Francis Duggan Poems

I once was a Roman Catholic but I'm not one no more
For I've not been to church to pray since nineteen eighty four
And I don't have a religion for I have seen the light
And I still think God likes me and I think God's all right.
...

Twenty rooks I count them as they fly
Circling in the darkening evening sky
Twenty black rooks circling round and round
Twenty yards or so above the ground.
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She know by the voices of the birds what bird she's listening to
The crimson rosella's bell like notes the spotted dove's soft coo
The myna and the currawong she know them by their voice
She listen by her window she listen and rejoice,
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With other children games he did not play
When they played football he would steal away
To take short walk or rest in shade of tree
He felt happy in his own company.
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I have heard that Serena that devil may care
Is picking the pumpkins in North Queensland in Ayr
By coast south of Cairns I've never been there
But I know that Miss Trencher could live anywhere.
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I know a woman she is forty three
And she still search for an identity
I'm still a stranger to myself she say
And in the maze of life I've lost my way.
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He was a coward the unenlightened say
He should have fought he chose to run away
In choosing life he sacrificed his pride
And he fled the battle where his comrades died.
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In the Nobbies Phillip Island on the cliffs above the sea
The silver gulls breed in their thousands a squawky noisy colony
They feel security in numbers no place for a bird of prey
If a hawk or kite approaches they are quickly chased away.
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Oh Helen dear we thought that you were dead
Thought proved you wrong I never died she said
To grieve for me on your heart needless load
For I never left Belgrave or Bayview road.
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This morning I climbed out the darkened hole
And walked again in the bright light of day
The light of happiness shone in my soul
And lamp of sun shone through the clouds of gray
...