Francis Duggan Poems

She married him for his money though he was older and gray
And for six years of marriage to her a half a million to her he had to pay
I never felt any love or passion for him to her friends she often say
And he was quite useless as a lover and quite boring anyway.
...

The men with guns and dogs on sunday are hunting sambar deer
And the loud cracks of their rifles on the high woodlands I hear
And then the hills are silent and the only living sound
Is the magpie piping on stringybark upon the higher ground.
...

She is one of the women who have fallen for James
And for to describe him she uses exalted names
Like Greek God, Apollo and georgeous looking man
But James seems oblivious to the worship of Ann.
...

You boasted of Cromwell's renown
Of how he put the Irish down
Of how he tamed a Sister Land
And English respect did command.
...

Just a week from the start of the winter and more than three months from the Spring
Yet on the powerlines on the roadside I hear a male goldfinch sing
In the last days of the Autumn on this sunny morning in May
His kin birds now sing in woods and on hedgerows in the Northlands far away.
...

True heroes are not sportsmen or sportswomen though some with that would not agree
And true heroes are not wealthy power brokers with a strong sense of I, myself and me,
'No' true heroes are the under class battlers whose battle is against the odds
The poor and the forgotten fringe dwellers and the people frowned on by the Gods.
...

I feel I am a non achiever my life's come to nothing at all
I go to the pub meet my mates there drink beer with them and talk football
And politics and the economy and work and family and war
That seems to forever keep raging in Lands where from we live afar.
...

The barriers of class distinction have never stood firmer 'twould seem
And of what it might feel to be wealthy so many don't bother to dream
The social gap it keeps on widening between the well off and the poor
And the middle class too doing nicely and very financially secure.
...

The currawongs on the gums piping and dark rain clouds darken the sky
And a gray fog cloaks the wooded hillside on this Winter's day in July
And a lone raven caws on the drenched wattle and every where looks rather gray
Yet Spring with each day is approaching and towards the hills she wings her way.
...

I've never agreed that people due to birth right should be entitled to be held in high esteem
And I've never been one of those royal watchers yet each to their own or so to me it would seem
But when I read how James Hewitt is trying to sell Diane's love letters to him to myself I can only say how low
Can one stoop to for to come by a quick fortune at the expense of one who died six years ago.
...