CORRECTION:

In GOING FOR GOLD etc, the last line of the poem should end with jaws, as in jaws of death, not the singular jaw but the plural.

for PATTAYA TRADER 266 (D)

A PASSING BEAUTY
Beauty is in the eye
of the beholder,
get it out with Optrex
said the old soldier
and comic Spike.
And she's a beauty
there is no doubt,
a beauty I do not
wish to wash out.
I will view her
while yet I can.
The graveyard called
to old Milligan.

A COLD STATUE OF LIBERTY ?
Concord and Lexington
helped bring about liberty.
The guns of the foresters
helped set America free.
But now warm guns are rife
in the stone cold cities.

THE-ANCHORING-ANIMAL
The white elephant
is but a pale grey,
heavier than an albatross
around your neck all day !

PEACE AND REST
A roof above your head,
a good-meal, a girl, a bed,
is sometimes so much more
than have men torn by war.

THE OLD LOVE SONG
The horse and carriage
once was love and marriage,
or so went the song.
But to many the marriage -
like an old carriage -
is now a drag along !

DUST-TO-DUST
Some believe in ghosts.
Some in fairy folk.
Some in flying saucers.
Some think each a joke.
Some believe in God.
Some in a rebirth.
At the end of life
all come down to earth ?

for PATTAYA TRADER 266 (C)

IT-WAS-A-DREAMY-MISS-MOUNTED-
ON-A-MARE-YES
She'd her hair in a ponytail,
a chestnut mare her mount.
I should have played the fool,
have acted the ass, the mule,
by all my friends' accounts.
I should have horsed-around
so that she would look on down !?

for PATTAYA TRADER 266 (B)

GOING-FOR-THE-GOLD-
AND-ARMAGEDDON-FIND ?
To the madman in a gold-moon
America won the lunar race.
Yes the Americans set foot
upon his cratered face.

When it comes down to lunacy,
like a peanut in a black ape's paw
lies the equally cold cruel Earth
racing to the black ape's jaw ?

LOVE ABOVE
He no more likes his wife
let alone even love her,
and he hates his work.
Oh why did he bother
to rise on a Sunday
to hear some vicar preach
about love love love
when it's beyond his reach !

PLANETARY PLAN
Some are Calvinists
in worldly time.
Are the non-Calvinists
then predestined ?

If there's predestination,
all goes to plan ?
And I predestined
this poem to pen ?