Old Number Seven
A doubleheader in the Bronx.
Bright sunshine floods the end of May,
Old number Seven at the plate,
Mantle on his last good day.
A pair of homers, five for five.
The legs are wrapped, he strides with pain
Mickey takes the bases slow
He has to sit the second game.
It would have been a fitting end
to wave his cap and walk away.
To end like Ruth and Williams did
and homer on his final day.
But Jimmy Foxx is still in reach
so Mickey drags himself to play.
The Cathedral in the Bronx half empty
Few come to watch him fade away.
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poem by John F. McCullagh
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Half-life: a prophecy
They died; they all died, without a moan;
their final passage writ in stone.
Dark shadows here and there you see
where Jews passed to eternity.
In these silent streets no children play
No trees survived the heat that day.
A suicide martyr some call a hero
was detonated at ground zero.
Nine hundred thousand are believed lost
in this second, instant, holocaust.
The suitcase he held in his hand
was the latest weapon from Iran.
My team has come here to retrieve
the evidence from Tel Aviv.
No one will be living here
Not for another fifty years.
• * * * * *
A damsel with a dosimeter,
in a vision I once saw,
warned me that appeasement
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poem by John F. McCullagh
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The Dancer
The picture hangs upon the wall
of a slender woman, une eleve
She is eternally en pointe
a Student of great Nurerev.
With Martha Graham’s Corps de ballet
She’d danced (before the children came)
Performed a beautiful Glissade-
enjoyed, for a while, a muted fame.
Light and shade proportionate
here catch her look of radiant joy
The dancer, ignorant of her fate,
seems more a heavenly envoy.
But you and I both know the rest-
The ravages of age and time
The sad result of little strokes
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poem by John F. McCullagh
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The Big Bang
They had waited on blankets, in cars,
to view the Chrysanthemum stars.
Instead of a pyrotechnic display,
The authorities sent them away.
A brief blast of frightening power
consumed at once many a flower.
It appears a computer malfunction
was the cause of the mini eruption.
The engineered boom had gone bust.
Makes you wonder- now who can you trust?
In the desert that night 'neath the stars
Jupiter, Venus and Mars
put on their free, nightly, display.
People on blankets, in cars
very seldom look up to the stars.
There a bowlful of wonder and light
goes sight unseen most every night.
The gift of a child's sense of wonder
goes unwrapped by these mortals down under.
poem by John F. McCullagh
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Sudden Death
Sudden Death
The deceased was seventeen years old-
An enlarged heart, the coroner claims.
A basketball player on the court.
his team trailing in the game.
Their perfect season was at risk
when he shot and made a “Three”
He then collapsed upon the court
midst shouts of victory.
Hearts are unromantic things
That race and slow by turns.
They simply pump
While we run and jump
And prance about life’s stage.
We take for granted our own hearts
As we wander through our days.
Our faithful friend who never sleeps
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poem by John F. McCullagh
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Gary Speed
Glory came early as did fame.
to Gary Speed there on the pitch.
Cheers he heard from adoring crowds
among the elite he found his niche.
With time’s passage he lost a step
even if he felt the same
but as he ran he thought he saw
an old man’s shadow
in a young man’s game.
He coached to stay around the game.
After the cheers for him had faded
A friendly face, a familiar name
but as he coached he thought he saw
an old man’s shadow
in a young man’s game.
For many, Gary was an icon,
a living legend of the game.
They failed to see the mortal man
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poem by John F. McCullagh
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Twin Towers in the Clouds
They rose above the Clouds
as my charter passed downtown.
An April day dawning,
thirty thousand feet from ground.
It was as if they, alone, had been spared
And all New York was gone.
The future was quite different,
Something I could not have known.
Two other planes approaching
on a clear September morn.
changed utterly, the world;
Twin Towers, smoking, gone.
The death of one or several men
Might barely give us pause,
but as we read two thousand names
We’re still fighting two wars.
Peace continues to elude us
No matter whom we catch or kill.
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poem by John F. McCullagh
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State of the Union
When the President “served” in the Senate
He was mostly an absentee tenant.
So I don’t find it odd he’s campaigning for “God”
while our Country is stuck in the toilet.
In the Senate a fellow named Baucus
Believes it’s a one party Caucus
No G.O.P. need apply, this fellow is sly
Nearly nine hundred Billion he’ll cost us.
In the House we’ve got Reid and Pelosi
So I’m viewing our future morosely
If the “tea party” crew doesn’t give them the shoe
“free” health care will likely prove costly.
When I look at our unfunded debt, I wonder how bad it will get.
Will the whole thing implode?
Will our prince prove a toad?
Las Vegas is now taking bets.
poem by John F. McCullagh
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Forbidden
Forbidden
A casual glance, a gentle touch,
It stops at that, we know it must.
A chaste embrace, an offered cheek
which I dryly kiss and count it sweet.
Once we’d danced around a flame-
an older man, a willing maid.
Both comfortable in our own skin
In secret we began our sin.
I know your body like my wife’s
But she was elsewhere, I recall
Your husband, too, was on the road
When I, like Adam, had my fall.
We speak of nothings, jobs, careers,
Not of our existential fears.
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The Rock of Cashel
My mother told me on the bus-
about the tumor in her breast.
She told me in that public place
I was stunned; She, self possessed
she was so calm- no hint of fear.
I was floored by what she said
I was very young back then
with limited knowledge of the dead.
Post surgery she did just fine.
It turned out the tumor was benign.
My mom would say “It’s not my time”.-
That was her way. She spoke that line.
She did possess that quiet strength
Bequeathed her from High Kings of old
She was a rock of Christian faith
From which derived her peace of soul.
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poem by John F. McCullagh
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