Francis Duggan Poems

Goodbye Patricia, goodbye to you dear
The Summer is over and Winter is here
The days they are short and the nights they are long
The rain lashes down and the wind is blowing strong.
...

Lisa Trencher is in Canada in Whistler I've been told
It is her second Winter there the Winter's there are cold
But she is quite adaptable and women like her are rare
A woman of the World she could live anywhere.
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Old Annie from east Kerry her hair is silver gray
And her accent from Sliabh Luachra is still a give away
Though she left the Cork and Kerry border in the year of sixty four
When she boarded the train for Dublin at the station in Rathmore.
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I cannot empathize with the poor since I'm not in poverty
And I can only imagine how miserable life must be
For those who go to sleep hungry they live with death each day
In a fair World this would not be it would be fair to say.
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He says that he has learnt a bit from Jim his next door neighbour
That you won't become a millionaire by sweat and toil and labour
And few wealthy people started their working life working with pick and shovel
And fewer still knew childhood want and were raised in a hovel.
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In his prime Humphrey Kelleher was a hard nut to crack
A mighty Gaelic footballer and Cork's greatest fullback
A barrel chested fellow with broad shoulders and lean
He played for Cork and Millstreet and his like not since been seen.
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If some man should say to you
That he doesn't simply give a chew
For riches or immortal fame
Then I would like to know his name? .
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'The far off fields are green' that saying I can recall
I first heard it when I was knee high tall
The silver haired old fellow said to me
The fields are greener beyond Knocknagree.
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I'm a stranger in Australia and Aussies look on me as strange
And like one on desert Island I feel way, way out of range
They don't understand my accent and ask me to speak more slow
We don't understand you matey, where you come from, where you go? .
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The singing birds of Millstreet are calling, calling me
In my dreams I hear them whistling far beyond the deep wide sea
The green, green wood by Clara hill is always on my mind
On the day that I left Millstreet I left my heart behind.
...