Francis Duggan Poems

When I was in my better days some four decades ago
Some pretty and quite friendly girls they lived in Minor Row
I never got to talk to them though them I often see
And they remain as they were then young in my memory.
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Oh take me to the woods and open spaces in fancy I feel distant from the Town
Upon the wooded hill amongst the bracken that overlook the landscape green to brown
That seem to stretch on miles into the distance much further even than the eyes can see
You like the shopping centres of suburbia the kind of life you like is not for me.
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No matter how good you are some bound to find fault with you though you may please many you will not please everyone
Since the facts are that none of us are perfect and we are mere mortals when all is said and done
In a perfect World people would not be homeless and people of the hunger would not die
And as for me I've yet to meet a person who could truly say that they never once did lie.
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In his younger years Jazzo was not a soldier though of battles he took part in he can tell
And he never was a professional boxer and for wealth and glory never fought from bell to bell
In the local pubs he did all of his fighting some brawls he won and some tough brawls he lost
Old scar tissue around his eyes and front teeth missing for bad behaviour there's a lasting cost.
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There's a prophesy that the meek the Earth will inherit
Though I don't think I will live to see that day
At least 'twould seem it is a long time in coming
And now from us it seems further away
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Some of us become victims of our addictions we can become addictive one might say
And I'm not one who should reflect on the faults of others since I'm addicted too in my own way
I am a slave to the penning of doggerel and I yield to my addiction every day
Perhaps professional help I am in need of but for such help I could not afford to pay.
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What does it really matter if I'm never more to see
The beautiful male bullfinch upon a sunlit tree
When the wildering flowers are blooming in lush green fields far away
And the hawthorn trees are covered in their white blossoms of the May.
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On Lake Hamilton lengthwise from shore to shore
On a kilometre of water counted two hundred swans or more
In early May in the Fall of the year
Perhaps to moult the reason they are here?
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Financially have you ever been on the floor though not yet counted out
And of your worth as a person many are in doubt
But like the champion boxer you will rise from the floor
And go back to battle and fight on some more.
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Here I'll never even know local renown
I will always be a stranger in this Town
Some of the locals body language tell me what their tongues don't say
He is not one of us he is from far away.
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