for MIDDLESBROUGH MAGIC SHIP 268 (H)

TIME-IS-A-TRICKSTER-TOO !
I grew a long moustache
but now it has gone.
It turned into a butterfly
like the ugly duckling a swan.

It left me looking younger,
or so folk would say.
I'd grown it to look older
years before this day.
(Time, too, my friend,
goes fly away.)

PEACE-IS-PIECEMEAL
The lion and the lamb.
The hawk and the dove.
This is our circling-world;
on earth, in sky above.

ON-A-HOARY-HIGH-NOW
who are the hoary hosts
who welcome your sleep,
who feed you magic-dreams
and further fabulous treats ?

Your man is your medicine,
your life sure has changed.
Yet you're also a tonic
for your Doctor Strange.

HELL AND THE HERMIT
Great love for humanity
had the monk in his cell,
secluded from the world
that some call hell.

It is easy to love
a so grand idea
you have of mankind
when not too near !

A-TOWER-OF-POWER-VERSE
Yes there are so many
who are born to compete,
trying to climb the tower
way above the street.

Be it for the riches,
be it for the fame,
competition's in sports too,
and big-money games.

What happens to merit
when those above the street
seek to keep down the rest,
become a small elite ?

for MIDDLESBROUGH MAGIC SHIP 268 (G)

BLOODHOUNDS WERE THICKER
THAN A SEA'S WATER ?
Yes the fox-hunter's horn
was heard, by all, to sound.
went after their sly prey
both the horsemen and hounds.

The sly fox ran off a cliff,
landed on a rocky ledge.
Hounds were to follow and fall
into the sea from the cliff-edge !

for MIDDLESBROUGH MAGIC SHIP 268 (F)

THE UNDEAD
Face a new day
can't the deathly guy,
from the dawning
he wishes to shy.

His girl has gone.
They'd cruelly to part.
Very-much it felt
a stake through his heart.

Find he's not living
nor is he dead.
So like a vampire's
his evening tread.

for MIDDLESBROUGH MAGIC SHIP 268 (E)

YES-A-TROUBADOUR'S-TRYING-TRAIL
I saw him play live
way back when
the music-press
called him Laughing Len.

The solemn-singer
with his irony
trying in his way
to be free.

Yes I saw him play live
way back; the man
who hit the road
with his song 'Suzanne',

and 'Bird On A Wire',
a freedom song.
He's getting there.
The road's been long.

for MIDDLESBROUGH MAGIC SHIP 268 (D)

VAIN GLORIA
She found her friend less pretty,
and that was sure to her liking
when trying to attract the boys,
didn't it make her the more striking ?
But beauty's in the beholder's eye.
Her friend got off first with a guy !

THE  -ESS  HATER ?
A 'poetess' nor an 'authoress'
dare to name her.
Yet if you said 'goddess'
she'd be so-much-tamer !

VIRGIN SOLDIERS' VENUE
At the Windmill Theatre
it was pretty girls turned,
posing like nude-statues
while London with bombs burned.
Young men got to see naked-flesh,
and elsewhere the bared-bones of death.

A TOWERING FLOWER
Were the Post Office Tower
seen just a giant flower,
the Dome a stone to a rockery,
we could go London see
now a Rock Garden City ?

for MIDDLESBROUGH MAGIC SHIP 268 (C)

WORLD-LOST-ITS-SPIN
I recall the girl -
very-long dark hair -
whom I would spy
down at Vernon's Fair.

Sat in a waltzer
she would spin,
and her fine looks
were dizzying.

Oh tide coming in,
out this life went she,
fine girl at the fair
by Saltburn's cold sea.

A GRAND OLD GIRL
she found 'girl' offensive
until she began to age.
Now takes it a compliment
from the old boys who rage
over her shapely figure,
over her looks still fine.
She'll even call them 'pet'
without dog or rabbit in mind !

LAZY LIFE-STYLE
The wife, she comes in from work.
The husband, jobs will just shirk
even outside of their house.
Leaves the children to his spouse.
Has her serve him cups of tea
with his feet up front of the tv.
Jobs are hard to find it is true,
but bone-idle folk are more than few.

PORK-PIE-PARTIES
The political-party pooper I
cannot subscribe to pie-in-the-sky.

STATESMANSHIP
Democracy, not dictatorship.
Freedom, not the slaver's whip.

CAPTAIN HOOK-LINES
There was a further Captain Cook,
and Peter was his name.
A captain of comedy
find truly was he
who rose on the wave of fame.

AN ASS MAGNET
Some girls are magnets
for all the wrong men.
The horse-shoe magnet,
that sure fits them !

THE-MASKED-BANK-ROBBER
Not only the gunman
wears a mask,
the bank girls smiles
are too, don't ask
why it is today
they wear real frowns
for I have heard
a robber's in town.

A STALLION IN AN UNSTABLE WORLD ?
Her lover was very-much like a centaur.
Offered, was her body, on a bed of straw.
"Make love," had said the hippies, "not war."
But after, he bolted out the stable door !

for MIDDLESBROUGH MAGIC SHIP 268 (B)

THE-BARE-BACK-BLACK-NIGHT'S-'LADY' ?
She was the kiss on my lips,
the skin beneath my fingertips,
the girl with the curvy hips
who'd her hair up in a stack
which now hung down her back
there in the candle-lit black,
in a black and backless dress.
She was the very soft caress...
and to more I don't confess !

AN EXTRA-LARGE LONDON
She was a squatter
in Notting Hill Gate,
then got herself a room
in Wood Green.
In the queue for a home
folk still sure wait,
though the fat cities
leave the forests lean.

CLAWS
She has long nails,
mousey-men to catch ?
Yes she's long nails,
scratch, scratch, scratch !
Scratch my back, pussy ?
I'd scratch hers.
I'm no poor mouse,
I'd love her purrs.

CHANGING TIDES
I was your Captain Mark
but also Doctor Strange.
Deeper than a sea for you,
loftier than a mountain range.
Predicted to be unpredictable
in a wheeling world of change.

Yes I was your Captain Mark
but also Doctor Strange.
Wider than the sky my view
you'd oft' think me deranged !
But even you see what I saw
in a wheeling world that's changed.

for MIDDLESBROUGH MAGIC SHIP 268 (A)

BEHIND-THIS-STREET-THEATRE'S-SCENES
Your beauty does not bind me,
girl I am good to go.
I'm not jailed by jealousy,
would be bad were it so.

No your beauty does not bind me,
find no rattling of a cage.
You are courting another man ?
Time for me to desert this stage.

CANDLEWICK
Find Edie Sedgwick's beauty
(she was one of Warhol's film-dates)
just melted like candle-wax
with her doses of barbiturates.

AN ADULT ADVENTURE
I left behind the garden.
There's just much more to know.
Some boys-and-girls don't wish to,
but I was glad to grow.
To join the adult world
where I could be free
from the confines of the garden
and fulfill my destiny.

IT'S-THE-EVES-ARE-AWARE-
OF-THE-FRUIT-FIRST ?
Beneath the sensual zones
of the flesh on her bones
rage the girl's hormones.
But same age as the guy
whom she finds too shy
the older boy is shown
to be the apple of her eye !

MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE
Beyond the basics, girl,
there's so much more
which makes us different
that is for sure.

Religion, politics,
loves and hates.
Work and wishes,
fancies and fates.

for PATTAYA TRADER 267 (H)

TRICK AND TREAT
He was her trick.
She was his treat.
She'd wait for him
head of the street.

He'd pick her up
in his flash-car.
He made her feel
like a film-star.

He had the money,
yes he'd the cash.
But then one night
his car would crash.

Out of the wreck
only one would climb.
Foot of the street
she works this time.

for PATTAYA TRADER 267 (G)

ROMANCE CANDLE
Share a meal,
share some wine,
share a laugh
and a bed of mine.
Share a bath
in the dawning,
or a shower
early morning.
Yes share a meal,
share some wine,
share a laugh
while there's time.

for PATTAYA TRADER 267 (F)

THE MUSE IN MORTAL FORM
And who am I to refuse
such a beauty as this muse
entry into heart-and-mind ?
Is it really for me to choose
the visions for verse I find ?

ONE PENNY BLACK
Like a bad penny
turns up the scamp
to darken the door
and leave her stamp.

AN EMPTY AIR ?
There's an invisible
power at hand.
It's in the air
throughout the land.

This invisible
power is breath
which without
there's visible death.

THE KINGLY MISSION-MAN KARMA
As a king-maker
his mission lay
in making himself
a king one day.

Making himself a lion,
a wild bush-lord.
A king in the jungle
we call the world.

FINAL-FAREWELL-TO-THIS-
LIFE'S-FINITE
Is death black
or is it white ?
Many will turn grey
before they go lay
and to us all say
their last "Good day",
or final "Good night".

WINDSOR PARK'S HORNY HERNE
Herne the Hunter
rides through Windsor.
When I say Windsor
I don't mean Barbara !

SILLY BILLY SHEATHE YOUR WILLY !
Yes he has offspring all around.
Half-man half-mountain-goat he bounds.
Someone place on him a strong-tether.
At the end of theirs find the mothers !

FROM CRACK TO CRACKLE
There on Parliament Hill
did they gang together to view
discovered fireworks that weren't to fulfill
the Gunpowder Plot of this crew ?
Only Guy Fawkes bones on the rack
would later go 'Crack ! Crack ! Crack !'

CAME TO LEAVE ?
Kick over those old Autumn leaves,
their other sides look that much newer.
Put on your face a well-pleased smile
though your years ahead are coming fewer,
for you have travelled thus far through
on the trail of trials that was paved for you.