past,
Naught remains to call to mind
The greatness that we once possessed
and might reclaim in time.
A photographer for the Queens County Historical society alone with his thoughts about the imminent destruction of a grand old one family Queen Anne home
340 · Dec 2014
Happy New Year
John F McCullagh Dec 2014
Happy New Year to my hello poetry friends and followers.
339 · Sep 2015
Connectome
John F McCullagh Sep 2015
He was there at her bedside when the light left her eyes.
Speed was essential if her brain were to survive.
Cryogenically frozen, her head stored away,
She awaits resurrection, he longs for the day.

She was taken so young; she was just twenty four,
when her glioblastoma resurfaced once more.
He had made her a promise; he spent all they'd raised
In hopes she’d return to him some far off day.

Science has made great strides in perusing the brain,
In mapping the paths by which personas are made.
In time, with more study, it could be arranged,
for robots to house in their digital brains
the essence of all that his love was and knew.
Could it possibly work? Could a thing become you?

Imagine that reunion some sixty years hence;
when the Love of her life is old, tired and spent.
She will have been digitally remastered;
Her body now perfect, her “skin” alabaster.
She might even her old self resemble,
Provided they have the right parts to assemble.

Would the spark be rekindled? Had the flame ever died?
Could he resume where they left off; his love by his side?
Or would he be like an Alien to the ghost in the machine
having lived long apart while she slept with no dreams.
(A Connectome is a digital mapping of all the pathways and connections of the physical brain. Currently very simple mammals like mice and rabbits have been successfully mapped. In time, with enough computing power, it might theoretically be possible to map the human brain and create a digital remastered copy of a brain. It is not known whether the result would be a living mind or a zombie.)
339 · Nov 2016
The Joys of a broken Heart
John F McCullagh Nov 2016
My hands are spotted, marked with age.
I feel the cold more keenly now.
I have seen some good friends pass.
I’ve lost at love but kept my vow.
I’ve seen beloved parents’ dead
and held their bodies in my arms.
I’ve watched as youth and beauty fled
from the mirror before my eyes.
Yet through it all I’ve no regrets,
No thoughts that it’s been wasted time.
Hearts will break but they will mend.
Those hearts that don’t are most unkind.
Those who do have had good teachers
Though never one as good as mine.
When my Father died I received a letter from a former love  who said the reason I had such a good heart for others is because I had had in him such a good teacher. I don't disagree.
John F McCullagh May 2019
My heart was full of joy that night; I’d just received good news:
I’d learned that my request for flight training had been approved.
That night was warm and the sweet scent of flowers filled the air.
As we sat in the Bloch arena, Navy bands for battle did prepare.
Bands from the Tennessee, the Pennsylvania and the Argonne played.
and no one in that audience gave a thought to an air raid.
Pearl Harbor was too shallow for torpedo planes to strike.
Or so we had been told and did believe till morning’s light

I’d had an ice cold beer (or two) to celebrate my good news.
My shipmates from Arizona sat beside me in the pews.
Our ship’s band was believed to be the finest in the fleet.
The surviving band tonight would be the foe they had to beat.

The golden sun had long since set in the Pacific sea.
Perhaps that was a harbinger of what was yet to be.
In just a few short hours hence did hell on earth arrive.
Though I was thrown from the burning deck, no band members survived.

The Arizona sank so fast; Eleven hundred died.
I watched from the oil-slicked water as their second wave arrived.
This was the day of infamy that entered into lore.
The last sweet strains of peace had been played the night before.
( This poem is told from the point of view of Louis Conter who was an able ****** on the USS Arizona and who had just been accepted into the Naval Flight training program. He survived the attack on Pearl Harbor and served in the war as a Navy pilot.

PEARL HARBOR (NNS) -- The U.S. Pacific Fleet Band honored the members of U.S. Navy Band Unit (NBU) 22, the last band to ever serve on the battleship USS Arizona, during a commemoration concert at the USS Arizona Memorial Visitor Center at the World War II Valor in the Pacific National Monument in Pearl Harbor Dec. 5.

According to U.S. Pacific Fleet's website, the following is an account of NBU 22's activities prior to and the day of Dec. 7, 1941:

"On the night of Dec. 6, 1941, there was a band competition called the 'Battle of Music' at Bloch Arena on Naval Station Pearl Harbor. It featured Navy bands from 'capitol ships' homeported in Pearl Harbor and those attached to shore installations in Hawaii. The USS Arizona band had already won the first round Sept. 13, 1941, and was not scheduled to play again until the final competition.

During the elimination tournament on the evening of Dec. 6, bands from the USS Pennsylvania (BB 38), USS Tennessee (BB 43) and USS Argonne (AG 31) competed against one another. Several members of the USS Arizona band attended the contest to see their upcoming competition and to visit with School of Music shipmates in the Tennessee band.

On the morning of Dec. 7, 1941, while the band from the USS Nevada (BB 36) played 'Morning Colors,' the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor occurred. The entire USS Arizona Band, while at battle stations passing ammunition under gun turret number one, was killed in the attack. In the weeks to follow, all the bands that had participated in the 'Battle of Music' voted to posthumously award the tournament trophy to Navy Band Unit 22, renaming it the 'Arizona Trophy.'"
338 · Jun 2017
Poetic postmortem
John F McCullagh Jun 2017
They found him, slumped over, in his small writer's garret.
There were no obvious signs of foul play.
No wounds, no abrasions or ligature marks
and just the faint hint of decay.

Later, laid out on a cold metal table,
No cause for his death could they find.
His arteries clean as twenty year old.
No detectable poisons this time.

He didn't do drugs and he didn't drink beer.
His death was not self-inflicted.
His muse had abandoned him; took his will to live.
His demise could thus be predicted.

For a poet will have himself tied to a mast
To hear the sweet song of a Si-ren.
The loss of one's muse is a serious blow;
Look what it did to Lord Byron!
Actually Byron succumbed to a fever but I was desperate for a rhyme
338 · Jan 2015
The Pillars of Creation
John F McCullagh Jan 2015
I have seen them in their majesty, in ultraviolet light.
They stretch across five light years’ space there in the dark of night.
They are the womb of newborn stars, the cradle and the nave.
The elements are present there, in aquamarine shade.
Within the Pillars there is light, the light of proto-stars,
Surrounded by the swirling dust which will be what we are.
Then, sometime in the yet to be, on such a starry night,
They may note the death of Sol, the star that gave us light.
As they see our old star swell then shrink as fuels run out.
They too may pause and think, in wonder at the sight.
Written about the Pillars of Creation, as photographed by the Hubble space telescope
337 · Oct 2014
The Lonely Ghost
John F McCullagh Oct 2014
When his heart stopped on the table, and the nurse pronounced the time,
Graham was surprised as any that his consciousness survived.
He was a lifelong bureaucrat; venial, unrefined,
with all of the complexity of a soured table wine.
He was not meet for Heaven. He wasn’t good or kind.
He thought he’d join the Devils, but his option was declined.
So he wandered as a lonely ghost in a world gone monochrome.
Surely there were others like him but they did not make themselves known.
He grew envious of his ashes, resting silent in their urn.
His mortal flesh, consumed by flames, was at no risk of return.
One time he tried to say a prayer, to stir the mystic Chords,
But no one heard a syllable; he had forgotten all his words.
He wandered like this countless years until he lost his mind.
It had been his choice to live like this when he still had world and time.
A terrifying fable for Halloween
336 · Jul 2015
Independence Day
John F McCullagh Jul 2015
“It’s a great life if you don’t weaken. “My aunt Helen did confide.
She is somewhere north of eighty-four and never someone’s bride.
Her beau died in Korea, died to keep our country free,
“ At least that was the pious pap they tried to sell to me.”
So she lived a solitary life, watching horses round the rail.
She would hang around casinos too, the reason she’s so pale.
“There are no pockets in those things.” She told me at a wake.
“so you won’t catch me sitting home, that’s a big mistake.”
In these later years she might enjoy a second glass of wine.
She is fiercely independent; she is a good friend of mine.
So, if now and then thoughts scatter and she tells a tale again.
I smile and listen patiently. We all get there in the end.
An ode to my dear aunt Helen, an American original
John F McCullagh Dec 2016
The officer’s whistle blew and we rose up
into the stiff wind of German fire.
Whole companies disappeared in the smoke
While tangled up in razor wire.
Our generals were exposed as fools;
Their tactics drawn from earlier wars
Our young conscripts, bayonets fixed,
were fed into the cannons maw.
Nineteen thousand young Brits dead,
Thirty thousand wounded more.
We gained so little ground that day
so little for that blood and gore.
A generation raised on tales
of the glory and romance of war,
has learned today the hard harsh truth
Wisdom gained through suffering is universal law.
Like Pickett's charge on steroids
334 · Jul 2018
A child of Then
John F McCullagh Jul 2018
I lay down on my living room floor
Convinced that the world would end.
A crisis off Cuba with missiles  enroute.
Yes, I am a Child of Then.

A lady in pink with blood on her dress.
A President shot in the head.
I remember where I was exactly that day
for I am a Child of Then.

Police battle Blacks, Watts is in flames
Protests rage on without end.
King is dead at the hand of a bigoted man
Yes, I am a Child of Then.

Camelots heir sought to bind up the wounds
Then Sirhan Sirhan shot him dead.
Bobby bled out on the kitchen tiled floor
for I am a Child of Then.

Asian girl running, naked, on a dirt country road.
A Viet Cong man shot in the head.
Fifty Eight Thousand names on a wall
Yes, I am a Child of Then.
poem suggested by my poet friend Leafsailor
334 · Nov 2020
Breakers
John F McCullagh Nov 2020
The little skiff drifted at the mercy of the tides.
Out beyond the breakers, just off the shore.
It sole occupant, unconscious, curled in a fetal pose.
How long had she been like that? Perhaps Heaven knows.

The sail was torn and tattered so it could not catch the wind.
No chance, then, of reversing course. Going back to where she’d been.
Her sunburned skin, her parched cracked lips, her worn and threadbare wear
Gave mute witness to her suffering and her unanswered prayers.

I think it was a kindly moon that made her voyage end.
For sure  a strong insistent tide had brought that wrecked bark in.
That’s when we saw it on the beach; Saw the body, felt alarm.
I went to her, checked for a pulse, then told my mate “She’s gone.”
Jacqueline ******- Patalano  09/21/1954-11/02/2020 R.I.P. at the end of the voyage
331 · Mar 2017
Her Beautiful Day
John F McCullagh Mar 2017
Since she was young she had dreamed of the day
When she would be dressed in white lace
With a bouquet of roses held in her gloved hands
and the sheerest of veils on her face.

You know how time flies
In this work a day world
In business she was a success.
The men in her life seemed mere boys, nothing serious,-
Then she noticed a lump on her breast.

A dread diagnosis, a virulent Cancer,
This surgeon said terminal C.
She had little time left for romantic love
She thought that her dream could not be.

Her friend, a photographer, encouraged her then
to put on her loveliest dress.
She posed for her close-ups
In a flower decked chapel
And they say even Death was impressed

Every young woman possesses a beauty
No matter their complexion or size.
In this difficult life they are angels among us;
Truth and Beauty reside in their eyes.
Based on a true story and written in honor of International Women's day
330 · Aug 2014
The Informer
John F McCullagh Aug 2014
The great man lies dead in his bullet riddled clothes.
The ambush was more successful than De Valera dared suppose.
Michael Collins was a traitor to Republican ideals.
His treaty gave over to the Brits one fourth of our green fields.
Everyone thought me his friend. I was always by his side.
Yet I knew enough to stay away on this day he died.
When he fired on the Inns of Court I decided he’d go down..
Though some may say he was a Saint, once safely in the ground.
They say that he fought bravely, though surrounded with long odds.
A proper, fitting sacrifice to lay before our gods.
Nations must be born in blood if they are ever to be free.
Free of allegiance to a Crown and capped with Liberty
An unnamed Anti-treaty IRA man muses privately over his part in the ambush and assassination of Michael Collins.
329 · Jun 2018
Once Upon a time in America
John F McCullagh Jun 2018
Once upon a time in America
the Sons and Daughters of Liberty
faced down the dragoons of a distant tyrant
and won freedom for themselves and their posterity.

Once upon a time in America
A President held forth for human rights
and freed a people who had been held in *******
after five Aprils of costly, ****** strife

Once Upon a Time In America
brave women rallied to be suffragettes;
No more content to be second class citizens,
They won the vote and haven't looked back yet

Once Upon a Time In America
The teeming masses set out for our shores
They were greeted by the lady in the harbor
who raised the torch of Freedom ever more

Once upon a time in America
we raised brave men the equal of their time;
They spent their prom day storming Norman beaches
and didn't stop until they reached the Rhine.

Once upon a time in America
Men with the "Right Stuff" could still be found
to circle the Earth and reach the nearby moon
returning back here safely to the ground.


That was once upon a time in America.
before the dream was sold and spat upon
Before they pulled the ladder up behind them.
For most of us the dream is dead and gone.
329 · Dec 2016
I held a Rose...
John F McCullagh Dec 2016
I held a rose without a thorn,
I say with certainty.
Every other rose has thorns;
every one save she.
There are other kinds of rose:
Long stemmed, hybrid, tea.
Still it was the thornless rose
that I kept close to me.
Perhaps I held a bit too tight
and her love began to wane
Sadly, I relaxed my grasp,
vainly hoping she'd remain.
We parted as the best of friends
as she got up from my bed.
I looked down, dumbly,
at my hands
and wondered why they bled.
John F McCullagh Jun 2017
And now, my weigh-ins near;
Weight watchers makes a big production.
I've cheated, had a few beers
then gotten quotes for liposuction

I've eaten way past full
and then had one more for the highway
I've gotten old, I've gotten fat
don't diet my way!

Baguettes, I've had a few, but then again, too few to mention
I love my salty snacks
but that's what gave me hypertension

I planned each 3 course meal
at greasy spoons along the highway
Ive gotten old
I've gotten fat
don't diet my way

Yes there were times when I was blue
Ice cream in quarts, I would go through
but through it all, despite the gout
I'd eat it in, or take it out
I ate it all, - and I'm not tall
don't diet my way

I've lunched, I've wined and dined
I've had my failed attempts at losing
but now my jeans just split
and it no longer seems amusing.

To think I ate it all
and may I say not in a shy way
I've gotten old, I've gotten fat
don't diet my way

For what is a meal without cake for desert
and JOGGING IS DANGEROUS - a guy could get hurt
I ate the foods I truly craved
and never once was fashion's slave
The weight-in shows, I need new clothes
don't diet my way!
Not totally autobiographical but I've been there.
328 · Apr 2015
They called me Bruce
John F McCullagh Apr 2015
Once, back in the day, when you were still teens,
I won the decathlon, a pole vaulting fiend.
On bright orange boxes my face could be seen.
It seemed like I was living the American dream.

Yet my role as a hero was all just a pose.
I never felt comfortable wearing men’s clothes.
I longed for the feel of lace upon skin.
I just didn’t belong in the body I’m in.

I longed to be pretty, I needed a change-
with money no object that could be arranged.
Hormonal treatments would help my ***** blossom
They made my skin soft and they rounded my bottom.

Now in stockings and gingham I’m making the scene,
The thing I’ve most wanted since I was a teen.
Those parts that defined me- now surgically gone,
I just don’t know whether to scratch or to yawn.
( The Bruce Jenner story)
328 · Jan 2015
In a Nutshell
John F McCullagh Jan 2015
Living on a minor planet near a very average star,
There arose a type of primate, the most inquisitive by far.
Not the strongest or the fastest of the animals on earth,
but blessed with an intelligence that quickly proved its worth.
Long before they had the means to travel very far,
They raised their eyes in wonder at the glory of the stars.
thus embarking on a quest that has yet to reach its end.
as they parse the light of distant stars in their thirst to comprehend.
based on a quote from Stephen Hawking and written in honor of his 73rd birthday.
327 · Dec 2018
From the ashes
John F McCullagh Dec 2018
In wind and flame a forest dies,
But from the ashes she shall rise.
From pine cones opened by the heat
The trees ****** victory from defeat.
Among the embers fading glow
Seeds take root and soon will grow.
Surely conifers shall rise
and, evergreen,reach for the sky.
Like the Phoenix bird of legend
They rise anew to strive for heaven
Thoughts on the devastating forest  fires in the Pacific Northwest
326 · Sep 2017
The Aftermath
John F McCullagh Sep 2017
I saw my neighbor standing in disbelief.
He seemed to be in shock
He stared at the ruins of his home
as the waters of Harvey  receded from his land.
He had his wife, but that was all.
They had nothing to look forward to now but fighting mud and mold.
“ I came into this life with nothing and I leave it with nothing.”
He muttered this more to himself than to me.
“I will help you.” I said. “We will help each other.”
Then he seemed to recall that he was a Texan;
Born and raised.
and we  Texans do not allow ourselves to become discouraged
by a little adversity.
“We will rebuild.” he told his wife. “Don’t you worry.”
Then, like Greek Sisyphus with his shoulder against the stone,
He began to pick and sort through the wreckage of his time.
Hurricane Harvey destroys our homes but not our spirit
326 · Sep 2017
FIGHT
John F McCullagh Sep 2017
DEATH felt a tug upon his line.
He gave the reel some play.
Down in the depths the struggle commenced
This was some soul’s dying day.

Down in the depths of deep despair
His victim fought the hook.
DEATH had used pleasure as his lure
oft that was all it took.

DEATH sat back in his fishing chair
aboard his Yacht “Mort Du”.
He waited for acceptance;
for the struggle to be through.

DEATH smiled a hideous fleshless smile.
What did one mortal say?
“If your work is your hobby,
It’s like you never worked a day.”

The Sun rode low in the western sky.
A  certain chill invades the air.

DEATH felt the strain in his sinewy arms.
And He shifted in his chair.

It’s Time, DEATH thought, to end this sport.
“You will not get away.
I’m glad you made it interesting
Now perhaps it’s time to pray”

Just then DEATH felt the line go slack:
Cut through upon a submerged rock.
His prey, still burdened by his hook,
still had time upon the clock.

DEATH surveyed the darkening sea.
as twilight settled on the brine.
DEATH took it philosophically;
We’ll meet again another time.
-Dedicated to all the brave souls fighting the big "C"
325 · Mar 2018
My American Voice
John F McCullagh Mar 2018
This place is a museum now; this great hall where my father stood.
Here he waited on line with all the rest. He waited for admission.
He was dressed in his best with a few dollars in his pocket,
and the address of his sister and her husband in New York.

There’s a lady in the harbor here who holds her torch aloft for all.

My mother, Helen, was native, first generation born upon these shores.
My father was a laborer; the quarries and mines had made him strong.
His years in Scotland plus his native Irish brogue
was baffling at first to those Ellis Island clerks.

There’s a lady in the harbor here who holds her torch aloft for all.

My Dad found work building a bridge high above the waters reach.
He started out a near illiterate but slowly learned to read
From discarded copies of the New York Daily News.
He met my mom at an Irish dance.

There’s a lady in the harbor here who holds her torch aloft for all.

My mother’s voice was all New York; a dialect of English speech.
She loved her numbers, and clerked for Met Life, but she may have longed to teach.
Instead she sat with me in our small kitchen
Teaching me my numbers as our dinner was prepared.

There’s a lady in the harbor here who holds her torch aloft for all.

For those of you who have heard me speak
And found my own accent hard to place.
I am a little of old New York and a little of a fair green place.
My American voice is but the echoed music of my race.
325 · Nov 2017
The Silent Mandolin
John F McCullagh Nov 2017
My old friend, you sit in the corner of my room.
My neglect of you is a silent accusation.
How I long to take you in my arms again
and make beautiful music together.
Alas I am not free. I have long loved another.
Now she has been stricken by a terrible fate.
A stroke has laid her low.
My beloved wife cannot speak.
Her whole left side is paralyzed.
I cannot leave her.
I must remain true to my hearts first love,
looking in her eyes I see
her wordless fear at the loss of her cognition.
Our world has shrunk to a small suite of rooms
Where a rented hospital bed cradles my Love
And the I.V. drips and machines monitor.
I who once sang for her in a beautiful baritone
and played for her my mandolin.
Now I know only songs of sadness and
I cannot play with these tear filled eyes.
So I have put aside my Mandolin.
I hold onto the hand of my Beloved

and the silence overcomes us both.
A revision of the original taking into account some reasonable criticisms of the piece
325 · Aug 2017
The Great Dic
John F McCullagh Aug 2017
Those who call Trump a dictator
are guilty of using
two syllables too many
324 · Apr 2014
REMEMBER
John F McCullagh Apr 2014
The old man sat in his motorized chair
in a room filled with shadow and light.
His bored health attendant cared for him there
as he made his descent into night.
He longed to remember the smell of her hair,
the woman who had brought him such pleasure.
To escape, for a moment, the dull aching pain
Of the cancer that was taking his measure.
He longed to return to that day long ago,,
They made love in the warm summer rain.
Yet how could he summon the muse of his youth
When he couldn’t remember her name?
Would his kindly Physician take pity on him-,
the old man in his motorized chair?
Would he increase the drip until his heart stilled?
When he died would she be with him there?
He had failed to appreciate, when young and strong,
the pitiless tempo of Time.
He couldn’t remember the words of their song,
to descant at the end of the line.
When saving time in a bottle remember that it must be labeled and tightly sealed
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