Francis Duggan Poems

The fields around my old home were always lush and green
And in Spring primroses, bluebells and snowdrops by the hedge near the bohreen
Were blooming at their loveliest in the warm showers of May
But that was many years ago and that was far away.
...

They dragged Sister Irene and four local men to the Mountain Village Square
And after a brief sham trial the five were murdered there
Found guilty by 'The Shining Path' of helping those in poverty
Another shameful episode in human history.
...

You won't find Mary homesick for Duhallow
Or for her old Hometown of Boherbue
She could have married back there and raised her children
But like she says it wasn't meant to be.
...

As I sit here in a barn watching the rain fall from the sky
I ask myself the question who am I?
Will I see tomorrow like I see today
Or by tomorrow from this World will I have gone away? .
...

The white backed magpie singing and skies so gloomy gray
And magpie does sound happy on such a gloomy day
But why is magpie happy what reason for his joy
All in the depths of Winter this morning in July? .
...

They've locked you in a cage luckless greenfinch
And put you in a state of misery
But nothing human man can do could never ever quench
The longing that is in you to be free.
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I hear those notes like ting ating ating
All along the gum tree vale their music ring
From tree to tree and flitting to and fro
And ting ating ating where'er they go.
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The ugly creature racism it would seem had fully grown
And any sort of sympathy for outcasts was not forthcoming or not shown
And Australia's first woman Prime Minister Pauline Hanson was enjoying her sense of power
And the rose of multiculture had become a faded flower.
...

It has been many years since I left Millstreet in Duhallow
To travel far south my life's dreams for to follow
Yet I'm poorer than ever and far off of glory
Though like all others to tell I too have a life story.
...

In the bare lands of saltpans where the brown Murray flow
Where few creatures live and only saltbush grow
Where Australia's First people lived in the Dreamtime
Long before the first book was written and the birth of rhyme
...