John F. McCullagh Poems

</>World War 1 Soldier Tailem Bend by Illawarrian

Pro patria mori
...

I
The pale brunette
was asked to stand
and hear the verdict read.
...

They're your uncles or your brothers;
They're the ones who fought and bled.
Theirs are the names upon this wall,
the legion of our dead.
...

The taxman owned a share of him,
To another he owed rent.
His ex-wife and her attorneys
Had a say in how he spent.
...

Eight Thousand and twenty games it took
before Howie could put it in the books.
There was, here and there,
a base on balls.
...

The Woman from the Well

On Spring Street in SOHO I worked in a bar
The Manhattan Bistro, since closed down, I hear.
...

The fields were green; the sky clear blue, the land was fat and fair.
Prosperity was all we knew, and poverty was rare.
I looked with pride upon my fields, the ripening waves of grain,
unaware, that in scant days, so little would remain.
...

"My crown is hollow without a son. My kingdom cannot brook delay.
My Lady Anne would be my wife, but never will my mistress be.
The papal legate will not rule to let me put my Queen away.
Wolsey wants to be a Prince but Rome is very far away.
...

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.
...

For Five long years he fought a war
against the mighty English crown.
At times, it seemed, by will alone
He kept our army in the field.
...