Francis Duggan Poems

With little in the way of assets and money to my name
For me penning rhyme a hungry belly game
I say here again what I've often said before
I just write for pleasure that and nothing more
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He's from the bog road beside the old mountain that in Winter wears it's hat of snow
Where in Summer the skylark is carolling above the brown bog where the bog cotton blow
In the freshenings winds that blow from the Northlands in the changeable weather of early July
When the young birds in the hedgerows are chirping far north of here even as the crow fly,
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The number of friends you have in your life does seem all up to you
And that all friendships do not end well happens to be true
And often at the end of a friendship an enemy is made
And bitterness sets in when by your friend you've been betrayed,
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If life in the Human World we live in is in any way fair
None would have to grow poorer for every new millionaire
And none would have to live friendless and homeless and enough food for all to eat
And no such a place known as Poverty Street
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I went in search of God searched everywhere around
But no sight or trace of the Supreme Being anywhere to be found
I searched amongst the bushes and gazed at the trees
Their sunlit leaves rustling in the freshening breeze,
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Another migrant from Duhallow who lives neath the southern sky
Far south of the old fields and bogland where the brown curlew in July
Is piping above the rank bracken where his partner from danger shades their young
About Duhallow and it's wild beauty the old bards have written and sung.
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His name the writers of Human history will never recall
For such they would see his achievements as too small
Like everyone else in his side of the town
He never will stand on the hill of renown.
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The swallows that fly above old Claramore
Will soon be on their way to a distant shore
The days growing short and the nights growing long
And the birds of the hedgerows seem bereft of song
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Though he smokes cigarettes and drinks lots of beer and wine
Old John looking well for one of eighty nine
That healthy eating and drinking makes for a long life he does belie
Despite poor diet and his addictions of old age he will die
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So arrogant in their thinking the dogmatic kind
But suppose 'tis in their nature if they are that way inclined
The windows of their minds does seem closed to light
But then suppose if they feel they cannot be wrong they have to be right
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