Francis Duggan Poems

In mid to late December thoughts return to home once more
And this Christmas he's going back to Semaphore
The old Town by the ocean far away
In South Australia where he first saw light of day.
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In her offspring there may be room for improvement
Their character by their behaviour may well be soiled
But against the put down words of others
The mother will defend her child.
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I do seem quite blind to the things that they see
And though they are my friends they seem strangers to me
The things they believe in I struggle to comprehend
Sometimes I do feel that I don't have a friend.
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Amanda Vanstone's promised New Year present to the Bakhtiyari family is deportation
She claims the family are from Pakistan
But Mr Bakhtiyari swears he and his wife and children are Afghans
And he does seem an honest enough man.
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She cradles her baby in her arms I notice her rather large hands
She belongs to a nomadic race who wander through European Lands
A race who have known oppression and as fringe dwellers they remain
But from the beautiful music and culture of the Rom such marvellous insights we gain.
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Give credit where credit is due seems a fair thing to say
And fair dues to Joyce Hemsley on her Honorary Degree she did it the hard way
By writing four thousand poems in a decade four hundred poems a year
Of such a rare achievement we do not often hear.
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Above the undulating hills the welcome swallows fly
And the skylark o'er Penhallow is carolling in the sky
The nearest place to Utopia that one might wish to see
The high country of South Gippsland seems beautiful to me.
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With it you may well disagree and say it cannot be true
But a loss of Human Rights to some one else is a loss of Human Rights to me and you
They may be complete strangers and from us live far away
But by ignoring their lot those who abuse them we condone though that's not true you do say.
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Due to Government mismanagement we see a society in decay
And the wealthy at the expense of the poor get wealthier it should never be that way
In so called affluent Western Nations people live rough on the street
Without a place to call home to out of rubbish bins they eat.
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She has got a lot of charm much about her to admire
Full of good old Aussie humor likeable Mary O Dwyer
If you cannot laugh at her jokes then you need to see a shrink
Or you are a boring person slow to laugh and slow to think.
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