Francis Duggan Poems

Prime minister Howard wants to extinguish Native Title
And off of the Aboriginals take their Land
And sell Australia to foreign investors
One of the many back door deals he's planned.
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Old Linda is a tough old bird her moods are often black
And she never leaves the chance go by for to bad mouth her husband Jack
To anyone prepared to listen to her she will run him down
As if she were the 'hardest done by' ever in the town.
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I do not understand these new age people
They say for the Planet's sake we ought to change
But they drive cars, burn fuels and live in houses
For how they speak in ways they do act strange.
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For himself such bad karma he has sown
The hooded coward who broke into her home
And left her with blackened eye and cut on throat
And stole from her a fifty dollar note.
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With darkened face and in his cloak of silvery gray
I saw the black faced cuckoo shrike today
Perched on dead branch at top of dead gum tree
He uttered forth his cheerful melody.
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You won't find any life around where his remains will lay
And words of praise won't bring him back his soul has gone away
And though he died young at fifty one suppose he had his day
And for flying in fast planes you might say there is a price to pay.
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The fields around Kilcolman Castle evergreen
And here poet Spenser wrote his Faerie Queen
A masterpiece from the sixteenth century
And as a writer few as great as he.
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How can one ever mistake him the bird singing in the park
Pee wee pee wee is all he sing the dainty magpie lark
A black and white feathered character his is a familiar song
Pee wee pee wee the notes he sing you cannot get him wrong.
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The gift of laughter is a rare gift it is such a wonderful thing
And laughter can create more laughter to it there is such a beautiful ring
The people who laugh seem to make friends quite easily and in numbers their friends seem to grow
But the people who take life too seriously are the people few wish to know.
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There is so much beauty in Nature but as lovely a thing as I've seen
Is in May when the bluebells are blooming on the ditch along the old bohreen
The wild hyacinths of Mother Nature so lovely and bell like and blue
When the bohreen is lit by bright sunlight they sparkle in the morning dew.
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