Francis Duggan Poems

I often see her though not every day
Jane the octogenarian of hair silver gray
Walking to or from the super store at the corner of her street
Such a nice person always a pleasure to meet
...

You may be a talented woman or man
Quite wealthy from your gifts with many a fan
One often in the news many you do impress
But your life is the greatest gift that you possess
...

Though the weather pleasant enough for a June Winter's day
The sun behind the gray clouds is hidden away
Above Stingray Bay the pale silver gulls call
Where the huge white waves crash against the breakwater wall
...

A rhymer by nature and a rhymer by name
I have lost any desire for literary fame
In the early nineteen seventies going way back in time
On my twenty seventh year of life i penned my first rhyme
...

He has lived and worked in big cities far from his first home
New York, Sydney, Montreal and Paris and Rome
He has been to south America, India, Indonesia and China and Japan
One might say of John that he is quite a well traveled man
...

Though i have worked in pipelines crews in Ballarat
I cannot say i have been there and done that
A story of my life will never be published to sell
There are many with far greater life stories to tell
...

I would not be so arrogant to refer to myself as a poet
Or even a Duhallow writer of note
Though self promotion nowadays does seem an in thing
You should leave it to others your praises to sing
...

Years ago of religion i did set myself free
The teachers in school did beat god out of me
Even to this very day i struggle to understand
How so called religious church going people could have been so cruel in Ireland
...

Forsaken by his wife and financially down on his luck
And for a way out of his problems he was mentally stuck
As he drove on the freeway in the Winter morning sunshine
On his way to work at around quarter to nine
...

He likes to tell anyone willing to listen to him of the hard times he has known
How his wife left him and took the children and he is now on his own
Though the stories he tell them are lacking in truth
Since in reality he is a man without ruth
...