Francis Duggan Poems

Salute the workers they built the Towns and Cities and made this Country what it is today
And salute the miners, site workers and drainers and all dead workers who at peace now lay
And salute the workers of our generation the working men and women nothing easy comes their way
Who have to contend with useless right wing Governments who do begrudge them every raise in pay.
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I've got nothing against the American people it's their Government I don't like
For when their spokes people talk of collateral damage and the pre emptive strike
With their words they diminish humanity as if they did not know or even care
That there is another World another World out there.
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'Twas Mary wrote to tell me that you had not been well
That you've had a hip replacement operation and had a few days of hell
But that now you're feeling better and as good as new again
I wish you health and happiness and a future free of pain.
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Up to the nineteenth century it might have held some weight
But that 'the pen is mightier than the sword' would now seem out of date
And though words may cause you much offence and with your feelings grate
The sword seems far more mighty as it can decapitate.
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A long time ago when I was young in a Country far away
A cold wind blew down from the hill on the morning of St Stephen's day
It had been freezing overnight and the fields with frost were gray
And one of the farmer's cows of malnutrition died from eating poor quality hay.
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She married Tom Mulcahy and came to live with him in Annagloor before I reached my prime
What year offhand I cannot say for that's going back in time
Her name was Kathleen Buckley she was Annagloor's Rose
And now she rests forever in eternal repose.
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An old Irish bloke was singing 'If We Had Old Ireland Here'
And sad faced Bridie stifled her tears and Pat sipped on his beer
And memories flooded back to them of places far away
And butterflies in Summer flitted o'er the new mown hay.
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What's your New Year's resolution for the year two thousand and four
Do you aim to be happy or make a million dollars or more
Or do you just wish to be that bit more financially secure
In their New Year's resolution who would wish for to be poor?
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She won't be going home for Christmas as she doesn't have a home to go to
And she is one of many and far too many who
Do not have a Homeland or a home to go to doesn't life seem so unfair
And thousands poverty stricken to every millionaire.
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A cool morning in December it has rained overnight
And the low gray clouds o'er the forest block out any sunlight
Of brightening up old Belgrave and beautyfying the trees
A weather forecast for the day of a high of twenty two degrees.
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