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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.)
John F McCullagh Apr 2013
Two folded sheets of paper
were secreted in his stovepipe hat.
He rehearsed the phrases in his mind
on the platform where they sat.

The air was cool and tolerable
on that remembered day.
The smell of death hung in the air
from heroes Blue and Gray.

A Doctor of Divinity intoned a simple prayer.
A local band then played.
Doctor Everett spoke two hours
In his solemn practiced way.

Only then did Lincoln rise.
His face seemed sad and grey.
I was then a child of five
standing fifteen feet away.

There upon the Field of battle
amidst the legion of the death.
He did honor to their sacrifice
And the sacred cause he led.

He spoke about equality
He promised a rebirth.
Government of the people
would not perish from the earth.

That is all that I remember.
of the consecration day.
His words will live forever
Like the deeds of Blue and Gray.
In 1939, an elderly resident of Gettysburg, Pa. recounts his memories of the day the national Cemetery was consecrated, 11/19/1863- That day Lincoln spoke his Gettysburg address.
John F McCullagh Feb 2020
Consider the locust
who, alone, does no harm,
but devastates the earth
when part of a swarm.
They mass and devour
fruit grain and leaf
without thought of the future;
it beggars belief.

Then sated and full
they all die en mass
as ultimate victims
of their voracious repast.

Consider the human being
who, alone, does no harm...
7.7 billion humans on the way to 10 billion by 2050  Pity the Earth
John F McCullagh Oct 2013
There is a bankrupt government
Down in Washington D.C
A petty despot is presiding
from sea to shining sea.

The Senate is dysfunctional
The House perhaps is worse-
Obsessed with banning *** acts
That they hadn't thought of first.

They furloughed the non- essentials-
Eight hundred thousand out the door.
Had they looked around the chamber
They could find five hundred more!

They’ll be no negotiations
As they fight over the purse
We’ll pay fines or buy insurance
Affordable care-my ***.

A President elected
Largely based upon his skin
Will be followed by a woman
With more baggage than an INN

A bigger group of hypocrites
I hope never to see
Than this Congress full of Baboons
Posturing on T.V.
A few words about the ongoing farce that is our government
John F McCullagh Sep 2020
Don't think me unusual, it isn't  what it seems.
I don't see dead people, not even in my dreams.
Yet deep within  the Winter's chill.
when all is drear, grey  and dread.
I reach up to the topmost shelf
and take a book to bed.
Sometimes I visit with Robert Frost,
or Edgar Allan Poe.
Sometimes it's Caesar ravaging Gaul
or high tea with Arthur Clough.
They all are windows to the past,
now freed from their fleshy prison.
I always let them have their say,
while I just sit and listen.
John F McCullagh Feb 2020
If you have a fever
aches and pains and a chill,
its beyond disputation, my friend you are ill!
It might be a virus perhaps it's the flu.
My God , it just struck me
it might be something new!

The tests cost three thousand,
but that's money well spent,
To detect viral agents
that the Chinese invent.

I thought I was ill
but my Doctor opines
that I suffer from a
hypochondriac mind.
Relax, have a Corona and stay the hell away from Wuhan
John F McCullagh Jul 2013
When is a Coup not a Coup?
When is there no Coup there?
It's not a Coup though me and you
might want a Coup declared.
President Morsi lost his job,
as his Generals decreed.
That might seem like a coup to you,
and it sounds like one to me.
Yet Obama said its not a Coup
for if it t'were we'd cut off aid
and it might just be disastrous
if the Jihadists don't get paid
American law dictates a loss of foreign aide to countries that oust their elected leader. President Obama therefore refuses to declare that the Coup is , in fact, a coup
John F McCullagh Jul 2017
There is this very orange man
who isn’t sleeping well these days.
He has attained his heart’s desire-
and now watches as it slips away.
He’s a very angry man
who takes to twitter for a rant.
He’d like to bomb Kim Jun tomorrow
But his generals say he can’t.
His failure to repeal, replace
Convinces everyone
The man’s a crispy orange duck
Before his first term’s done.
He rants and raves on twitter
on and on about Barrack.
He is envious of Bannon-
Such flexibility he lacks.
So he must console himself
With twitter based attacks.
A recipe for disaster
John F McCullagh Aug 2013
The President drew a line in the sand
And said” Don’t you cross this, Assad.”
“If you do, you will be like the souls of the dammed,
In the hands of an Angry god.”
Despite consequence dire (brimstone and hell fire)
Bashar Al-Assad risked the President’s ire.
Will Obama stand down or put boots on the ground?
Oh Valerie, what should he do?
Will the matter be pressed- or the Emperor undressed?
Ms. Jarrett, he’s waiting on you.
John F McCullagh Dec 2011
I found myself in darkness there
My hands reached out
and touched concrete.
I could smell the wet cement
and the odor of dead
chrysanthemums.

At my feet a wooden box
and a brass plate displayed my name
(Useful for Archeologists
though I doubt if any ever came)
my heart raced with anxiety
there in the crypt none heard me scream.
Where is the border beyond which sleep
would end my fear and ease my pain?

I woke in the darkness of my room
The sheets were dripping with my sweat.
It seems I'd been to hell and back
and seen the eternity of regret.
John F McCullagh Nov 2016
Now there are none left, none who commanded the stage.
Kennedy, Khrushchev and Fidel; history has turned the page.
Revolution ran hot in his blood, and for that his countrymen paid.

Cuba was once a prosperous land, rich earth and a favorable clime.
The mob was entrenched in Havana hotels and singers performed for their dime.
Resentment and envy in the hearts of the poor convinced young Fidel it was time.

In Cuba today their cars all can do sixty, years I mean, not MPG.
Physicians and nurses all earn less than cabbies, what use is a college degree?
The poor are still poor; they just have a new master. Only now they are even less free.

Fidel was a man with a secular faith; in fact was a prophet of gloom.
We plotted to **** him with exploding cigars but the dammed things failed to go “boom”
I still can remember tense days one October and the sense of impending doom.

Socialism is great- until the money runs out, as old Maggie Thatcher opined.
When Russia collapsed, Cuba imploded, and Che has been dead a long time.
Today Fidel burns, perhaps some will mourn; others will think it Divine.
Fidel Castro, dead at ninety
John F McCullagh Dec 2014
Here, in the depths of winter, when the earth is bare and brown,
You will notice, if you look carefully, depressions in the ground.
My guide told me that here there are about one hundred men
who served beneath the Stars and Bars and gave their lives for them.

The Union line was well entrenched up there upon the hill.
Hard shot and double canister rained down on the Rebs at will.
If Ewell had thought it practical, on the first day of the fight,
results might have been different had his soldiers seized these heights.
When he forfeited his advantage, the Stars and Stripes held sway;
Union forces would repel his sorties the next day.

So, with careful measured steps, we walk above these men,
Who loved, not wisely but too well ,the cause for which they bled.
Do not disturb this hallowed ground; leave them at rest I pray.
Until they hear the trumpet’s call upon the Judgment Day.
A little piece of true history about the battle of Gettysburg  and events of the first and second day of the battle
John F McCullagh Nov 2012
Cyber Monday is my day
to Wrap my Christmas list.
I travel down the Amazon
to find that one-click bliss.

I keep my credit card on file
so when the impulse strikes me
I hop on line and grab my find
They'll ship it free most likely..

I joined their super saver club
which gives me priority.
I save a bunch on shipping
as I buy there constantly.

I pity those fools Thanksgiving night
waiting there on line
before a brick and mortar store
I guess for some that's fine.

Somehow Amazon recalls
the things I've bought before
and comes up with suggestions
I think its called Al Gore.
John F McCullagh Dec 2011
Ganjgal, September 8, 2009


They had a job to do that day
in the Valley of Ganjgal.
Afghani and Americans
walked into a metal hail.
An ambush had been laid for them
as they approached the town
Every light was darkened
Taliban held the high ground.

One squad was pinned
Behind a wall and
was taking Casualties.
The gunny Sergeant
for sure was dead
and perhaps the other three.
Corporal Meyer on the radio
called for suppressive fire
but was denied because brass feared
to rouse the natives ire.

With no air support available
and the situation looking grim
Corporal Meyer told his Sergeant  
They should take the Humvee in.
They drove into the ambush zone
time and time again
Engaging with the enemy
and rescuing their friends.



Corporal Meyer killed one enemy
at close range with his M-4
He then engaged with a machine gun
and killed or wounded several more.

When air support, at last, arrived
and held the foe at bay
Corporal Meyer entered the killing zone
to take the dead away.
He came across four bodies
that had been stripped of guns and gear
All four had been shot at close range
the  postmortems make that clear..
On his broad shoulders he bore a friend
Who’d paid the price of war.
He ran between the bullets
until he had retrieved all four.
Disregarding his own safety
and heedless of his Shrapnel wound
He displayed great personal bravery
without which our cause is doomed.

Corporal Meyer wears an honor now
that few men living bear
The Medal of Honor on his chest
for conspicuous Gallantry there.
He will tell you he’s no hero.
He just had a job to do.
A proud United States Marine
to their motto ever true.
Marine Corporal Dakota Meyer was awarded the Medal of Honor for his conspicuous Gallantry in battle against the Taliban on September 8, 2009. Due to the fog of war there are some discrepancies between the official Marine account and the reports of an embedded newspaper reporter.  This narrative account of the action is my interpretation of the events that took place on that day. Living medal of Honor winners are rare individuals. This is my personal salute to Corporal Meyer who unquestionably risked his life to go to the aide of his fellow marines and Afghani provincial soldiers.
John F McCullagh Jan 2012
It’s seldom that folks see me dance,
for want of occasion or partner.
My stiff joints pray “give others a chance!
Just sit with your drink in the dark there.”

I’m not really hip and can’t hop
Arthritis has put paid to that dream.
I’d let younger ones gambol and lark
here I’d sit, waiting patient, for ice cream.


But no, I sway out on the hardwood,
locked in a slow dance with you.
I clinch like a boxer, exhausted-
Whose opponent has landed a few.


I pray that the music is ending-
My balky hip screams with each turn
After this I’ll for sure need a Walker
A Blue, on the rocks, I have earned.
John F McCullagh May 2017
You cannot see my wings and my true visage would cause sorrow;
In my hands I hold the key that would destroy all your tomorrows.
I stand nearby the President; I’m at his beck and call.
In Life I’m a nonentity, in Death, the Lord of all.
Some think of me as “friend”; my existence your protection.
In Truth I’m just the agent of your mutual destruction.
I am but one of many who carry this dread weight;
the codes for Armageddon that may spell your planet’s fate.
As I keep my silent vigil, the clock ticks towards midnight.
Ignorance and arrogance define your awful plight
I am the fearful Seraphim at the gate of Paradise;
That place from which you were expelled and cannot enter twice.
( The man who carries the nuclear football re-imagined here as the Angel of Death)
John F McCullagh Feb 2013
You are Dark, my Dove and sweet.
Like Eve, you tempt me, and I eat.
Oh! Dark Deliciousness!
Oh! Bittersweet!
Your taste- like heaven!

but I shouldn't cry out
here in Seven-Eleven
Sometimes I get a bit carried away
John F McCullagh Jun 2013
Somewhere in the blackness of you
hides the light of a young Sol.
Sometimes you are liquid, viscous,.
sometimes you are shards of coal.
You heat my garret and light the night.
Somehow your darkness
has been made bright,
But, even as you
make night to day,
I know they’ll be a price to pay.


-My meter was read yesterday..
John F McCullagh Jan 2020
The great man was in great pain,
beyond the purely physical.
The old lion sat and watched the waves
feeling bereft and miserable.
His mind kept imagining, over and over,
His son, Quentin, in a second rate plane,
turning to dogfight with a squadron of Folkers:
an act gallant and brave, but in vain.
His son’s Nieuport went down behind enemy lines;
The body retrieved from the flames.
He was buried with honors by his erstwhile foes
Who well knew the young pilot's last name.
His aged father wept for the loss of this son
He repeatedly whispered his name.
They say that the father’s spirit died with the news
Afterward he was never the same.
Quentin Roosevelt died in aerial combat on 07/14/1918.Roosevelt field on long Island was so named in his honor.   His father, Theodore Roosevelt, the former President , stayed for a time with family at Dark Harbor suffering physical infirmities and mental anguish.  The Father, the old lion, died of a pulmonary Embolism on 01/06/1919
John F McCullagh Aug 2020
“We will never forget!”  I heard them all say.
“The eleventh of September was a very dark day.”
How united we were! How our flag proudly waved
O’er the trade center ruins that smelled of the grave.

Then each year thereafter we gathered at the site
To recall those sad moments when day became night
Their widows and children spoke the names of the lost,
And we all vowed to remember, whatever the cost.

This year we have nothing; no gathering planned.
We’re united no longer. This is a sick land.
No words will console us; no beams light the sky.
So soon we’ve forgotten how Two thousand died.

Now people can riot amidst a pandemic
Its surely their right say the proud academics.
“But we can’t light the beacons- someone might get sick!”
We are weak and pathetic and our Mayor’s a *****.
The annual tribute of light to mark 9-11 is annual no more
John F McCullagh Sep 2019
When death comes out of a clear blue sky
Despair might be forgivable:
The  peaceful calm of a September morn
Reduced to darkness visible.

The sky was filled with smoke and ash.
Nobody’s cell phones worked.
Two scared sisters were on their own
To escape out of ground zero.

Their  first thought was to walk the  bridge
To get themselves from there.
They both worked close to the trade center
And it was hard to breathe the air.


By some work of fate or Providence
They chanced to find a bus
It took them from the cauldrons’ edge
And brought them back to us.

Eighteen years now to the day
Since two thousand people were turned to dust
Memories linger in strange ways:
My wife still won’t board a city bus.
My wife’s sister died of cancer., three years later.  My wife’s brother, a fireman, was not a first responder but worked the pile for weeks after 9-11.    My wife seems ok but  has some post traumatic stress lingering from the day
John F McCullagh Mar 2012
The Bells ring out great Peals of joy.
The war is won, Great Albion.
It merely cost a million dead,
a generation lost and done.

To you, fate tendered victory sweet,
to the Germans, a bitter peace.
There, fatherless boys, abed, asleep,
plot revenge for their deceased.

In the Wilfred Owen house;
no alloyed joy to meld with sorrow:
That day they learned their son had died
They’ll dress the house in Black tomorrow.

His mother knew before word came,
she had a sense her son was gone.
That he’d be among the last to fall
for the glory of Great Albion

He fought almost unto the end,
dying in the war’s last week.
When Mortal flesh and bullets meet
Poets are silenced when machine guns speak..

There is a pathos in his fate,
dying in the last week of war
Like the man who sailed the Ocean deep,
only to drown in sight of  shore.
The poet Wilfred Owen, died in an attack on a German Machine gun nest on 11/04/1918, one week before the Germans sued for peace. His parents received word that their only son had died just as the Church bells were rung to celebrate the Armistice. Albion is a archaic name for Great Britain
John F McCullagh Apr 2014
I think you will find
That dating a poet
Is no waste of time.
An ardent poet
will transport you-
with flights of fancy
he will court you.
His catalogue of
All your graces
wll put fond smiles
on knowing faces.
And, if you are
Not so inclined,
Who better
to forlornly pine?
A poet on a string
Who’ll send you verse?
You might do better-
But you could do worse.
A tongue in cheek rejoinder to the poem of the day
John F McCullagh May 2012
A star lit night, a harvest moon
and you and I alone.
It might have been romantic
if you were not just bones.
Lucy was a hominid,
perhaps the mother of our race.
At three foot six she's quite petite
with an almost human grace.
Careful testing has determined
the age of your precious bones
which walked ***** and upright
in an age before cell phones.
Driven from the tree tops
that the great apes still call home.
You walked on the Savannah
and scavenged meat from bone.
So much your remains tell us,
bones that never knew the grave.
Those who you loved, all vanished,
like the grass in fire's rage.
You may not even have a name
or a name I could pronounce.
Your finder called you Lucy
so that's the name that counts.
He was whistling a Beatles tune
in Olduvai gorge one day
when you empty brain case
caught his eye, he dared not look away.
3.6 million years old, still a babe.
John F McCullagh Jan 2012
With stem cell therapy, one day,
we may keep old age and death at bay.
Immune response can be restored
from a pharmacological horde.
Folks aged a century or more
will still be limber, never sore.
It's possible  a child born today
might live a millennium, scientists say
Imagine Methuselah on a date
with some sweet young thing
who was born too late
I wonder if the ageless geezer
will have the wherewithal to please her.
A small blue pill will help him score
when all his peers are ancient lore.
If she be coy, it t'were no crime
cause he has all the world and time.
How will E Harmony deal with this
John F McCullagh Feb 2012
Truth is the daughter of time.
Lies are at best her half brothers.
Truth longs for a lover to come;
her milky whiteness uncovered.
She does not wish to be ruled
by the Crown or by Papal decree.
She is not Agenda's handmaiden,
she simply longs to be free.
Had I but the skills of a Goya
I could make Truth's beauty well known.
Michaelangelo, too, could portray her
for truth's often captured in stone.
Some will tell you that
Truth is quite beautiful,
as the last of her veils hits the floor.
I agree that her figure's impeccable;
She always leaves me wanting more
John F McCullagh Jan 2012
Six tons of fine Carrara marble
lay supine on the Cathedral grounds.
Agostino had carved two legs,
then he had laid his chisel down

Rossellino's turn was next
to wield the mallet in his hand.
The guild learned he was better suited
to carve meat than sculpt a man.

A quarter century came and went
The giant lay in the churchyard there.
He waited for Michelangelo
to come perfect his stony glare.

They raised the giant on his feet
and asked opinions on the stone
Michelangelo was the one engaged
to finish David for his new home.

David, a symbol of liberty,
Defiant like the Florentine state
His stony glare was turned towards Rome,
a warning to the Fearsome Pape.
The story of how a six ton piece of marble became "David": by Michaelangelo
John F McCullagh May 2013
The American Cremation society
Is offering 'hot deals'” this week.
We get pitches for Pfizer's ******
by snail mail, on Facebook, by Tweet.

Brochures for an all senior residence
litter our nightstand these days.
There silver haired ladies and gentlemen
pop pills for their nightly forays.

There are bankruptcy ads on the radio
to help manage credit card debt.
There are pill ads to help me remember
what drink used to help me forget.

The cars that they hawk to us seniors
Are designed to just putter around
Not for me Candy apple red Corvettes
To race about with the top down..

I’m stuck in the prune demographic
Where ensure and ex lax abound.
I still have my own teeth, and don’t need drugs to sleep,
But my Glasses have yet to be found…..
John F McCullagh Dec 2011
The nation's Capitol rattled and shook.
Washington's monument cracked.
The Nation's Cathedral is minus a spire.
The people Cried out for Barrack.
A previously unknown fault line had shifted
causing a crack in basalt
The President paused from his golf game to chat
with his geologist, a man named Walt.
After a lengthy Analysis
down in the Smithsonian's vault
The commander in chief is relieved to report
that this too was Bush's Fault.
Politics intrudes into the workings of the earth;s crust down near Washington D.C.- this is about the earthquake on the east coast of the U.S. in Summer 2011
John F McCullagh Jan 2012
The nation's Capitol rattled and shook.
Washington's monument cracked.
The Nation's Cathedral is minus a spire.
The people cried out for Barrack.
A previously unknown fault line had shifted
causing a crack in basalt
The President paused from his golf game to chat
with his geologist, a man named Walt.
After a lengthy Analysis
down in the Smithsonian's vault
The commander in chief is relieved to report
that this too was Bush's Fault
John F McCullagh Mar 2018
The  general was in a race with Death.
His memoirs ,if finished, some comfort would provide.
Yet a cancer was eating  at his throat.
His doctors all thought it a matter of time.

Each day he forced himself to write,
although his pain could not be denied.
Sometimes he caught himself staring at his gun,
Entertaining thoughts of suicide.

No, he thought, that's not my way.
The book I'm writing will provide
for my wife Julia in her old age;
an old age I will be denied.

With a firm command of names and dates
He spun his tale of Civil War.
Eight years in the White House He spent.
Years marked with scandals not seen before.

He had seen his share of war
Surely no man longed more for surcease.
He sent his final chapter to press.
Word shortly followed: "Grant is deceased."
Ulysses S. Grant was dying of throat cancer as he prepared his memoirs for publication. The royalties from the publication would save his aged wife Julia from destitution. His autobiography is considered an excellent example of that form of writing.
John F McCullagh Aug 2015
The ugly scar straight down my chest has begun to heal, and the pain is less.
Each week I walk a little more at least back and forth to the corner store.
On hot days I get short of breath and I must be careful to take my rest.
Still, I lucky and can’t complain about a scar and a little pain.
I’m back at home with the ones I love best

All thanks to a gift from a dead man’s chest.
My late Father in law had severe heart troubles in his late fifties but survived another thirty years based on a timely transplant of a valve. this is written from his P.O.V.
John F McCullagh Dec 2012
The world is full of good ideas
And rules we really need.
Signs ensure that drivers won’t
Exceed the posted speed.
Plus we have laws restricting drugs-
So nobody smokes ****.
Chicago’s ban on handguns
Has produced a bumper crop-
Of people full of bullet holes
Legislation failed to stop.

It’s clear to me obesity
kills more than bullets do.
Look at your friends and neighbors
And you’ll realize this is true.
Its burdensome to carry them
To their final resting place
Once they’ve spend several decades
stuffing Stuffing in their face.
It’s past time we got serious
It’s time to walk the walk.
I’m introducing legislation
That aims to ban the fork.
A lighthearted response to Bob Costas and his Sunday Night Sermon on the 50 yard line.
John F McCullagh Dec 2011
The Swedish Tax Authorities
were sure they had their man.
He owed a lot of kroner
They saw through his crooked plan.
When he got out of intensive care
He wouldn't get too far.
No one escapes the tax man.
Like death, their grip is sure.
The suspect's heart was failing
and no replacement could be found.
It was either a jarvik Seven
or he was destined for the ground.
Doctor's worked for hours
His life was in their hands.
He had the cash to pay them
about one hundred grand.

An artificial heart was placed
in his chest cavity
to replace his own
which had been starved
of the oxygen hearts need.
The tax man thought to nab their prey
as soon as he came around.
His attorney said " Unhand him,
a loop hole I have found!"
"Per Swedish law a man is dead
when his heart has ceased to beat.
You are barred from prosecuting
a man who is deceased."

While the Tax men sorted out
this novel defensive line
The man fled to a haven
where he enjoyed the fruits of crime.
He dined out on the novel tale
of how he and only he
outwitted death and taxes
and obtained immunity.
A poem based on an actual case of the first Swedish recipient of the  Jarvik 7 artificial heart
John F McCullagh Aug 2015
Never underestimate the power of hate
in the mind of a man with a gun.
The signs were all there, and all were ignored,
Until his planned evil was done.

A proud gay black man took a gun in his hand,
and authored his own revelation.
His anger and rage writ in blood on the street
with shell casings as the punctuation.

Two young lives destroyed; another in pain.
They were somebody’s daughter and son.
The cowardly killer then swallowed the barrel
and it ended as it had begun

Gather the ones you love in your arms
For each day may well prove your last one.
For hate, like a hunter, is stalking the land;
Only Fools think this is done.
Thoughts on Yesterday's tragic events
John F McCullagh Dec 2011
He was younger than me.
He was a Prince of the “Street”.
Folks would all stop and listen
whenever he deigned to speak.
To him profit came easy
And with it came fame,
(while I cursed my bad luck
at the Powerball game.)
Yet I’m still living and breathing,
while he’s stiff as a board.
His heirs all lining up
to ravage his hoard.

It’s said he had millions,
yet, as you can see,
they could not buy him health
Or even longevity.
He saw the sun set
But did not see it rise.
Was it pangs of regret?
-Of Thrombosis he died.

First they’ll hold a grand funeral
with much mindless palaver.
Then, like other such maggots,
They’ll feast on the cadaver.
They’ll Jet here and there
To Paris or Rome
Drink fine wines and whiskeys
but seldom at home.
Their meals will all be
Five star and five course
and all at the expense
of one excellent corpse.
John F McCullagh Aug 2017
It would not be long now, his doctors knew.
Initially they thought the taking of his arm
would save his life.
They didn’t count on the infection.
Now Stonewall teetered on the fine line
between the living and the dead.
In his fever and delirium
At last he spoke:
“Let us cross over the river,
And rest in the shade of the trees.”
Then Stonewall Jackson was no more.
Stonewall Jackson was felled by friendly fire at Chancellorsville and died some days later from a post amputation infection.
John F McCullagh Apr 2012
It is a pleasant place to lie,
amidst a copse of Olive trees.
The tears of muses, never dried,
have effaced the writing from your stone.
These hills about once knew your step,
your strong and confident poet’s stride.
Robert, the Royal Fusilier,
Once thought dead, but you’d survived.

Your home is a museum now,
Your Black Cordoban hangs on the wall.
I step into the little den
where you finally said farewell to all.
Looking out your window I
Espy a naked maiden flee.
Skin starkly white with Golden hair-
The White goddess? Could it be?
At any rate, a comely lass,
Beauty to whet a poet’s pen
I’ve heard you were inspired thus
by lovely muses, now and then.


Your domestic arrangements
Were quite strange;
celibate infidelity.
I’ll admit that’s one I haven’t tried.
Nor would I like to, honestly.
But your genius can’t be ignored.
by honest literary men.
I’ve spend hours in Ancient Rome
transported by your fertile pen.

Farewell Robert, Beryl too
You knew he’d be yours at the end.
Muses fuel a poet’s pen
But cannot love as wives may do.
John F McCullagh Nov 2013
We were west of the Azores,
Five days out of New York,
when we spotted the Mary Celeste.
She was listing to Leeward
But still under sail
with no obvious sign of distress.

Briggs, Her captain, I knew
as a man good and true
And his shipmates
were capable men.
We hailed, but no answer,
So I send men aboard
To find out what had become of them.

Her cargo intact, just one lifeboat gone
And a rope that trailed aft in the sea.
Something had caused them
To abandon their ship
but why was a mystery to me.

There are storms on the Ocean
As winter draws near;
A sea grave was their likely fate
Or else they were drifting
Ever farther from shore
with nothing to eat on their plates.

I gave thanks to God’s grace
that cold, indifferent Fate’s
bony fingers had not touched on me
and I wept for my friends
of the Mary Celeste
who would never
come home from the sea.
The ill fated brigantine, Mary Celeste, set sail from Port Richmond New York on November 5, 1872 bound for legend as the Ghost Ship.   She was found drifting off the Azores by the Captain and Crew of the bark Dei Gratia.
John F McCullagh Dec 2011
My mother forgot how to swallow.

Before that, she lost my face and my name,
erased from her memory by sickness and age.
Her nurses complained she took too long to feed
They wanted a peg and a tube for the deed

My mother forgot how to swallow


She forgot her late spouse, dis-remembered her vow.
With the loss of the past there is no here and now.
Once she read to my child, then my girl read to her-
Until all the sounds were a meaningless blur

My mother forgot how to swallow


Jesus and Mary and her patron saint
would loved to have helped her, so weak and so faint,
but she had forgotten the simplest prayer -
the beads in her hand little use to her here.

My mother forgot how to swallow


The night nurses found her while making their round
She was cold to the touch, no pulse to be found
She stared, eyes wide open, at the cross on the wall
Perhaps the Messiah had come after all.
In late stage dementia, the ability to properly swallow food is lost or impaired. My mother passed on in May 2005, aged 98.
John F McCullagh Aug 2013
" Daughter, it is almost time,
the day is drawing near,
where circumstance takes you from me
for six months of the year."

''IT'S TRUE THE NIGHT COMES QUICKER NOW
THAT IN THE DAYS OF JUNE,
BUT I CAN STILL FEEL SUMMER'S HEAT
OH PRAY IT WON'T BE SOON.!"

The goddess of the harvest wept,
this was her only child.
Persephone joined her half the year,
spent the rest as Hades bride.

"THE TURQUOISE SEA IS SALT AND WARM,
THE SKY A LAPIS BLUE.
OH SURELY IT WERE EVER THUS
IF I COULD BIDE WITH YOU."

"The humans know four seasons now,
The grey and threatening storm,
The Months where nature seems to die,
when I am left forlorn."

" So let us cherish every breath
and every song of dawn.
We have at least a month or more
before my dear one's gone."
Based on the Greek myth explaining the four seasons. Speaker in all caps is Persephone and the other speaker is Demeter, goddess of the harvest.
John F McCullagh Sep 2018
God is a patient sculptor
with tools of Ice, wind and rain
he carves out valleys and moraines
along the Tanana river's shore.

From distance I have seen
Mount Denali's snow capped peak.
Awe struck, there are no words to speak
To express its beauty to those who haven't been.

Rain forest of the frozen North;
Denali park is a home for the beasts.
Here , protected from the hunters at least
Moose munch willows and Bears go forth.

I will not see this place again;
where Denali's  majestic mountains rise
and glacier fed lakes reflect the skies.
I look back in wonder from my South bound train.
Denali National park in Alaska is the largest  park in the national parks system and is named after Mt Denali ( formerly Mount McKinley) whicfh is the highest peak in North America. The park is home to many wild creatures including Grizzly bears, Moose, Dahl goats, wolves and large birds of prey like Falcons, bald eagles and golden eagles
John F McCullagh Aug 2017
His head droops low beneath a mocking crown.
His last breath spent in calling to the wind.
“It is finished” were the words onlookers heard.
Mary grieves; the Son of Man has died
Nicodemus and old Joseph ask for John to help
to climb the ladder and take the Rabbi down.
Old Joseph has a rough hewn tomb of stone;
There they will lay the body in the ground.
The day grows dark and windswept;
large drops of rain, like teardrops, coming down.
Mary has only the comfort of the Magdalene’s embrace
As the men, with a hand drawn cart,
Struggle to take the crucified one away.
No carrion bird, no wild dog
shall feast on the King of the Jews.
The other two were not so lucky.
Inspired by the painting "Deposition" by Rogier Van der Weyden 1435 A.D.
John F McCullagh Mar 2013
The desert sands, oft dark and drear,
show signs of life this time of year.
Rain, that most infrequent guest,
supplies the means, seeds do the rest.
What once appeared as barren ground
with desert lilies now abounds.
Their flesh so pale and delicate
exploding from the silicate.
So if you come to Joshua Tree
there's more than cactus here to see.
You'll see the lilies bloom at dawn
so welcome come, so quickly gone.
We've much in common , it seems to me,
these flowers and humanity.
We, too, quickly bloom and fade,
then spend forever as a shade.
The Desert lilly blooms briefly in March and April in the Joshua Tree national park in the Great American Desert
John F McCullagh Sep 2018
Desire, must you trouble me?
For I am old and would be free
Of your base needs and idiocy.

Yes, she is beautiful and kind
with sculpted curves and laughing eyes.
Still, why should I be a fool, again, for love?
Surely I’ve left all that behind.

Ok, I yield, I see your need to live outweigh my need to die.
Like old Don Quixote, I mount my Rocinante
Shoulder my lance


And go tilting at windmills.
Rocinante in this instance is an 8 year old Toyota Camry
John F McCullagh Dec 2012
Spyer and Windsor
Often stayed late.
Out on the dance floor
enjoying their date.
Their love was their secret
concealed for some years
From nosy co-workers
and curious ears.
No ring could she give
To her love of all time,
Same *** love was condemned
in Societies mind.
For richer, for poorer,
for better or worse.
Four decades they waited,
their vows to say first.
Then Death intervened
and put them apart.
Windsor barely survived
What they call “Broken Heart”
Now her day in court beckons
The Judgment day nears.
Were their vows a true marriage,
or not what it appears?
Will she owe Estate Tax-
Some three hundred grand-
Because she wed a woman
Instead of a man?
Edith Windsor, a gay Long Island woman will have her day in court as the U.S. Supreme court hears arguments in her case against the I.R.S.   Since she married a woman and not a man, the I.R.S. disallowed her spousal deduction and is demanding estate taxes and penalties.
John F McCullagh Jan 2015
He’s number Fourteen in your program,
“Mr. Cub” to long suffering fans.
Ernie Banks was a soft spoken guy
who launched many ***** in the stands.
A true hero who led by example;
the face of the franchise, in fact.
He never did play in the Series
and there is some sadness in that.
Yet today is a great day for baseball
in the heavenly precincts above.
I’m sure, just like you,
That they’re bound to play two
Once Ernie has tossed down his glove
Ernie Banks, "Mr. Cub" has died at age 83.
John F McCullagh Sep 2020
For men of a certain age,
who recall when  Emma Peel
was all the rage.
No one can  ever take her place;
those dangerous curves, her beautiful face.
Who could forget
the scent of  her perfume and leather?
Ldy Diana Rigg, grand dame of the British stage has died at age 82.  In her prime no one rocked a leather jumpsuit like she could.
John F McCullagh Jun 2012
In my mind's eye
I can see her;
Her dark hair now silver grey,
He smooth child's cheek
now wrinkled
by the light of many days.

Such days as those
she never saw.
Informed upon
and dammed.
Anne Frank lies in
a common grave,
No tombstone bears her name.

Imagine, in a better world,
if her family had survived.
Somewhere, in anonymity,
she might still be alive.
If Anne Frank's family had not been turned in by an unnamed informer, she might have turned 83 yesterday. this poem is a companion piece to my "The Annex"
John F McCullagh Oct 2017
Would the Famine have happened if the Irish were armed?
Not with staves and pitchforks but with rifles and bombs.
Would all of their grain and their British bound beef
Been kept there in Ireland to give them relief?

We were serfs of a sort, slaves in our own land.
Against British oppression we had no chance to stand.
When our subsistence crop failed the absent landlord
Seized our pitiful homesteads and made them sheepfolds.

With the green grass of Ireland their final repast
Irish died by the thousands and their deaths weren’t fast.
Hunger, like Cancer, gnaws a man to the bone
They lie now in mass graves without even a stone.

The poor Irish Catholic was a man with no rights.
No wood for his coffin; No oil for his lights.
What “relief” was provided was cause for despair
as the hungry and  the dying built  roads to nowhere.

The coffin ships sailed and the old women weep.
Some took the soup and renounce their belief.
Such a strange Famine; it boggles the mind
That food was exported- it was sure genocide.

Then we had no rights they were bound to respect.
Their might gave them right to extort and collect.
We were then subject to their whim and decree
Till we learned to fight back and we made ourselves free.
Victorian Britain  took the occasion of the Irish potato famine to crush a subject people. Poor Irish tenant farmers were forced off the land and their hovels were destroyed while their  absentee British landlords continued to export food from the island to the Empire.
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