Slouching towards Wiemar
Your impulses are generous, kind and pure-
But impose costs on us we cannot endure.
One point three trillion spent each year, tis said,
to keep our current poor in their own beds.
Americans face debt related worries
While social engineers break out new Mores.
Recent Grads despair of their careers
and student loans are going in arrears.
Priests, Teachers and the Boy Scouts, rank and file,
Apparently are staffed with pedophiles.
Socialism's great and life is sunny-
until you run out of other people's money.
poem by John F. McCullagh
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Mayor Bloomberg as THE NANNY
Do you really need that second slice?
Don't you dare to super size!
Guzzling down large sugary drinks-
Do you really think that's wise?
Your hamburger is much too large
I'd cur it down to size
until its like those square ones
that White Castle serves sans fries.
I taught the City not to smoke,
in that I was thought wise.
Unhand that Nathans hot dog!
It will go straight to your thighs.
I guess I'm just a Puritan,
my happiness undone,
by the thought that somewhere, someone
might still be having fun.
poem by John F. McCullagh
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The Thieves of Honor
The Phony Hero, the fake marine
with stolen valor, bemedalled chests.
These are the lowest of the low
Who steal the honor due our best.
Those who never took the field
Who never had to face the foe
Common thieves usurp the medals
owed to men who lie in rows.
True heroes lie in Arlington,
Or in a hundred foreign fields
Or else live private quiet lives’
And never speak about their deeds.
The thieves of honor think to gain
high office by casuistry.
But they will only garner shame
Once we expose their perfidy.
poem by John F. McCullagh
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Life and Art
For the artist, Joanne Cooper, on the occasion of her eightieth birthday
With keen eye and skillful hands
You take the light of other days
And produce lush landscapes for your fans
Much like a playwright crafting plays.
You start with canvas white and clean
So like the snows we’ve lately seen
And with bold strokes make form and line-
Virtual playgrounds for the mind.
With age comes wisdom to impart
Suffused with light, these stand apart:
Common place made special art.
The gracious gift of a gentle heart.
poem by John F. McCullagh
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The Game of Baseball
It begins, of course, in the Spring.
The evenings grow lighter
The air sweeter
and all the world is filled
With sweet optimism.
It continues through
the long hot summer
Humid evenings
and long hot afternoons.
It is a marathon
not a sprint.
Only one team each year
wins its last game
It leaves us in the Fall
as Winter’s first foul
Imprecations
chill us to the marrow.
Days darken
[...] Read more
poem by John F. McCullagh
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Again
It had been some years
since you and I
had shared any stage and time
but here we are
in another's garden.
Strands of silver now showcase
your still pensive lovely face
You played Rosalind with me
in William's Arden.
Our theater borne romance
never really had much chance.
I know I hurt you
and I seek your pardon.
Never again to know that touch
which we both enjoyed so much-
It's true with time and age
positions harden.
Still, you tempted, and I ate,
and with that we sealed our fate.
That was long ago and
[...] Read more
poem by John F. McCullagh
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A Victim of Homicide
I stumble forward in a daze
with shackles on my wrists and feet.
The room is cold and very bright
As I approach my final sleep.
I see the gurney waiting there
It bears the aspect of a cross
For me to stretch my arms out wide
Embracing what my sins have cost.
Behind the one way mirrors stand
the next of kin to all my crimes.
They wait there to see justice done.
They count down to the end of time.
I feel the needles subtle pinch
as liquid poison finds a vein.
As Icy coldness creeps towards my heart
the savior to my darkness came
poem by John F. McCullagh
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Armour and Amor
Now listen to me now
And to me pay attention
Sometimes the course of love
Needs a mother's intervention
Now listen to my tale
How some Armour old and rusty
Led Lass to discover
Love deep and true and lusty
One day while cleaning house
Mom found a coat of Armour
She didn't want the dusty thing
To clutter up her parlor
She made Lass take it back
And thats how Lass met Laddy
He was a big improvement
Over Tom and Dick and Harry
[...] Read more
poem by John F. McCullagh
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Hamlet Meets His Maker
Unseen and scene,
Of both composed;
these aery heavens,
this solid globe.
Will roused my Sire's
ghost from the grave.
Will would, for
that's the part
he played.
What is Will's will
I next should say?
Will I best Laertes
with my foil today?
Will the villain, Claudius,
be undone
by his victim's
vacillating son?
What is Will's will
regarding Mum?
[...] Read more
poem by John F. McCullagh
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Rivals
From long time friends to bitter foes
From boon companions to friends estranged
The cute little redhead accomplished that
but it was nothing she'd prearranged
So delicate, so beautiful
with eyes a deep Aegean blue
Of course I made a play for her
She wasn't going home with you
Yes, her kisses were as sweet
as you imagined they must be
The reality was better still
warming an autumn evenings chill
I was the first to take the risk
that’s why I was the one she kissed
My actions weren’t the least bit shady
but faint hearts never win fair Ladies
poem by John F. McCullagh
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