Francis Duggan Poems

Though little strange in that most migrants would say
I often do think of old friends far away
More than twenty years since I've seen them and time ticking on
And my prime years of life to the ways of time gone.
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High off of the ground I could see them
On the old oak tree trunk cavity
The wild honey bees they were buzzing
Absorbed in their honey making activity.
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You feel the World's against you your car has broken down
Way out there in the country miles from the nearest town
You sit there in the driver seat your head bowed against the wheel
Thinking to yourself I'd be better off dead this is how low you do feel.
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Do not wish to hear your war stories of battles fought and won
Since I saw on t v this evening a mother grieve for her dead son
Her son murdered by a sniper with a bullet in his back
And I could only feel pity for this poor mother in Iraq
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So much about Nature David Attenborough know
My wonder at his knowledge only does grow
His documetaries the most informative things on the t v
The man is a genius none as clever as he,
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The temperatures in the mid twenties around twenty five degrees
And the sparrows are chirping on the bushes and trees
And white butterflies flitting in the warm sunlight
In near perfect weather so breezy and bright.
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Since Callanan penned Gougane Barra going back many decades in time
Poetry has undergone many changes and long out of fashion is rhyme
And gone are the great Gaelic translators they are now seen as out of date
And as a poet and a translator the Cork poet with the best did rate.
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His legacy to literature outlived the Shropshire Lad
And his verses known to the school boy were known to his grand dad
And the exquisite poems of Housman alive and read today
Suppose such things of beauty are not meant to decay.
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Suppose I am one who has a big ego I did have big plans once I do recall
But egos are a thing that inspire in us the need for success and are part of human nature after all
And now that my ego is a bit deflated and others I don't feel need to impress
Something perhaps that came with the realization that my life never has been a success.
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He lives in a mudbrick house in Gippsland by the Pacific sea
And he is known for miles around by his nickname of Knocknagree
The name comes from the place he left so many years ago
Ask for him by his proper name and him no one may know.
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