English Jan
She still has her English accent the one known as English Jan
And she never was a mother nor a wife to any man
She ages without dyes or makeups her hair is silver gray
But do not say about her she has known a better day.
She migrated to Melbourne from Blackpool her Hometown by the Irish sea
When she was in her early twenties in nineteen fifty three
Fifty one years in Australia yet she remains undimmed by time
And more than forty years have passed since she was in her prime.
For forty years a school teacher her retirement she enjoy
And she will make the most of every day until the day she die
She plays bowls on a saturday and on sunday evening after eight
She socializes with her friends and always until late.
On sunday mornings at the Corner cafe she is one I always see
And she does always say hello and smile and wave at me
So down to earth and carefree and untainted by conceit
And one of those good people I feel happy for to meet
She does not use dyes or makeups and she ages in the natural way
And she is one of those nice people who makes a new friend every day
From the English Town of Blackpool by the cold Irish sea
She migrated to Melbourne in nineteen fifty three.
poem by Francis Duggan
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Related quotes
At A Meeting Of Friends
AUGUST 29, 1859
I REMEMBER--why, yes! God bless me! and was it so long ago?
I fear I'm growing forgetful, as old folks do, you know;
It must have been in 'forty--I would say 'thirty-nine--
We talked this matter over, I and a friend of mine.
He said, 'Well now, old fellow, I'm thinking that you and I,
If we act like other people, shall be older by and by;
What though the bright blue ocean is smooth as a pond can be,
There is always a line of breakers to fringe the broadest sea.
'We're taking it mighty easy, but that is nothing strange,
For up to the age of thirty we spend our years like Change;
But creeping up towards the forties, as fast as the old years fill,
And Time steps in for payment, we seem to change a bill.'
'I know it,' I said, 'old fellow; you speak the solemn truth;
A man can't live to a hundred and likewise keep his youth;
But what if the ten years coming shall silver-streak my hair,
You know I shall then be forty; of course I shall not care.
'At forty a man grows heavy and tired of fun and noise;
Leaves dress to the five-and-twenties and love to the silly boys;
No foppish tricks at forty, no pinching of waists and toes,
But high-low shoes and flannels and good thick worsted hose.'
But one fine August morning I found myself awake
My birthday:--By Jove, I'm forty! Yes, forty, and no mistake!
Why, this is the very milestone, I think I used to hold,
That when a fellow had come to, a fellow would then be old!
But that is the young folks' nonsense; they're full of their
foolish stuff;
A man's in his prime at forty,--I see that plain enough;
At fifty a man is wrinkled, and may be bald or gray;
I call men old at fifty, in spite of all they say.
At last comes another August with mist and rain and shine;
Its mornings are slowly counted and creep to twenty-nine,
And when on the western summits the fading light appears,
It touches with rosy fingers the last of my fifty years.
There have been both men and women whose hearts were firm and bold,
But there never was one of fifty that loved to say 'I'm old';
So any elderly person that strives to shirk his years,
Make him stand up at a table and try him by his peers.
Now here I stand at fifty, my jury gathered round;
Sprinkled with dust of silver, but not yet silver-crowned,
Ready to meet your verdict, waiting to hear it told;
Guilty of fifty summers; speak! Is the verdict _old_.
No! say that his hearing fails him; say that his sight grows dim;
Say that he's getting wrinkled and weak in back and limb,
Losing his wits and temper, but pleading, to make amends,
The youth of his fifty summers he finds in his twenty friends.
poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes
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Mick Kissane From Kenmare
Though living far from Ireland he's still Irish to the core
And he still talks of Kerry and Kenmare and Inchamore
And he derive much pleasure knocking Thatcher and the Queen
And he feels ever faithful to the wearers of the green.
He's living in Mount Evelyn renowned for it's gum trees
Where currawong and magpie pipe their joyful melodies
Where kookaburra wake you at the dawning of the day
With his harsh like laugh that one can hear a half a mile away.
But he like it in Australia and he feel settled down
In the valley of the gum trees a short drive from Melbourne Town
And though he still loves his Ireland he's in Aussie Land to stay
But he will return to Kerry for a two month holiday.
He love Australian football and he barrack for Hawthorn
But he has no love for soccer wish that game were never born
He say soccer is a cissy game that the English popularized
But if he praised anything he consider English I for one would feel surprised.
He's a few years with the forty gray ribs through his raven hair
But he still looks young for his years Mick Kissane from Kenmare
And though he love it in Australia at heart he's still an Irishman
A patriotic, passive type Irish Republican.
poem by Francis Duggan
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Sunday Bloody Sunday
Well it was sunday bloody sunday
When they shot the people there
The cries of thirteen martyrs
Filled the free derry air
Is there any one amongst you
Dare to blame it on the kids?
Not a soldier boy was bleeding
When they nailed the coffin lids!
Sunday bloody sunday
Bloody sundays the day!
You claim to be majority
Well you know that its a lie
Youre really a minority
On this sweet emerald isle
When stormont bans our marches
Theyve got a lot to learn
Internment is no answer
Its those mothers turn to burn!
Sunday bloody sunday
Bloody sundays the day!
Sunday bloody sunday
Bloody sundays the day!
You anglo pigs and scotties
Sent to colonize the north
You wave your bloody union jack
And you know what its worth!
How dare you hold to ransom
A people proud and free
Keep ireland for the irish
Put the english back to sea!
Sunday bloody sunday
Bloody sundays the day!
Well, its always bloody sunday
In the concentration camps
Keep falls road free forever
From the bloody english hands
Repatriate to britain
All of you who call it home
Leave ireland to the irish
Not for london or for rome!
Sunday bloody sunday
Bloody sundays the day!
Sunday bloody sunday
Bloody sundays the day!
Sunday bloody sunday
Bloody sundays the day!
Sunday bloody sunday
Bloody sundays the day!
song performed by by Lennon John
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Luck Of The Irish
Ok, one, two, three, one two, three
If you had the luck of the irish,
You'd be sorry and wish you were dead.
You should have the luck of the irish,
And you'd wish you was english instead.
A thousand years of torture and hunger,
Drove the people away from their land.
A land full of beauty and wonder
Was raped by the british brigands!
Goddamned!
Goddamned!
If you could keep voices like flowers,
There's be shamrock all over the world.
If you could drink dreams like irish streams,
Then the world would be as high as the mountain of morn.
In the 'pool they told us the story
How the english divided the land.
Of the pain and the death and the glory
And the poets of auld eireland.
If we could make chains with the morning dew,
The world would be like galway bay.
Let's walk over rainbows like leprechauns,
The world would be one big blarney stone.
Why the hell are the english there anyway?
As they kill with god on their side!
Blame it all on the kids and the i.r.a.
As the bastards commit genocide!
Aye! aye!
Genocide!
Okay!
You should have the luck of the irish,
You'd be sorry and wish you were dead.
You should have the luck of the irish,
And you'd wish you was english instead.
One more time!
You should have the luck of the irish,
You'd be sorry and wish you were dead.
You should have the luck of the irish,
And you'd wish you was english instead,
Hey, yes, you'd wish you were english instead.
- "thank you!
song performed by by Yoko Ono
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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That Fifty Year Old Woman
That fifty year old woman
she is someones mother
that fifty year old woman
she is someones lover
them fifty years of her life
unseen by a cover.
Covered by the leaves
from the autumn trees is the grass
surrounded by blue tape
and nosey people who pretend to pass
a group of actors walk by
they have come from a history class
to make history new
with conversation with questions to ask.
A fifty year old woman
in an autumn so cold
a fifty year old woman
seen dark winter unfold
them fifty years of life
it is all we are told.
The actors, they didn't get any information
they did not get pictures
nothing known about the situation
nothing at all to discuss
fifty years of age is all thats said
on the morning paper on the fifty bus
thats all thats said
a fifty year old woman, shes found dead.
That fifty year old woman
shes not someones mother
that fifty year old woman
how she had no lover
them fifty years of life
unseen by a cover.
That fifty year old woman
she was quoted in the paper today
that fifty year old woman will be gone tomorrow
the writers they will show no sorrow
because its the way things work
as people pass
she no longer lies on grass
shes covered in dirt.
poem by Daniel McCann
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The Former Rose Of Casterton
From Casterton in Victoria she lives far away
With hair dyes and hair tints does she hide her gray?
With shoulder length dark hair and lovely eyes of brown
She was a former Rose of Casterton Town.
In her prime she was one lovely to behold
But now in her late fifties she is getting old
Did she marry, mother children or lead a single life
For some lucky fellow she would have been a beautiful wife.
The wanderlust in her and when she was nineteen
She left and in Casterton was never more seen
The Rose of Glenelg and Casterton's Pride
She was missed from the Town in the brown countryside.
With anti ageing creams and hair dyes does she cloak time's decay
For she surely has known a far better day
Good memories of her with those who knew her to this day remain
Though in Casterton she never may be seen again.
poem by Francis Duggan
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I Remember
I remember being ten years old
And wondering what I would be?
I talked it over with my father
And he said, “We’ll see.”
I remember being twenty years old
And wondering all about life.
I found myself getting married
And learning to be a wife.
I remember being thirty years old
With 2 sons at my side.
I saw a few strands of gray hair
Which I tried to hide.
I remember being forty-five
And birthdays coming too soon.
I was teaching kids all about music
And waiting for vacations in June.
I remember when I turned fifty
And my body started to change.
The hormonal and emotional challenges
All became so strange.
I remember becoming fifty-eight
When retirement came my way.
I thought to myself, “ Now what do I do? ”
On every single day?
I remember becoming seventy
When breast cancer came to me.
I decided I wanted to live some more
So I created poetry.
All that I remember from that point on
Is where I am today
Using this pen that’s in my hand.
It’s become my way to say
Thank You.
poem by Edwina Reizer
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Fifty Years Of Marriage
With dye and hair colouring they cover their gray
Their fifty years of marriage they celebrate today
Through fifty years of marriage they have argued their way
In their love hate relationship one well might say.
Their better days one can say for them are long gone
And they age without grace though time is ticking on
Their children are grand-parents and the years on them show
Since they too are ageing and their fastest pace slow.
Fifty happy years together by some we are told
But others who know them well and with their words more bold
Will tell you they never did see eye to eye
But why they stay together one must wonder why.
They have stayed together for so many years
One can hardly say of them the lovely old dears
Since they both are quite quarrelsome and grumpy as well
Perhaps without quarrels life for them would be hell.
Fifty years together and the same bed they share
Yet even in public places at each other they swear
Such marriages as their's suppose never were rare
They are not the World's only dysfunctional pair.
Today their descendants will celebrate the marriage of their Pop and Gran
And applaud this wonderful woman and man
But the truth of their marriage they will never tell
How they seem to enjoy giving each other hell.
poem by Francis Duggan
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Greg
Greg a man of medium height and build is in his late sixties with the silver of time in his hair
In the early sixties he left his old Hometown in England for to experience life in the big World out there
He never did return to Scunthorpe or again set foot on his old Homeland shore
He grows old in this southern Country where one day his bones will rest forever more.
His only child a daughter has a teenage son and daughter and as for Bella his ex wife
Three years ago she married her lover since he is the great love of her life
And Greg lives alone in a Melbourne eastern Suburb in a two room flat he reside
A kind hearted and honest fellow of far off old England with nothing in his life for to hide.
But his English accent is still with him to his heritage a give away
The tongue of his old Mother Country until his end with him will stay
He lives off of his retirement pension his main interests greyhound racing and Aussie Rules football
With a great memory for names and faces past happenings he can readily recall.
On Saturday evening Greg goes to the Local Pub for a few drinks and a chat with his mates
And the main topic is Aussie Rules football the great games and the footballing greats
He seldom ever talks of England I'm a naturalized Aussie he say
I will live out my years in this Country and in Aussie soil my bones will lay.
poem by Francis Duggan
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Nineteen Years Is Long Enough (Revised)
For the first time in nineteen years I'm planning
Christmas with my parents, to be with them as
one singing Carols, preparing delicacies to eat -
but particularly singing songs mother wrote,
presenting the play she designed for us ages
ago when we twins were just six years old
Back then my brothers and dad spoiled things -
but this time we can present mother's songs less
their interference, and afterwards I can go for a
spin on brother-in-law's motorbike, making up
for events we missed when small - yes, this
Christmas will be a grand reunion ball
For the first time in nineteen years I shan't be
home; it's either or, never parents and hubby
together, and though he was angry hearing
my plans - after nineteen years he cannot
really complain - it is the first time I shall be
with them - I think it is fair,
Nineteen years is long enough
poem by Margaret Alice Second
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Sunday, Bloody Sunday
Well, it was sunday, bloody sunday when the shot the people there.
The cries of thirteen martyrs filled the free derry air.
Is there anyone amongst you dare to blame it on the kids?
Not a soldier boy was bleeding when they nailed the coffin lids!
Sunday, bloody sunday, bloody sundays the day.
Well, you claim to be majority, well, you know that its a lie.
Youre really a minority on this sweet emerald isle.
When stormont bans our marches, theyve got a lot to learn,
Internment is no answer, its those mothers turn to burn.
Sunday, bloody sunday, bloody sundays the day.
Hey! yeah!
Yeah!
Sunday, bloody sunday, bloody sundays the day.
All you anglo pigs and scotties sent to colonise the north,
You wave your bloody union jacks and you know what its worth.
How dare you hold to ransom a people proud and free?
Keep ireland to the irish, put the english back to sea!
Sunday, bloody sunday, bloody sundays the day.
Hey, hey, hey!
Alright!
Ooh -
Yeah!
Sunday, bloody sunday, bloody sundays the day.
Well, its always bloody sunday in the concentration camps.
Keep falls road free forever from the bloody british hands.
Repatriate to britain all of you who call it home,
Leave ireland to the irish not for london or for rome.
Sunday, bloody sunday, bloody sundays the day.
Sunday, bloody sunday, bloody sundays the day.
Sunday, bloody sunday, bloody sundays the day.
Sunday, bloody sunday, bloody sundays the day.
Sunday, bloody sunday, bloody sundays the day.
Sunday, bloody sunday, bloody sundays the day.
Sunday, bloody sunday, bloody sundays the day.
Sunday, bloody sunday, bloody sundays the day.
Sunday, bloody sunday.
song performed by by Yoko Ono
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Sunday, Bloody Sunday
Well, it was sunday, bloody sunday when the shot the people there.
The cries of thirteen martyrs filled the free derry air.
Is there anyone amongst you dare to blame it on the kids?
Not a soldier boy was bleeding when they nailed the coffin lids!
Sunday, bloody sunday, bloody sundays the day.
Well, you claim to be majority, well, you know that its a lie.
Youre really a minority on this sweet emerald isle.
When stormont bans our marches, theyve got a lot to learn,
Internment is no answer, its those mothers turn to burn.
Sunday, bloody sunday, bloody sundays the day.
Hey! yeah!
Yeah!
Sunday, bloody sunday, bloody sundays the day.
All you anglo pigs and scotties sent to colonise the north,
You wave your bloody union jacks and you know what its worth.
How dare you hold to ransom a people proud and free?
Keep ireland to the irish, put the english back to sea!
Sunday, bloody sunday, bloody sundays the day.
Hey, hey, hey!
Alright!
Ooh -
Yeah!
Sunday, bloody sunday, bloody sundays the day.
Well, its always bloody sunday in the concentration camps.
Keep falls road free forever from the bloody british hands.
Repatriate to britain all of you who call it home,
Leave ireland to the irish not for london or for rome.
Sunday, bloody sunday, bloody sundays the day.
Sunday, bloody sunday, bloody sundays the day.
Sunday, bloody sunday, bloody sundays the day.
Sunday, bloody sunday, bloody sundays the day.
Sunday, bloody sunday, bloody sundays the day.
Sunday, bloody sunday, bloody sundays the day.
Sunday, bloody sunday, bloody sundays the day.
Sunday, bloody sunday, bloody sundays the day.
Sunday, bloody sunday.
song performed by by Yoko Ono
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Rose Of London
She now lays in the cemetery though life for her was hell
And her life a tragic story though that story I must tell
She migrated to here from London in nineteen fifty two
When she was only twenty brown haired with eyes of blue.
She was known as Rose of London Rosemary was her name
A car accident in her early fifties had left her slightly lame
And in that tragic accident her husband Jim and their daughter died
Her happy life until then by cruel fate was destroyed.
Her husband Jim was fifty two and Ann their only child was twenty three
But Rosemary put her misfortune behind her and she overcame her tragedy
And she soldiered on bravely though her cross heavy to bear
Still the broken dreams of her life even time could not repair.
I often see her at the superstore she always wore the brightest clothes
Her silver hair and lovely face she did look like a rose
With her beautiful cockney accent she was cheerful and free of guile
And she would win the heart of Satan with the warmth of her smile.
In her battle with cancer poor Rose did not win through
Still she was a noble person and her equals all too few
Pre-deceased by her nearest and her dearest she battled on till the end
She was loved by many people and I miss her as a friend.
A kind hearted cockney lady and she wore the brightest clothes
She was known as Rose of London and she surely was a rose
She lost her nearest and her dearest and her's was a painful end
But she was admired by many and I loved her as a friend.
poem by Francis Duggan
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In The Fields By The Sullane
In the fields by the Sullane that flows through Macroom
The wildflowers of Nature are now in full bloom
And the ageing migrant remembers today
The place where he lived in as a boy near a town far away.
His soul mate and the best friend he ever did know
His Aussie wife passed on a few years ago
Their grandchildren teenagers and time ticking on
And his best Seasons to the forever long gone.
To the young mind the far off hills always look green
And he left friends and family when he turned nineteen
The wanderlust in him for the big World out there
From the fields by the Sullane he would live elsewhere
Forty eight years out of Macroom in time quite a span
In this Southern Country a gray haired ageing man
The years telling on him the years never lie
Far from the Sullane he is destined to die.
To this Southern Land his best years he did give
And on his retirement pension he now has to live
The passing of time has left him walking slow
The one from the fields where Sullane waters flow.
poem by Francis Duggan
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A Grieving Widow
From the cemetery in Cameron Street she's a short walk away
And often at her husband's grave for his soul she does pray
An old miner of the black coal two years ago he died
Soon she will go to join him to lay forever by his side.
Her husband in his mid seventies when the Reaper for him came
And without her one true soul mate life for her not the same
They migrated to Wonthaggi in their early twenties in nineteen fifty three
He was her childhood sweetheart back home in Italy.
The saddest time of her life has been the last two years
She still grieves for her husband for him she still shed tears
Even at the mention of his name the tears come to her eyes
The stonger the bond of love is the sadder the goodbyes
Her son and daughter in Wonthaggi to her they live quite near
And stories of her old Homeland her grand kids love to hear
She tells them of the happy times their grand dad and her did know
When they were young in Italy so many years ago.
At her husband's grave in Cameron Street she says a silent prayer
A woman in her mid seventies with a silvery head of hair
And tears are welling in her eyes at her memories of the past
But no one lives forever and nothing ever last.
poem by Francis Duggan
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The Luck Of The Irish
If you had the luck of the irish
Youd be sorry and wish you were dead
You should have the luck of the irish
And youd wish you was english instead!
A thousand years of torture and hunger
Drove the people away from their land
A land full of beauty and wonder
Was raped by the british brigands! goddamn! goddamn!
If you could keep voices like flowers
Thered be shamrock all over the world
If you could drink dreams like irish streams
Then the world would be high as the mountain of morn
In the pool they told us the story
How the english divided the land
Of the pain, the death and the glory
And the poets of auld eireland
If we could make chains with the morning dew
The world would be like galway bay
Lets walk over rainbows like leprechauns
The world would be one big blarney stone
Why the hell are the english there anyway?
As they kill with God on their side
Blame it all on the kids the ira
As the bastards commit genocide! aye! aye! genocide!
If you had the luck of the irish
Youd be sorry and wish you was dead
You should have the luck of the irish
And youd wish you was english instead!
Yes youd wish you was english instead!
song performed by by Lennon John
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Edu-mac-cation
‘EDU-MAC-CATION’
I am going back to school to finish my education
Something, I should have done forty years ago
Will I succeed this time around?
Oh dear, I very much hope so
I have tried several times before
Somehow, I always failed
Couldn’t concentrate, hadn’t the patience
Think it’s time I got it nailed
GCSE’s in Maths and English
I have to follow those paths
Not so bad at English
Bloody useless at Maths
That was when I was in school
All of forty years ago
I was jack the lad back then
Now I really want to know
I know it has been coined before
Now, I believe it to be the truth
What some clever person said
Education is wasted on the youth
MICMAC
poem by Michael Micmac Mccrory
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One’s tongue is the persistent calyx.
I read and write only in English.
It goes on for the last fifty years.
Yet my comfort zone is my mother tongue,
Only where I enjoy songs and dialogs.
14.02.2008
poem by Rm. Shanmugam Chettiar
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Nineteen-Fifty-Two
I wish things were,
the same now, as then,
i wish I was there, instead of here.
In nineteen-fifty-two,
things were simple, and so care-free,
you alway, had something to do
You could see a movie,
or buy, a comic or pop for the price of a dime
everone's favorite saying, was groovie.
Drugs were no problem, at all,
crime also, was very down
young Willie May, was even playing ball.
Children had respect, even for their parents
three-D was really in,
and everyone had good merit's
In nine-teen-fifty-two,
Ike was elected president
and I wasn't feeling blue
I know the past
is gone, you can't go back
time really goes on fast
I wished then, I could've made a forecast
nineteen-fifty-two, only now a memory,
looking back, life has been good, at last.
Irish-English
Having stolen all the goods and gone,
The English are back in Ireland
Seeking the good of man
In folksong of the past.
Irish in acadamia
Have left the country behind
Preferring to live where the air comes in,
Leave the stench to the English mind.
It's neither one thing nor another
But a blend that works the best.
But when it comes to English-Irish
The latter think the opposite's blessed.
Living by the nostrils the Irish whiff the past,
'The English they can have it. By the future we are cast.'
poem by Douglas Scotney
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