Jim Mageean

After you've finished here, you may like to hear this poem sung on MySpace...

Poem cum song 5 of 230, WalkaboutsVerse (see my Blog for details):
STATE TO STATE

(TUNE:

C F G F
C F G F
C F G F
C F G F
F G F C
F G F C
F G F C
C F F F)

From Sydney Town,
    In uni. break,
I drove out west
    To earnings make
Onion picking,
    On the fields
Of Echuca,
    That year’s yields.

After day’s work,
    From Y.H.A.,
A group of us
    Would not delay
To walk on down
    To the dirt rim
Of the Murray,
    For a cool swim.

On one such day,
    I do declare,
Some three of us
    Had a big dare
To swim across,
    From state to state,
The wide Murray -
    I took the bait.

Yes, foolishly,
    I took the bait -
A choice that I
    Would come to hate,
For I almost
    Did drown that date,
Making the swim
    From state to state.

(C) David Franks 2003

After you've finished here, you may like to hear this poem, & some songs, on myspace...
Poem 187 of 230, WalkaboutsVerse
(see my blog for details):  A SOUTH SHIELDS WALKABOUT - AUTUMN 2001 

Out of the museum-and-gallery 
(Wiser on Cookson and the local way), 
Down Ocean Road with, to the right of me, 
Its eateries and, left, neat places to stay; 
Before, on either side, Marine Parks - 
The southern-one a most beautiful place, 
Teeming with moorhens, swans, grebes and mallards 
In a small lake at a scenic-hill’s base. 

Then (holding chips from the parade’s cafe 
And, thus, a flock of gulls squawking above) 
Onto the South Pier I made my way: 
Seeing seaweed over rocks - like a glove - 
And high-and-dry sands held from transgression 
By growth of grass and the weaving of wood, 
Plus, in the dim light of a sleepy sun, 
Fishing boats returning to Tynemouth’s hood. 

(C) David Franks 2003