Francis Duggan Poems

If you think I am a loser well that does suit me fine
Since what you think about me is your business not mine
I only live good as I can wish none an Earthly Hell
I do not have a gift as such I just pen doggerel.
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His legacy to literature outlived the Shropshire Lad
And his verses known to the school boy were known to his grand dad
And the exquisite poems of Housman alive and read today
Suppose such things of beauty are not meant to decay.
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He lives in a mudbrick house in Gippsland by the Pacific sea
And he is known for miles around by his nickname of Knocknagree
The name comes from the place he left so many years ago
Ask for him by his proper name and him no one may know.
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The black weanling white face calf looks glum
He has lately lost his mum
The farmer sold her at the mart
And left him with a heavy heart.
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In the floodlight lit football oval each weeknight after tea
I hear the young men shouting as they train diligently
As their coach puts them through their training drills their exuberance I hear
They sprint about in the chill night air in the coldest time of year.
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Back there in the late sixties when I was in my prime
A few years maybe three or four before I discovered rhyme
I recall an old man bent from toil the years had made him gray
Saying make the most of your young years 'every dog has his day'.
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Oh beautiful Christina you had the gift of song
And with the poets of heaven you surely now belong
Sister of Maria, William Michael and Dante Gabriel the art critic and pre Raphaelite
And you to them an equal and not a lesser light.
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You hear Nature's voice in the river that ever flows on towards the sea
A voice destined to live forever that has lived for untold centuries
From the foothills of the high country it babbles downhill night and day
By groves and by ditches and hedgerows to saltwater it winds it's way.
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The river widens and deepens as it nears the ocean and into a huge mass of water does grow
To look at it does hardly seem to be flowing at a snail's pace it does crawl along so slow
For dabbling and diving water birds ideal to live in with plenty fish and other water food to eat
The World is quiet by the high and brown paddocks near where the sea and the river do meet
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Of Human greed in these tough times we read of and we hear
Company C E O's not paid in thousands but in millions every year
Yet few of their type known for to help anyone in poverty
In a World where some have too much so much inequality
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