Francis Duggan Poems

Young Pete in his late twenties is quite serious
And if he smiled perhaps his face would crack
He owns his home outright without a mortgage
And money is a thing he does not lack.
...

Perhaps I'd feel a stranger now in the Town of Millstreet
A stranger in Pound Hill or Minor Row
A stranger in the Tanyard or Murphy's Terrace
Not many in the old Town now I'd know.
...

She was married to Donie Murphy and they lived in Millstreet's Town's West End
And on her journey through life she made many a friend
A good wife and good mother she never sought renown
And a credit to her Parish and her beloved Town.
...

Last night in my dreams i did hear the winds roar
Above the old high fields of far Claramore
A cold Winter moon crept behind clouds to hide
And on the bleak hillside the hungry fox cried
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In fancy i am where the Powlett is inching it's way towards the sea
And high above the rank and brown scrubland the skylark i hear and i see
His voice it cannot be mistaken as upwards and upwards he fly
Surely one of Nature's great songsters a small speck in the sunny sky
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He still feels like a stranger in the small Country Town
And people he meet on the street they look him up and down
Though he greets them with a cheery good day as he goes walking by
To him they do show little warmth in their hello reply.
...

She grew into a young woman some forty years ago
In Macroom a mid Cork Town where the Sullane waters flow
She left there in her early twenties in her life's youthful bloom
And she is known to everyone as Mary from Macroom.
...

You've heard of a thing called writer's block and you've heard of writer's drought
But writers are never short of things on which they can write about
It's just at times their inspiration well does seem to run dry
And they cannot seem to pen a line though hard enough they try.
...

She speaks in a beautiful accent one could listen to her all day
The dark haired brown one in her twenties a beauty from distant Bombay
So friendly and so unconceited of her beauty she does not seem aware
A good wife for some lucky fellow for people like her are so rare
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No love between them though they live together for nowadays each of them does their own thing
She dances in the Bowling Club room with her lover and at the pub with his mates he does sing
In their early fifties and officially still married but love between them it would seem long dead
Under the one roof but not as mates and lovers for many years they have not shared a bed.
...