Francis Duggan Poems

Divorced catholics who remarry should not receive holy communion for if so they book their place in hell
According to his grace the Archbishop of Sydney the honourable Dr Pell
They can only live as brother and sister for to have sex for them a mortal sin
I don't think I could live by his rules for to temptation I would give in.
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Up in the morning long before daybreak
Life was not easy for men like 'Con the Lake'
And he drove his lorry through the long tiring day
For an owner driver there's no easy pay.
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The freshness of the coastal breeze blowing up from the sea
Where the wattlebird sing on a flowering banksia tree
And in the warmth of the sun in the quiet of mid day
To these old green hills peace has come for to stay.
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In the damp and rushy old fields the shy cock pheasants crow
And brown trout for flies are jumping in pools where the Finnow flow
And the hawthorns look resplendent in their white blooms of the May
And Spring has brought her beauty to my Homeland far away.
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Old Eddy said if there's a hereafter then you are for hell
As there's no place in God's Kingdom for those who pen doggerel
You are below average and your slipshod rhymes bad
And for people like you mate I feel a bit sad.
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On a beech tree in the Parkland pink breasted chaffinch chirps and sings
Far away in Rotorua City of the thermal springs
From the boiling lake the gray steam rising and mud pools bubbling night and day.
Memories of Nature's wonders until death with me will stay.
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You won't hear many white Australians speak
Of what happened in places like Mowla Bluff and Myall Creek
When Aboriginal people by whites to death were shot
Any crimes against humanity ought not to be forgot.
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There's a mystery about it that I for one don't understand
For I feel very much a stranger in this amazing Southern Land
Little about this vast Country that I do profess to know
Or of the history of the first Australians from thousands of decades ago.
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The glamorous movie star is basking in her fame
The idiots out there keep on chanting her name
They've made a legend out of one once unknown
Yet one wonders do they have a life of their own?
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From the Artic of Siberia thousands of miles away
A local fellow told me that they arrived yesterday
To the beach at Powlett river a quiet estuary
Where fresh water off of the high ground joins the salt water of the sea.
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