Francis Duggan Poems

In this here wood where gum trees stand so tall
And peace and silence do reign overall
A silence broke by intermittent wild bird call
Like sound of whip that's cracked against a wall
...

As i stood in phone booth by Swansea road
The sky was dark though street lights brightly glowed
And those street lights lit the busy motorway
And i could see as if it were bright day.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Believe half of what you read in magazines and newspapers for journalists and reporters tend to exaggerate
And don't believe one word that a politician utters for out of lies success they can create
And some people of course are so very gullible and they tend to believe all they hear and read
They do not seem to see through the power hungry who by their ambiguity mislead.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
...