Francis Duggan Poems

Now don't you fault the Toughie Boys if they've no sense of shame
If they live tough and they live rough society is to blame
If you were raised in city slum and from birth had bad name
You too would be a toughie boy and like them act the same.
...

I climbed the hill between the tall gum trees
Where undergrowth reached right up to the knees
And on the trees the voices of wood birds ringing
Of over one hundred bellbirds at their singing.
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The tourist cruiser touring up and down
Through Torrens river along by Adelaide town
Through parklands that the sprinklers have kept green
Though where water missed brown patches to be seen.
...

They cut away the forest for to build a bigger town
Strong men with chainsaws came one day and cut the tall trees down
It took a century of years for those big trees to grow
But for men with chain saws to cut them down it took a day or so.
...

The noisy miners live up to their name
As the noisiest family in their neighbourhood
You always hear them calling in small groups
On trees along the border of the wood.
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Poor Jack the ramp is broke before dole day
And yet he doesn't seem to have a care
If I were him I shudder at the thought
I'd feel suicidal pulling out my hair.
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In near by wood I hear the boobook call
On this the darkest night of all the year
That voice once heard one never can mistake
At once far off and then so very near.
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When I was young she was an ageing woman
She lived in her small house in the West End
And she was much loved in and around Millstreet
Sue Dennehy was everybodys friend.
...

She told me how her father worked as a coalminer
In Wonthaggi in South Giuppsland years ago
Deep in the mine shaft tunnelling and digging
The work was rough and hard and progress slow.
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It's been said with the Kennedys Robert and John she had affairs
But judge for yourself if that be truth or lies
Though many claim there has to be some fire
If smoke keep billowing upwards towards the skies.
...