John F. McCullagh Poems

I will walk with you tomorrow
through the streets of Boston town.
I will be right there beside you,
if you but take a look around.
...

The air was close, but it would not rain
The day I died.
And smog enshrouded Gotham town
The day I died..
...

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.
...

I'm not considered "normal" by policemen on the force.
They apprehended me in public having an*l intercourse.
From early on I've always been attracted to a certain sort of man.
I've tried to be with women but that's not just who I am.
...

It started as a bit of grit stuck in an Oyster's craw.
In time, through suffering, bit by bit it became the Pearl you saw.
Translucent pink, a perfect orb, no polishing required,
You alone possess this gem which many have desired.
...

Imagine yourself a red ceramic Poppy,
placed with care into the English soil.
One hundred years ago you were a soldier,
a frightened teen in a chaotic world.
...