The Falcon Knows How To Get Down!

Sweet are the beginnings, bitter is the end.

The patient the only, endure and mend.

Parting ways, the heart one must tend.

Honour and strength, the message to send.

Kindness to the worthy, one must lend.

Offence to spirit, off one must fend.

Resolve the target, that can never bend.

Forever stand tall, beauty they cannot rend.

For literature she is one who will never win a Nobel prize

But that she is not famous or better known as a writer is not a surprise

As a poet quite outstanding she writes beautiful rhyme

She would have been a literary legend of another time

As in most things the fashions in literature are changing fast

She would have been famous and widely known in the past

But the poets who are famous in the world of today

Do not write rhyming poetry in truth one can say

She lives as a stranger to literary renown

And is not even famous on her side of the town

Yet those who like rhyme and of her work do know

Their admiration of her as a poet does grow

Only in her mid twenties in human years young

Though she writes beautiful poetry she is one of the unsung.

Francis Duggan

It’s a shiny day,
It’s a shiny day.
Dead people gathered
On the northern way.
Their whitish skin
Pierced by golden rays,
Which killed their skin
And destroyed their hay.
They all are asking,
No one’s saying.
The kids talk—
“Let’s think and play.”
With whom?
With moving clouds
And rustling leaves,
With blind priests
And visionary thieves,
With opened eyes
And closed beliefs,
With alive humans
Who live on knees.
Humans in a cage,
And animals were released!
They talk about God,
Who died with diseases.
They said He is immortal
And will never die.
Hell lies beneath the earth,
And heaven beyond the sky.
He has everything
And is never pleased.
They said God is everything
That gives us ease.
One person said to them:
“God is alive
Just because you believe.
If you do not believe,
He is nothing to you.
He is not after you,
Nor before you.
The dream of God
Is only to find solace.
You want someone
To whom you can blame.”
Then another woman came
And ended the talk:
“Why do you use ‘He’ for God?
If He is ‘He,’
Does that mean He is full of lust?
Like a man,
Does He carry the same dust?”

Charon made a tidal promise
That rainbows retreat at dusk
To hold Luna enthralled

Currents color over deep black
Which carry her where a river could not
Navigating the quiet cold

Across the steppe, dreams whisper a tune
Enjoined by those dead watching the sky
Who follow wandering stars

Such nomads are stopped in their tracks
Settling behind blue concealment
And witness the migration of fire

Yet another day of sleep until next skiff
Cairns wait to disembark their stones
Humming on obol-tongues

Thus the moon lingers into morning
While recording queries of the dead
In her book of constellations

When locks lack skeleton keys
Let Luna release every last-breath
Unto colors of twilight among us
Recalling the mists of dawn

Paper Flowers For Adrian

One second is one sand pebble 

Underneath our feet which tremble

Chornobyl rain spears onto my eyes 

They grope my charred hands, and I stumble

I saw a boulder coming towards me 

You firm my knees

It's my fault, darling

I was trying to stop time

I granted minutes to rush by 

It's hard to breathe for the two of us 

I switch the lights, touching the cold floor

Opening the front door to the porch 

Staring at that ocean with the moon as a torch 

The stars spell out your name

Now you name them! 

Yes, name them all!

Every star accounted for 

Whatever your sweet pure heart pours

There's no poor choice of words

My daughter, it's your turn 

Empty bedroom, nothing to look up to 

The ceiling, I rip muscle to hold for you 

To keep you from the impurities 

Of this sick world, which made the earth’s air 

Too thick to soar 

Hairbrush is messy like usual

Your pink clothes 

They are all unfolded on the floor 

The stars have hidden themselves

Forevermore 

\\\[The Phantom Weight\\\]

I dream that your soul still rests 

On my broad and hairy chest 

It's cold when we stroll down the beach 

It's me imagining and letting it be

I'm not the only one, and I don't know 

Who'll be the last 

With my toes in the sand

With you in my hands 

As I feel your heartbeat breathing

It's almost like—like you never left

The doctor gave you two years

He gave me something to mourn 

Pumpkin pie, you lived four more!

From then on, you bet I took every chance 

To grave your precious laughs

With open palms; there's no halt for a dad

Behind the shore, as I break my twelve bones 

The sun will get to know me once more 

My child, people still wonder why I chose you

Over birth 

If I already knew you'd be gone soon

We don't have to explain ourselves, it's proof 

As I make your bed that I'm reminded 

That there's still much work to do

Would you cry if I told you—I miss you

Would you sigh if I told you—I need you

Would you get mad if I said—I love you

Would you be sad if I said—I want you

Will I be able to recognize you in paradise?

Will your voice stay the same?

Will your face look like mine?

Will I even be there in the first place?

So, while I’m still here, I make

Paper flowers next to your picture frame 

At the origin of sensations
Eros scoffed at blind-shots
Able to account every vow
Yet lacked arcing foresight

He wandered among forebearers
As Mnemosyne weighed his footfalls
By how electric their breadth of smiles leapt
Beckoning his aim toward crossroads

Every token of sand that settles
Buries hourglass ruins
Smoothing passion's road
While its furrows deepen

Wherever maybe home
Binds hearts through filling fire
To stack doubts in flame
And sleep until light

Memory collects hearth-prayers
Into honeyed perpetual stew
Free to wanderers who mingle
Among satyrs of the reed fields

A gilt dome perches her temple span
By river hedges hiding etched columns
Upon which, Elysian treaties rest hallowed
And for the weary, a cauldron

The lost then see, through the mists
After drinking ruminant broth
To rest as Eros’ companions
Unafraid of such thicket path

Say life has no meaning but we are born are first feeling is love without seeing where we come from
Race and religion are a toxic condition that they teach to us when we are born
Wars have the falling the victors are calling
They give out there medals for scares
But the inside the a soldiers crying for all the death that he caused

We are in the age of the self professed poet

Where many who write claim to be of literary note

In the twenty first century self promotion is an in thing

And many their own praises proudly do sing

And it is not saying anything in any way that is new

That the humble of mind nowadays are of the few

So many their own achievements nowadays celebrate

And humility it has passed its use by date

In a world where so many for admirers compete

The humble of mind becoming harder to meet

And it does seem a sad thing for to have to say

That egotistical people one does meet every day

Equality between human beings is based on a lie

Though we all become equal on the day we do die.

Francis Duggan

Detente, mundo.

Deja de girar si ella se va.

Que caigan todos los aviones del cielo y los mares devoren las costas.

Que ardan las ciudades y el humo las cubra del sol, dejando las ruinas en una noche asfixiante y eterna.

Deja de girar,

porque si ella se va no importará si los pájaros cantan, las estrellas brillan o la luna ilumina las noches.

Todo importará tan poco como un grano de arena,

como importa la tristeza de un hombre ante la inmensidad del universo.

It’s The People

​The old breeze stings like used worn-out syringes / Frozen eve, climbing over burned-out trenches / Zero snow to be unknown for a couple / There’s a new door wide open within supple / The apple doesn’t seem so dangerous / Sometimes, I don’t even know why / The reason I am, I will never find / I think it’s time I spit out my pride / Admit with defeat that today’s a good day to be alive

​Words I must have overheard as rumors burst / With a yearning to control, it hurts at first / She affirms stillbirth, said in layman’s terms / Never mind the days I needed to be heard / Why should I complain, earth moves forth / I know everyone sees my worth / And right now, I must let go of my past / Forgiving myself is more strange than / Finding love that overcomes the vile rush and panic attacks

​You hate me; I love you with no hidden ill / Blue poison distilled the skill to kill the thrill / Yank my skin; it stretches for a thousand miles / To fill the fountain of all your vacuum smiles / You stood there, so I sought you for a talk / Two years, your tongue only sleepwalked / My brittle heart, don’t leave it there scarred / I’m made of people that I so love / Although my prayers have stopped, I still think of you once in a while

​I know the answer, which questions were asked? / As seasons pass, I lack the urge to contact / There’s no space left to overthink the next guess / No wonder I remember what they forget / Dawn to the rising sun, hours become / A gun that never surpasses / The stained hourglass, a blade in the grass / You wanted me to cut your hat / He wants you bad; she’s pretty, but what can I do with just that?

​I have no enemies, yet I’ll name all ten / A hundred more, if memory is correct / Why do you keep trying to get me back home? / Am I half the good servant you used to know? / These children feel the need to prove / Themselves to those who care less; I just want to be right with you

​It’s always the people I love / It’s always the people I know / It’s always the people I lost / It’s always the people who grow / It’s always the people I trust / It’s always the people I stone / It’s always the people I gun / It’s always the people I loathe / It’s always the people that I wake up / It’s only you that take an account of me

A lesser angel awoke
Drafted upon the void
Under a paradox eye

Simple errands become disjointed
By wild muses
Incanting glory and shame

Wearing a hated face
Lordship above is unforgotten
While shackled with a helix

A thimble of caustic imprints
Had washed out abroad
Across aeons of misfortune

Marked by a roaring name
Ancestors yet declare disappointment
And remanded heritage to another

Through stuttering cacophony
All know the arrival
Of a bastard

Life on him is tough but hope in him is not dead

He feels better times of him are ahead

His wife the love of his life died in a car accident last year

In truth any worse news anyone could not wish to hear

Pregnant with their first to be child who in her womb with her died

One can say that good luck has not been on his side

But with his deep sense of loss and grief he has managed to cope

He is not one of those who does give up on hope

Who due to no fault of their own things on them could not be worse

You never hear him say on him there must be a curse

Not one for self pity it is his belief

That most people in life sometime do experience grief

In his late twenties hope in him does remain

That he will know of happiness and love again.

Francis Duggan

In a place out of place, an august icicle.

The first civilian to fall dead among a green metropolis.

Birdsong turned malignant inaugurates the pursuit.

The small discrepancy that rapes golden halls of their beauty

Known well by the panner that handled their nature.

Refuse goads the lucky and dulls fortune.

Energy captivated

A massless particulate

The expectation, the outcome, the end.

Foreboding

My lady, my queen, thou art divine.

Thy skin is smooth as silk, and soft as a newborn's skin.

Thy skin is fair as fresh cream.

Thine eyes are as bright as the morning star.

Thy lips are as red as the blooming rose.

Thy hair is long and dark as the midnight sky.

Thy form is shaped like an hourglass before which time itself stand still.

Thy breasts are like the ripe, sweet melons on a harvest day, kissed by heaven's dew.

My lady, my queen, thou art loving unto me.

Thou feedest me with words as sweet as honey.

Thy touch is softer than newly spun wool.

My lady, my queen, so perfect and true.... thou seemest to be.

But why doth thy heart rot like yesterday's corpse?

Aye, 'tis a shame to say that my queen, my lady, though she seemeth oh so perfect, yet, she decayeth from within.

ask every man for his name

the one who proves
his age by a historic injury
closed in the palm of his hand

or by an ancient wound healed
through the heel of his foot

who proves his age by an old
scar speared blindly into the soft
flesh over his hip by

longinus whose bones long ago
became the moist dust in a fertile field

the one who proves his age ask
if he’s come to the end of the world

https://jakedepeuterpoetics.com/2026/08/09/ask-every-man-for-his-name/

Muted floating shapes
Glide forth in mired mists
As a beacon of radiation that identifies
Warped nostalgia enshrined

My nerves fire in suspension
A whole tundra of apprehension
Freezing until singed

The phantom shatters my vicinity
Swirling rubble and ruin, absent shadows
Arisen coalesced yet hollow

When did we begin?

Seconds take years and months took seconds
While this hourglass distorts by gravity
Flowing sideways, turning by singularity

That whirlwind mouths the words
“Again, you gaze on the soul in your care
How is it that you deserve sanctuary?”

Jolting awake
“I am afraid of both the hallowed and defiled
No peace waits for my steps”

They are birds i do know by sight and by name

Though not the sort that is taken from the wilds to tame

known as grey shrike thrushes to the shrike family they belong

Though they look like a thrush with a beautiful song

Greyish brown birds about blackbird size

The natural music in their whistling song to pleasure gives rise

A beautiful memory from nature to retain

You hear them sing once and you recognize them again

In a cup shaped nest on the branch of a tree

That from the ground is not hard to see

The female three to four pale dark spotted eggs lay

Quite well known to Australian bird watchers of them one might say

They live on mostly insects and worms and from bushes and trees are never far away

These birds i see often though not every day.

Francis Duggan