Francis Duggan Poems

It has been a while since i walked by Finnow
And in a rushy field heard the soft lowing of a cow
After sundown in the twilight of the day
In the prime of the Spring on an evening in May
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Because of us animals suffer the animals we kill for their meat
And on this i am as guilty as the butchers since the cooked flesh of slaughtered creatures i eat
The battery fowl raised in cages, the pigs born and raised in crates
The cattle fattened in crowded feedlots their meat is for our dinner plates
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You have many friends in the local pub
And you have many friends in the pitch and putt club
And as you become financially wealthier your friends in numbers do grow
You are a person that many of do wish to know
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Old Jimmy the Dibbler is a jolly bloke
He enjoys a good laugh and can tell a good joke
Single in his late seventies divorced from his wife
With a wealthy old fellow she lives the good life
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The saying of self praise is no praise remains as ever true
Leave it to others to praise you if praise is your due
Though self praise nowadays does seem the in thing
And so many only too willing their own praises to sing
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The sun it is hidden behind clouds of gray
But the blackbirds are singing in Yangery today
And sweet scent of grass freshly mowed for hay
Is wafting in the breeze blowing uphill from the bay
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The sun it is hidden behind clouds of gray
But the blackbirds are singing in Yangery today
And sweet scent of grass freshly mowed for hay
Is wafting in the breeze blowing uphill from the bay
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In a Human World where love rules there would not be discrimination of gender or race
And for fear and hatred of others in our minds there would not be a place
We would not have misogyny, xenophobia, nationalism and patriotism that to wars that can lead
And of terrorism, murder and violence we would not hear of or of read
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Since i was last in old Duhallow there has been many a Summer, Fall, Winter and Spring
And only in visualizations nowadays i can hear a robin sing
On a leafy silver birch tree when the hawthorns are cloaked in their white blooms of the May
I miss the green fields of Duhallow and i do think of them every day
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There is fact in the saying and fact never lie
That the longer you live the sooner you will die
Since death for everyone is an inevitable thing
Though most people to their very last breath of air to life does cling
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