Francis Duggan Today Poems

An ageist society we live in today
But then some will tell you it's always been this way
Some in hair dyes and face lifts try to hide time's decay
But the clock on our lives it keeps ticking away.
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I hear your birds sing in the park by the bay
My Goddess of Nature how are you today
The songs of your magpies so pleasant to hear
They sing every day every month of the year
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Last night it was raining and stormy this morning the cold skies are gray
But I'll live till the reaper will claim me and I hope that it won't be today
For I'd hate to die in wet weather when the rain is bucketing down
And the river has spilled over it's banks and flooded the streets of the Town
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The sun shining bright on the Parkland on the second day of the Fall
And amidst the buzzing of the bush flies the black and white magpie larks call
By the weather forecast today is supposed to be raining but we will not have rain today
Even weather experts are prone to error such is life some are known to say,
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Today is a scorcher some forty degrees
And heat in the sunshine and the warm breeze
The bullants are crawling on the sunbaked ground
And the paddocks so bare and so dry all around
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If i should die tomorrow and today my second last day
I should not be complaining since in life I've done okay
Never had to try to sleep hungry with the hard ground for a bed
And in all my years of living never once wished i were dead,
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Today for the good man the church bell did toll
And his family and friends and relations did pray for his soul
But his is a soul that does not need prayer
For if there is a heaven tonight he is there.
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Today has not been a good day for me things for me have not been going right
I feel like one pushing a barrow of concrete up a very steep height
The weight of the World is on my shoulders at least that is how it does feel anyway
But with hope i do look to tomorrow as tomorrow is a brand new day
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We cannot look into the future in our destiny we do not have a say
And as for the past well that is gone forever we only can live for today
Next week we may be with the reaper in life there is no guarantee
We live on a day to day basis though many with that would never agree.
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For some of us there may not be a tomorrow so we should make the most of today
The clock on our lives it is ticking and ticking and ticking away
So we may as well try to be happy since life is what you make of it they say
The World's most influential person in Mother Earth's bosom will lay,
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It is the last day of the Summer and close to if not thirty degrees
The sunny sky is blue and cloudless and there's warmth in the gentle breeze
The cat in the shade she is resting out of the sunlight she finds ease
And in the silence of early evening birds don't sing or chirp on the sunlit trees.
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Today a back to Winter day a chill is in the breeze
In early Spring in Victoria we do get days of under fifteen degrees
Today between the heavy showers a brief burst of sunshine
Yet compared to the heavy rains of yesterday today seems even fine.
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He never more will see again the Adriatic sea
Or hear the gulls above the shores of distant Italy
In this wide and brown Southern Land his bones at rest now lay
Guiseppe was an honest man he went to earth today.
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The black swans with their cygnets are swimming on the lake
And heavy frost from over night leave Winter parkland gray
And sun shine through the clouds at nine to add a little warmth
But it is cold so very cold in Daylesford Town today.
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The parks and gardens look greener from recent Summer showers
And the butterflies flit around the sunlit flowers
And in the blue sky just a few patches of gray
So good to be living on such a fine day.
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I've not seen many cormorants today
Just four or five on rocks close to the shore
Whilst on other days i've seen large flocks of them
Twenty to thirty and sometimes even more.
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The icy breath of Winter from the northlands do blow
And the fields and the mountains are covered in snow
The cattle in farmyard shed bellow for silage or hay
It is cold very cold in Duhallow today
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The streets of Koroit under water for Climate Change such a price we must pay
The Council Workers out with their brushes where is Denis Napthine today
A few weeks back in the Town canvassing votes but in Koroit in it's hour of need
One wonders what has happened to Denis insconspicuous by his absence indeed
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Utopia is surely not that far away
From beautiful Port Fairy on this Summer like day
Though in mid to late Winter in the southern July
There is not one gray cloud in the blue and sunny sky
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The high paddocks of South Belgrave are looking green
As healthy looking as they ever have been
The currawong calling rain not far away
And the magpies are singing in Birdsland today
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Where poets and musicians and storytellers in numbers did abound
Of their kind in the Sliabh Luachra of today not many to be found
The long dead migrants of Caherbarnagh and the Paps countryside
Took their stories and poetry and music with them Worldwide
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No wind soughing in the bare trees the sky is overcast and gray
It has been raining for many hours the sun won't shine today
Not untypical of the time of year it would seem fair to say
Reminds me of where i used to live from here long miles away
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The rain falling in drizzle the sky gloomy gray
Above high wooded Olinda on a cold Winter's day
A cold breeze is soughing in the eucalypt trees
A forecast high for the day of a cold five degrees
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In view of old Clara from here far away
The nesting birds sing in Mountleader today
The hawthorns are in their white blooms of the May
To describe such beauty are there words for to say
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In fancy my thoughts carry me far away
To where the magpies are singing in Birdsland today
In a beautiful place that poets and artists to creativity inspire
The gem in the crown of the Yarra Ranges Shire
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The Rose of Koroit where might she be today
Some say she's in Sydney or in Byron Bay
Or in the Sunshine Coast of Queensland bronzed from the tropical sun
When you are only twenty two life can be so much fun
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Where many fine athletes and footballers staked their claim to renown
I hear great changes are occurring in and near Millstreet Town
In the Millstreet i once lived in from here long miles away
To many by old Clara i'd be a stranger today
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In his working life for him never an easy pay
The hard working fellow was buried today
A victim of cancer he lived for forty one years
His wife and two teenage daughters at his graveside in tears.
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Of a massive heart attack he did die suddenly
A young enough man with a young wife and family
On his birthday last August he turned thirty three
A young millionaire in ways financially.
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The song of the curlew is with me today
In McCloughlins beach in South Gippsland from here far away
His beautiful fluting I fancy I hear
In the calm of the morning melodious and clear.
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Koroit in Victoria of widespread renown
It is said of it 'tis an old Irish Town
And though festivals of Irish culture held there every year
On the streets of Koroit a word such as 'begorragh' you are unlikely to hear.
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On listening to the news on radio today
A report from the Arctic far away
That starving polar bears are killing and eating their own kind
Since seals due to thinning ice for them are hard to find
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The man who loved women was buried today
Amongst the departed his remains now lay
He was only forty five cancer on him took toll
Our destiny in life is beyond our control.
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I am not one as successful in the ways of financial gain
But in life i have been lucky i have no cause to complain
I am living in a nice place Nature's beauty around me
There is some truth in the saying the best things in life are free
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Though the river he sings in not anywhere near
In fancy the song of the dipper i do hear
On a rock in the rapids he sings as he bobs up and down
In the river that flows in the fields by the town
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Today it is warm some thirty eight degrees
And warmth in the sunshine and warmth in the breeze
The calendar Autumn just five sleeps away
For so late in summer a very warm day
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With most of the people there that i would meet
Today i would be a stranger in Claraghatlea and the Town of Millstreet
A stranger to many in Inchaleigh and Annagloor
Absence from home in many ways has left me feeling more poor
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With tints and hair dyes do they cover their gray?
The girls of my youth they are ageing today
But in my flights of fancy they remain young to me
The girls of my youth I may never more see,
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A bloke driving a truck at the tip backed into my car today
But lady luck she must have been looking my way
For though he damaged my car I escaped without injury
Thank you lady luck for being so nice to me
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Such beautiful weather around around twenty degrees
White butterflies dancing in the sunshine and breeze
That blows through the park in a southerly way
So good to be living on a day like today
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The long grass in the coastal paddock is the colour of hay
And the full tide covers the beach to the sand dunes in Warrnambool today
The weather is quite pleasant with a freshening coastal breeze
The weather forecaster says a high of twenty one degrees
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The years seem to fly and time ticking away
And what hair I have left on my head silver gray
And it goes without joy for me for to say
That I would be a stranger in Clara Today.
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Two inches of snow today in Millstreet Town
Through the almost deserted Main Street cars slowly move up and down
And in the calm of the afternoon blanketed white
The old hill of Clara a beautiful sight.
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The sun's lamp brightly shining the birds whistle and sing
On this day in November towards the end of the Spring
With a high of a pleasant twenty one degrees
It is nice to be out in the sun and the breeze
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The man from kanturk where might he be today
Is he now ageing gracefully in his Hometown far away?
I last spoke to him some two decades ago
And he talked of the place where the old Allow flow
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For me 'tis a sad thing for to have to say
That I would feel a stranger in Millstreet today
A stranger to those even I once did know
Apart in my ways from them I seem to grow
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The place I was born in and where I was raised
In my rhymes of nostalgia I often have praised
I left there when Clara wore his hat of snow
And Finnow bank high through the old fields did flow
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Perhaps from the old place I've been too long away
I would be a stranger by Clara today
A stranger to most people there I would meet
It has been twenty three years since I lived in Millstreet.
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He was the bloke who had hundreds of green acres
But his acres of no use to him today
With his wife in the family grave his bones at rest forever
His son and his son's wife and their children run the farm today.
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The sun is not shining the sky looking gray
But Nature herself she looks lovely today
The magpie lark in the park is singing pee wee
And honeyeaters chirp on every blossoming tree
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