for PATTAYA TRADER 225 (D)

THE-COWHERD-CAEDMON'S-HYMN
Caedmon, the illiterate cowherd,
would the fireside go depart
when was passed around the harp.
He could not play. The spoken word
he would then learn to sing -
after an angel came to him? -
Ah yes his Muse did have wings !

for PATTAYA TRADER 225 (C)

BAT-WINGED-GIRL-BEGONE
No, oh no, no, no,
find she is no myth,
for I sure have met
the real-life Lilith !
Yes Lil, Lilith, Lili,
go fly girl away from me !!

A-STRIP-ARTIST'S-SNAKY-ACT
She rolls her stockings
slow, slow, sure slow,
down each leg, past her foot,
lingers at the toes.
Flings across the black-snakes
that had her slender limbs encased.

A-BOAT-ROCKER-AND-WAVE-MAKER
Girl, I rock the boat.
I upset the apple-cart.
Verse-poetry is my trade.
Verse-poetry is my art.

Girl, I go make waves.
I'm your guerilla-man.
You're on my wavelength.
I'm your poetry-partisan.

GOOD-AS-GOLD-NOT
She was no alchemist,
she had a base soul
that in no way could
she transmute to gold.

No alchemist was she,
a base soul she had
that in no way could
make good, but bad.

for PATTAYA TRADER 225 (B)

THE-DEVIL-DAUGHTERS-OF-DEMON-DARKNESS
The serpent-woman Melusine
was a water-witch, you'll divine.
Viviana Nineve, Lady-of-the-Lake,
a further sort of venemous snake
who was Magic Merlin to ensnare.
And Guinevere for leaving Arthur spare?

for PATTAYA TRADER 225 (A)

WHEN-THE-BLACK-RAM-
AND-RED-BULL-COLLIDE
When one extreme
leads to the other,
and head-to-head go
both the great-monsters,
what then? What then
for the moderate man
caught between the horns
of the fierce bull and ram?

TOO-LOUD-ABOUT-LOVE
I know your type,
you jaw, jaw, jaw,
about peace and love,
but it's civil-war
and hate, hate, hate,
that drives your jaw.
Yes hate, hate, hate.
By envy do you motivate.

for PATTAYA TRADER 224 (G)

DEEPLY-DARK-DAYS
Row, row, row -
as in days olden -
like a galley slave
into a sunset golden.

Slave, slave, slave,
for a future fortune.
Find only dark night
without a moon.

for PATTAYA TRADER 224 (F)

(Correction: 'Rastafarian' not 'Rastafetarian' ! in the Bob Marley's Ghost verse.)

SWORD-WORDS
Vishnu on his white steed
brandishing his shiny sword -
like the legendary Arthur
brandishing the sword Excalibur -
will return, the Hindu myths tell.
Shred evil Kali's Morgan-like spell?

SCHOOL-OF-LIFE-VERSE-POEM
There are many tutors
who never left school.
Books are good, find.
But life's the-very-great-rule !

for PATTAYA TRADER 224 (E)

(Correction: JUST JIM 'that's not your own, / no not your own,/ yet you do well/ in your island home.')

PRICELESS-PEARLS
"A penny for your thoughts,"
should you ask of me...
find too precious this moment
that priceless they will be.

HE-WAS-A-HOMELESS-HIPPY-ON-
A-CHEMICAL-HIGH
Down and cast out
in Ladbroke Grove;
long-hair, just a hippy,
spaced-out find, trippy.
Ring through his earlobe.

Down and cast out
the streets he'd rove
around Notting Hill.
The bitter-sweet pill,
he was off the globe.
A faraway gypsy-man,
without even a caravan.

for PATTAYA TRADER 224 (D)

THE CHERRY-TREE-WALK-TAKE-I
I take a walk through Cherry Wood,
by an old graveyard that's both green and grey.
Does the very pretty fair-haired girl from Windmill Lane
smile on me like the bright yellow sun today?

Yes, does the girl from York City's Windmill Lane
smile on me, or does the beauty - perhaps - frown?
She might not care to even think of me at all
while inside my head she goes crazily round and round.

KING-ARTHUR-AND-KING-EDWIN
Arthur's Seat is the hill
overlooks Edinburgh City,
which in turn takes its name
from York's King Edwin. Oversee
Edinburgh - named after him -
from that hill. York's King Edwin.

BLACK-BERRY-BOLD ('59)
To Berry on tv -
when four years old -
"Don't you go dance"
I was so told,
by a fiery aunt who
thought she knew best.
But that devil Chuck
had a better tune, I guess !

JUST JIM
You go into exile -
like good Lord Jim -
through some guilt,
through some sin
that's not your own,
yet you do well
in your island home.
You do damn well
there can't be doubt.
The tide brings in
what you'd sent out.

THE-GREAT-FULFORD-REGION-
BATTLE-HERE
The Battle of Fulford
took place right here,
outside of York City
with sword, shield and spear.

The Battle of Fulford
right here took place.
Men fought for victory,
lost their lives in this space.
It was long ago, outside of York.
Far longer than yon long-legged stork.

MEN-ARE-MERELY-MORTAL-TRUE
The Dalai Lama
is not the Buddha,
nor are priests God on high.
You seek Heaven? Nirvana?
It's on yourself then go rely !

for PATTAYA TRADER 224 (C)

LAP-UP-THE-LAUGHING-HYENA-
FEMALE-FIND-THE-MEN-DO
Now Coyote Club Cath
has the craziest laugh,
you'd think her a hyena.
But the girl is the star
in the pole-dance bar.
Though not a ballerina,
she does her own thing.
Thighs to the pole cling,
the guys sure all a dreamer !

for PATTAYA TRADER 224 (B)

THE-HERMITAGES-OF-HILDA-
THE-SAINT-FROM-WHITBY
Down near the beach once stood
Hilda's Hermitage, in Saltburn wood.
A hermitage in Port Mulgrave, too,
had Hilda of Whitby Abbey who
was said to turn snakes into stone,
change into a mermaid, also known
to go against the Church of Rome
as to the date for Eastertime.
She would fail, yet as a saint would shine
Hilda of the Celtic-Christiany.
Princess-Abbess in coastal Whitby.

for PATTAYA TRADER 224 (A)

SALTBURN SCENES
Scenes from Saltburn
caught in these snaps
of my old-memory
like vivid photographs.

The town's very-first
was my magazine,
launched like a ship.
Her masthead's clearly-seen.

A-SEASIDE'S-SEASONS
Time-and-Tide. Find Death
will come set you free
when spent are your seasons
by the ticking sea.

A-PAST'S-PORTRAITS
A people's parade
of 'characters' cast.
Art museum dim muse (?)...
'Portraits of the past?'

DIZZY DIDDY
I am 6ft 2,
what more the proof
when at 5ft 3
she calls me aloof !

She takes the view
that ever takes she
from her dizzy height
of 5ft 3 !

A-GIRL'S-GOLD-BIND-RING
She used her beauty
to buy his gold,
and into marriage
she herself sold.

The binds that bound
the very-girl to him
were greed, green-envy
and a wedding ring.

EDWIN-THE-BEHEADED
There ravens perch
upon the headstones
in the graveyard where
lie buried the bones
of York's King Edwin
whom, in battle beheaded,
in Whitby Abbey's grounds
was then bedded.
Hilda of the Abbey
was his great-niece.
Now, like Dracula,
the King's at peace.

HIDES-THE-HAWK-INSIDE-
DOES-THE-COOING-DOVE
You hate life's hate?
Hate is hateful, isn't it?
You hate being poor
and you hate the rich.
You preach love, love, love.
A hawk within the outward dove.

THE PERFECTIONS-AND-MUTATIONS
You say I move, girl.
from left to right,
as if change was not
my very birthright.

No more the youth,
let alone the child,
that I once had been
you are beguiled,

believing as you do
in a perfect state.
Such cannot last.
We all mutate.

For PATTAYA TRADER 223 (F)

BEYOND DUALITY
You preach about peace
then for a sword call.
You speak of pure love.
It's beyond us all

for mankind is born
to love and to hate,
or at times do neither
and transcend these states?

BOBTAIL BOBITT
Find Mrs Bobitt
cut-off the carrot
of the buck rabbit
whom her husband be.
Disliked his infidelity !

SO-'E'-FOLLOWS-'I'-
ALWAYS?
Goes 'I' before 'E'
except after 'C',
though, of course,
it's only generally
as we do find otherwise
wEIrdly !

THE-LONG-DAYS-
WITH-GOLD-RAYS
Longer are the days,
very short nights have come.
Time for the golden
spring-and-summer sun.
The green of the leaves,
the butterflies and bees,
the preening peacock,
kingfisher and the swan.
Yellow of the water-lily
like the sun on the pond.

A-PICTURE-POSTCARD-IT-
DAMN-SURE-WAS-NOW?!
The cameras all snapped,
the Chinese took photographs
and the other tourists too.
I'd bought a pack of corn
on that bright sunny morn
to feed the birds greyish-blue.
"Ah my pigeons, my pigeons,
be my flighty angels do,
descend on me and feed
as is your hunger and need,
I'm no scarecrow for you."
And so the cameras clicked
as pigeons alighted, pecked
at the corn I held out there
in both my hands, for them to feed.
They flew at me with speed
where I stood in Trafalgar Square,
landed on my arms outstretched
and on my head; though they scratched
it was not that very-hard
to entertain visitors, as was I
beneath a grey-blue pigeoned sky,
ending-up, perhaps, a postcard?!

AN-INSIGHTFUL-GYPSY-AND-
POETRY-GEMS-YOU'LL-FIND-RIGHT-HERE?
To my stature when a child
the gypsy-girl had height.
She saw that I was one of
the children of the night.
Wolves might bay, bats might fly,
owls might screech and alight
on creatures smaller than was I
a child of the night.
I looked into the darkness
where moon or stars shine bright
as jewels, as pearls, for my poems.
I sought to capture the light.
What about the light of day?
The fairy-gold glows out of sight
hidden by the sun's very rays,
as hides your own inner-light.

for PATTAYA TRADER 223 (E)

HER-DEAD-END-ROADWAY-AHEAD?
The hawkeyed owl
and the bat that's blind,
she is these two
in a paradoxical bind.

Sharp to grab the goods
and be off on her toes,
but to where? to where?
End up where? Who knows?

for PATTAYA TRADER 223 (D)

A-HORSEY-MADAM-RIDER-IS-HE
The swordsman rides his dam
as if the fellow's in a fairy land.
And his dam, up-filled is she
with a surely comforting expectancy.