Francis Duggan Poems

They call him 'John if only' these words he often say
If only I were wealthy I dream about that day
I'd travel all around the world to places far away
But I am just a poor bloke so here I live and stay.
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She grew tired of outback living tired of paddocks flat and brown
And she resolved to move to Sydney live and work in the big Town
The nearest village two miles south east a milk bar and pub with T.A.B.
Surely there was more in Sydney more to do and more to see.
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I will try to tell a story as I heard the story told
About Peter who hailed from Hong Kong he was three decades old
He lived south east of Melbourne for just two years or so
And that will take us back in time to about eight years ago.
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I saw him on the street this morning and he looked a sorry sight
He had stiches in his eyebrows he was in another fight
He always wears the scars of battle after night out on pub crawl
He's not learnt from experience some don't ever learn at all
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Events of the day still keeping me from sleep
What secret does the silent forest keep?
And still the voice is ringing in my ear
And ghost of Sherbrooke forest I still hear.
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Egypt egypt in woodland every day
At once so near and then further away
Egypt egypt and then brief bubbling song
I know that bird to whom that voice belong.
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The noisy miners chirp in sunburnt parkway by the sea
And lorikeets are noising as they fly from tree to tree
The scaly breasted and the rainbow keets from gum to sheoak fly
A blaze of dazzling colours for to captivate the eye.
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Two centuries or even more gone by
Since William Blake wrote 'The little black boy'
He told in verse how black skin equalled white
And in what he wrote of course the poet was right.
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She lives far from South West Gippsland now Guiseppe's dark
haired daughter
On Italy's Adriatic coast a short drive from saltwater
Married to a young Italian their pretty dark haired baby girl born last November
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A migrant in Wonthaggi is all I'll ever be
For I come from a distant Land beyond the cold north sea
A place of bracken mountains where skies are seldom clear
And the weather wet and windy for nine months of the year.
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