for PATTAYA TRADER 178 (C)

SWINGBOATS-AND-
TURNAROUNDS
Youth sails in
and age sails out,
yes life is swings
as well as roundabouts.

You gain here girl,
and you lose there.
Swing low, swing high
into the thin air.

NO-BLOODY-SPORTING-
CHANCE
Go run a man to the ground
with mad-foxes or with the hounds
that are for his blood thirsting -
until his poor heart is bursting -
we should find that it's cruel.
You say "it's sport", old-chap, old-fool?

for PATTAYA TRADER 178 (B)

AWAY-HER-MAN-HAS-WALKED
The girl listens to Scott
sing a Jacques Brel.
Gone away has the guy
for whom she fell.

She finds some songs
of great sympathy
with Scott Walker tracks
and their symphony.

for PATTAYA TRADER 178 (A)

A BELLE'S BOY?
"Find I know her,
and know her well.
That black-skinned girl
is a Lulu Belle.
She has French-kisses
she wants to sell
to the white guys
at this here hotel.
How do I know her?
I am not telling,"
winked the bellboy
with lots of belling.

DIVERSITY-AND-DIVISION
I hear talk of communities,
freedoms and individualities,
growing groups, ethnic minorities,
a society with inside societies,
of divisions and of diversities,
and a promised land for refugees.
And as I dwell upon this mix
of views and of party politics
I hear a Scot in England get excited
over a Kingdom becoming less united.

for PATTAYA TRADER 177 (H)

A-PREJUDICED-PLANET
There's bias with the Left
and bias with the Right,
there's bias with the blacks
and there's bias with the whites.
There's bias with every country
and bias with every region.
Prejudice is all round the world
and never, find, out of season.

Corrections:

RHYTHM-AND-BLUES 'and cover walls and ceiling'. JULY-ROSE 'beneath (not between) her toes'.

for PATTAYA TRADER 177 (G)

THE-BREATH-OF-OUR-DEAR-LIVES
There are those just give
and those just take,
but there's a balance, girl,
that we have to make.
There are those just love
and those just hate,
but there's a balance
that we have to make.
Love too much, hate too much too,
smothers people does that do.

THERE-IS-RHYTHM-AND-BLUES-
IN-THE-DAMN-RHYME
No I can't play guitar, girl,
and no I cannot sing.
But I write lyrics by the score,
verse-poems to carpet the floor
and cover over the ceiling
since you don't find them appealing
without a damn musical-score !

JUICED-UP-ON-JANE
Jane boosted the boys morale
during the Second World War.
A cartoon strip was juicy she,
who finally stripped off for sure !

A-MERCENARY-MINSTREL
She fell for a singer
who made himself a name,
but a soldier of fortune
was that guy's game.
He left her with a habit
that death would surely-bring.
So it is with drugs, gold
and lustful soldiering.

A-SUMMERY-JULY-ROSE-WAS-
PASS-ME-BY-JULIE
My first huge-crush
was Julie-the-rose;
I was crushed like snow
between the girl's toes
as she strolled on by.
Poor pretty Julie was to die.
A crush comes, a crush goes;
I'm often melted like the snows.
Coming soon the roses of July.

for PATTAYA TRADER 177 (F)

THE-INDECENT-DESCENDANT-DAUGHTER?
I rapidly wagged my tongue.
"What's it remind you of," I asked.
Biblical knowing was in her eyes
that shone, and the girl laughed.
"Does it remind you of a snake?"
Wise as the Biblical serpents,
wise as the serpents brazen,
she knew what I really meant.
Descended from Eve that woman !

for PATTAYA TRADER 177 (E)

THE-APPLE-FLAVOURED-WOMAN-OF-
MY-ROVING-EYES
I see her pink Cupid-bow lips.
The sexy lingerie from which she slips.
The sure firm and sweet  apple-rounded-hips.
I eat up the girl. I swallow the pips !

for PATTAYA TRADER 177 (D)

WHERE-THE-FLEETS'-FLAGS-FLYING-
FOR-FORKING-FREEDOM-BRITTY?!
Britannia holds the trident
that once belonged Neptune
whom to the Greeks was Poseidon.
Now Britannia sings the tune.

Britannia sings the tune
because it's she rules the waves.
But I see no warrior-ships.
Have they sunk to watery-graves?

for PATTAYA TRADER 177 (C)

POLITICAL CORRECTNESS
I don't mean to offend
but this PC stuff is bull.
You'd think folk just so fragile.
Wrapped up in cottonwool.

No I don't mean to offend
but I find PC offensive.
Be careful with free speech
it could turn out expensive !

for PATTAYA TRADER 177 (B)

A-UNIVERSAL-ADVENTURER
I've taken the hovercraft to France
and ferries to Holland,
aeroplanes to old Siam
that's now known as Thailand.
Been on Bangkok's sky-train
and on London's underground.
I await the flying saucer
the heavens to take me round.

for PATTAYA TRADER 177 (A)

NATCH-NORM?
What may be normal
might not be natural.
Don't confuse the two
as menkind often do
(even if taking a tolerant view).

LEFT, RIGHT, LEFT, RIGHT
You say I march you left,
now you say I march you right;
but you can only go so far, girl,
before day turns into night.
All comes to a crossroads, find,
at some time along the way.
Keep following me, pretty girl,
till night falls again upon the day.

BETWEEN-HARD-AND-CRUMBLING-HOLY-ROCKS
They had me down for a dunce
when I was at the RC School,
though at the C-of-E before then
find that I was classed no fool.
Protestant mother, Catholic father,
my life had become divided.
I'm a rolling stone 'tween two Rocks.
With neither faith have I sided.

for PATTAYA TRADER 176 (F)

A-TINY-TYRANT
The gentle giant
was gentle by choice,
while the tyrannical midget
had a barking voice.
The tiny despot
barked out aloud
only to think he stood
above the crowd.

for PATTAYA TRADER 176 (E)

INKSPOT
Not how to think
but what to think:
on the PC lobby
I spill this ink.

A-FREE-FALKLANDS
British are the Falklanders,
one of our minority groups.
We'd every right to defend them,
to send in England's troops
against the invading Junta,
against a fascist Argentina.

176

HEART KNOWS NO OTHER ANCHOR
There in the breeze her tresses blow free,
I'd have my fingers sail through such a sea,
I'd have her beauty anchor me, anchor me.

I spy her face almost everywhere,
by the window, at the door on top of the stair.
Yes I see her face, I see her hair.

But like a sailor who is bond-free,
or like a poet for whom safe ports can never be,
could she anchor me ? Could she anchor me ?

176

BY THE WELL
THE WILLOW WEEPS
There weeps a willow
by a spring of tears,
its branches bend back
to those chaste years
when both our wants
and our young needs
were yet as pure
as the swans in the reeds.

You had loved me
and I had loved you,
your skin was lily-white
and your eyes kingfisher blue.
But now turns yellow
the land that lies,
and gone the sparkle
 in your far-away eyes.

Yes gone the sparkle
with our wants and needs
which squat like toads
in the wild reeds,
and there, over there,
the oil from a drum
snakes up and down
as did once your and my tongue.

for PATTAYA TRADER 176 (D)

CRIMINAL COMMUNISTS
Lenin, Stalin, Mao Tse-tung,
Pot Pol. What had they done?
They turned their lands red.
The despots their own bled dead.

for PATTAYA TRADER 176 (C)

THE-MIDNIGHT-INBETWEENER?
The pale nuns pass in silent halls
while elsewhere within four walls
painted ladies in pretty frilly-smalls
blue the air with their cathouse calls.
The noise and the quiet, the peace and the riot.
The hidden body and the exposed to all.
Yours bared to me, lady, in the soundless night.

for PATTAYA TRADER 176 (B)

CONSTRUCTION-AND-DEDUCTION
No matter the country
we cannot defeat
the fact there is always
a wealthy elite.

No matter the system
men can construct
there is always found
persons who are corrupt.
Equality comes by cruel force
from the less equal elite, of course.

IT-IS-MEMORY-STREET-MINE
Lady Ladda,
she couldn't talk,
but find the girl
had a telling walk.

I read her mind,
she read mine,
we'd lie together
when we found the time.

Yes lady Ladda,
she couldn't talk,
down Soi Memory
with her I walk.

DOWN-DUMBNING-THE-WOMAN-
BOBBY-HERE
Three times her test was dumbed-down.
She is now a police woman in the town.
She's fond of bossing the public around.
Meritless men and women in the force?
Think what a police state would endorse !

IT-IS-A-LAYAROUNDER-AND-A-
NON-SIT-DOWNER
There is the worker
and the shirker.
There's the difficult job
and the dangerous too.

Yes there's the worker
and the shirker.
There's the layabout yob
and the grafter who -
even without a vocation -
gets to rise above his seated-station.

DEBS-AND-CELEBS
You sought publicity
and now shady privacy.
You avoid the photo-shoot
unless there's big money
for pics taken for free
when the flower had to firmly-root
itself, in the fertile mind
of the film-camera kind.

THE-NOISY-NIGHT'S-
WET-TWOSOME?
Farewell to the suffragette,
greetings to the loud ladette
who's far from lady-like.
But then, ah then,
her male's no gentleman,
as they binge-drink through the night.
Together boy and girl to tumble
into bed, there both to fumble
as to sex. The girl's now dry? You can bet !

for PATTAYA TRADER 176 (A)

IT-IS-NOT-THE-NURSERY-RHYME
Not what you say, find,
how you say it;
your body is a violin
and I desire to play it.

Hey diddle diddle
I'd be the bow to your fiddle,
the runaway dish and spoon
now over the dreamy-moon.

"DO NOT DEAR ME !"
Don't go end your sentences
with love, petal or pet,
as from the feminist you address
a damn dressing-down you'll get !

THE-THAI-TATTOO
The girls in Pattaya City
seem to like a tattoo.
My ladyfriends bore one
and sometimes they bore two.
A lovely-rose or star
and even the god Vishnu
who is a Hindu avatar
(Buddhists like him too).
For the tattoos did I care?
Give me naked-flesh everywhere !

for PATTAYA TRADER 175 (F)

IT'S-EMPTY-BEAKERS-AND-
CIGARETTE-BUTTS
Freedom top speak out
and freedom to think.
Freedom to go smoke
and freedom to drink?
Or freedom from smokers
and freedom from drinkers?
Freedom to overpopulate
or freedom from little tinkers
who may grow to drink and smoke?
Freedom to make very beery-jests
or freedom from being butt of the joke?