Francis Duggan Poems

About the Ganges so much I have read
It's the most polluted river it's been said
But I can't comment on something I've not seen
For to India in South Asia I've not been
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John at the T A B is placing a bet
And his wife Madge at home she is on the Internet
In a 'Chat Room' chatting to her love in England an Online affair
Though thousands of sea miles between here and there.
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She is not broad shouldered or physically tall
But she stands for something big 'a fair go for all'
She stands for the Stateless and for those by war displaced
And only worthy causes by her are embraced.
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Back in my prime years I recall my fastest pace not fast
But I was that much fitter then though that too did not last
My stomach sticking out a bit my hair is silver gray
And time is catching up on me I've known a better day.
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Old memories they linger or so 'twould appear
And the sounds of the past I still fancy I hear
In the moonlit meadow of pleasant July
The corncrake the migrant rail often did cry.
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Joe H is a very nice fellow though social gatherings cause him distress
One who is a marvellous wordsmith but his barrier to renown bashfulness
He does not attend poetry gatherings and in public his poems he does not recite
And he does not talk of poetry to others though beautiful poems he does write.
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She was born and raised and married and raised her children here in this old Rural Town
And her husband in the local cemetery lay at peace two metres down
And she in her early sixties her own truth has to face
That she is destined to die here although she hates the place.
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I could have stayed by those distant mountains where mine was a fairly well known face
And live a quiet life where old friends live far north of here in my Homeplace
But I had the wanderlust in me and the wanderlust took me away
To places far south of the Boggeragh mountains where I live and grow old and gray.
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Don't sing us another song tonight of soldiers in wars who died young
We need to hear something quite different of them you already have sung
The war supposed to end all wars long over though many wars have been fought since
That people die whilst shooting at each other hardly makes for good human sense.
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Life seemed so good when I was in my twenties
Before time left me looking old and gray
I used to play Soccer and Gaelic football
And I could run and chase the ball all day.
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