Francis Duggan Poems

Born in a tent in the gold fields of New South Wales Australia's greatest writer many say
And in his life time he had thousands of readers and he has millions of readers today
Afflicted by deafness and mental illness and cursed by alcoholism one well might say his life a tragedy
And like many good writers before and after he spent his last years in utter poverty.
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If the radiator is boiling and you've got a sick car
And the sun blazes so hot it boils the roadway tar
And you are stuck by the highway and from home you are far
It's in moments like these you know who your friends are.
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You are three years old Fiona at beginning of life's way
And I hope you had a good party and a wonderful birthday
Just a three year little lady and yet too young to know
That life's pathway isn't rosy thorns on life's pathway grow.
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Beth the daughter of the late artist Jack now seeking her own fame
And in the World of Literature she builds herself a name
She writes poems and stories and articles for magazine
And she's becoming well known in the Gippsland literary scene.
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Had I a Fairy Godmother and if she came to me
And said I'll grant to you two favours what might those favours be?
I'd ask that I'd feel happy and live my life carefree
And my second wish a small cottage that overlook the sea.
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Tom Kettle was a poet and a soldier he fell in Ginchy in nineteen sixteen
In his mid thirties he was quite a hero and though not big in the Irish literary scene
He is one who will ever be remembered the history of his life is living on
His poem to his young daughter is a beauty and he is not forgotten though long gone.
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The cootamundra wattle the commonest of trees
They sucker all around the place and multiply like bees
In scrubland and steep gullies, in paddocks brown and bare
And in urban parks and gardens, you see them everywhere.
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To raise a wildborn animals from a baby is not an easy job
You need only ask Steve and Annie Durie they raised orphan wombat Bob
Found in his car victim mother's pouch by the highway hungry but still alive
A miracle of Nature her death he did survive.
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Don't talk to me of this life hereafter although of such you seem convinced you know
I feel we are like flowers of Spring and Summer we grow and we bloom and we go
Into the nothingness of nothing although we leave our seeds behind
Our lives only based on survival and the survival of our own kind.
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It's been years don't know how long nor i'll not lie
And that's going back to when i was a boy
When last i saw the wandering bird lapwing
One cold and windy day in early Spring.
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