Francis Duggan Poems

Happy Birthday to you Genevieve today you are twenty nine
And with age you have grown mellow like the good expensive wine
And on looking back a decade the years simply seemed to fly
And hope this tenth day of August is a day you will enjoy.
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Some 50 kilometres out of the next country town
The miles of flat paddocks looking gray to brown
The hues of Australia are gray, brown and green
This great Land looks different to others you've seen.
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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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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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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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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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She's almost sixty years and she's still dancing and she is still known as the dancing queen
And she was a champion dancer in her twenties one of the finest dancers ever seen
And still she is a marvel on the dance floor and with dancers half her age she can compete
The passing years may have slowed her a little but there's still years of dancing in her dancing feet.
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The hare she has her babies in the high grass and each in a different spot she hides away
Perhaps a better chance of some of them of growing to adults though dog or fox or cat on one might prey
This could be the reason she don't keep all in the one nest an anti predator device by Nature for the hare
But then for that there may be other reasons since her secrets with us Nature never share
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For far too long the Land of blood and tears
This conflict seems to have gone on for years
Though Yeltzin and Putin don't feel any shame
The Chechen rebels for this war they blame.
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