Francis Duggan Poems

For John Howard the master of the politics of fear
Judgement time for him and his Government is again drawing near
But the one who involved Australia in Iraq
On his huge Government pension he can afford to sit back
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At the verge of the wood their ticking sort of song
Is one that once heard one can never get wrong
With unders of yellow and head and uppers of gray
Birds that i see often though not every day
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To me a walk on memory lane can be a thing of joy
To visit my uncle Dan and aunty Mary in their home in Lisnaboy
I could call there at anytime and a welcome i would find
The past it seems to stay with us in the memory of the mind,
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I would love to go to Africa to see the wildlife there
To bring away from there great memories that with others i could share
To see the Serengeti the World's greatest wildlife park
And hear the male lions roaring and hear the wild dogs bark.
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Thomas Hardy was a master wordsmith with many an imitator
A leading writer of his time than him few if any greater
His poems and novels still in print his work has not gone out of fashion
He kept on writing to his old age and he did pen with a passion
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There are so many arrogant people who feel superior in their own arrogant way
And to the opinions of others respect they never seem to pay
You will find it in some ambitious females but mostly it is a male thing
Those who only sing their own praises the praise of others never do sing,
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Someone must have told him years ago that smiling is a crime
And I've never once heard him to laugh though I've known him for some time
He always wears a serious look they call him poker face
It would seem that in his sad heart for joy there isn't space.
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He has just turned fifty his fastest pace slow
He is not the man he was twenty years ago
When they used to toast him at the local pub
And he was the hero of the football club
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Oh sing me of Nature's great beauty of sunlight on flowering gum trees
And the sweet scents of Nature's own perfume that wafts in the freshening breeze
And sing of the wildborn creatures the call of the boobook owl at night
And the wild cry of the brushtail possum on the blackwood tree in the moonlight,
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So beautiful to look at in the sun of a Winter's day
They feed upon the thistle seeds by the fence by the roadway
A small flock of goldfinches in red and fawn and gold
In their beautiful colours so lovely to behold.
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