Francis Duggan Poems

If you are always sad faced and unhappy and telling others life is hard on you
Then you will find that you will not be popular and that your sympathizers will be few
For others do not wish to know of your hard luck stories or of how your problems of late seem to have grown
They do not wish to hear of your sob stories since they have many problems of their own.
...

I've heard that Genevieve has turned thirty and the birthday party for her one she did enjoy
Doesn't seem so long since she was a teenager on looking back the years just seemed to fly
She's studying for to be a social worker and very soon she will have her degree
And you might say that she's done it the hard way and few if any as worthy as she.
...

The grey shrike thrush on branch of mountain gray
At twilight of a most Unspring like day
On October eve made damp by drizzling rain
And grey bird sing his same song o'er again
...

Old March is still in April and the wind blows a cool chill
Across the windswept bracken of ancient Mushera hill
And the fields by Aubane river wet where the floods have been
But this countryside looks beautiful in all it's shades of green.
...

He can hear the friarbirds calling in the parklands far away
On the trees by Colo river at the dawning of the day
And the lapwing o'er her breeding grounds utters forth her warning cry
And the dark winged welcome swallows ever circling in the sky.
...

I would not live in Sherbrooke and why should I says Dave
For I don't like the high country the forests of Belgrave
Leave Sherbrooke to the greenies to gum and wattle tree
I'd much prefer city of Knox Boronia will do me.
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Oft times saw him in the City Johnny rags of Melbourne Town
Up through Bourke street down through Collins always shuffling up and down
Tattered coat and baggy trousers, long grimy hair and worn shoes
He looked thin and he looked worn from long years of drugs or booze.
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You ask me what makes for a good person he or she always walks tall
And spiritually they are big people though physically some of them may look small
They do not pass judgements on others or of them negative stories recall
And they are open and broad minded and believe in a fair go for all.
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Luke who drinks at the local pub works for the D.S.S.
He says his clients the poor and the unemployed not seen as a success
The forgotten fringe dwellers in life they've lost their way
And some of them in their twenties have never worked a day.
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He wrote about his dad Owen Murphy senior
He died way back in nineteen thirty four
When Eoin himself was only a young fellow
And may he rest in peace forever more.
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