Francis Duggan Poems

It's been nice here in the mountains only 23 degrees
In the shade it's cool and pleasant and the gentlest cooling
breeze
In the shadows of the cypress I relax and feel at ease
...

I found peace just out of Daylesford down at Tipperary Springs
Where in the coolness of the evening grey shrike thrush and
magpie sing
And the gang gang cockies calling their voice sound
...

Ben suffers from delusion he thinks he is Genghis Khan
And that he is known around the World a very famous man
He has a mental illness and his symptons he reveal
And his characters though imaginary to him are very real.
...

Erin will remember when others have forgot
Her lovely Shetland pony Camelot
Loose on the road and luck not on his side
Struck by a car near Belgrave Heights he died.
...

She still clings to the dream she's had for decades of one day meeting her soul mate
Just to meet with somebody compatible she feels would be worth the long wait
To gracefully grow old with someone that she could love and relate to
But she has found out from experience that love is for the lucky few.
...

'Tis true that few first loves last a whole lifetime
But the flame of first love never ever die
The old man on looking back the years remembers
She was my first love as a teenage boy.
...

Bill Brien bought and sold hens and eggs and ducks and chickens
Turkeys, guinea fowl and geese and rabbits too
And in his van he drove around Duhallow
And with him went his faithful kerry blue.
...

Though perhaps he never spent much time at school
Old Den Jack was never anybody's fool
And you might be pressed to find wiser than he
For wisdom never comes with a college degree.
...

The Boggeragh mountains old as time wear their winter hats of snow
And through quiet lands of Duhallow the old Blackwater flow
The leafless grove bereft of birdsong and bare looking the hedgerow
And from the cold north countries the icy cold winds blow.
...

The god fearing who do not know him well
Claim that to satan his soul he did sell
And that old Joe the infidel
For himself has booked a place in hell.
...