for MIDDLESBROUGH MAGIC SHIP 291 (A)

A BANK BANDIT MASK
The bus starts with a jerk
and makes Julie spin.
Might she be in time for work ?
Her chances look slim.
"Late again," her boss will say,
"the bank shall have to dock your pay."
Not even time to put on the face-paint
that his girls are told to wear,
like the smile free of restraint
for the customer who stands there.
"Julie you are a disgrace,
do go to the bathroom and fix your face."
Fix her face, fix her face ?
As if it were broken ?
And her hair out of place ?
No truer words are spoken.
Reflected in the bus window see,
"Julie you are a misery."
But it takes such a push
to get up and out of bed,
join the early morning rush
to earn a mere crust of bread.
Julie, Julie, half-asleep.
Julie, Julie, too tired to weep.
Julie, Julie, too late to spy
the masked bandit with his gun.
Julie, Julie, too late to lie
with the frowning face on everyone.
"Julie," a ghost is heard to ask,
"Julie, where have you hidden your mask ?"

THE BARE CUPID CLOUD OVER HUNTCLIFF
A red sun sets on the brown cliff,
tints too the cliff's green hair.
Wide and glazed is the blue-eye sea,
a white cloud turns pink like Cupid bare.

But love's only arrows are the rays
of the crimson sun in its descent.
A red pupil for the glazed blue eye
that is soon to view the starry firmament.

BE NOT
No, my dear,
I am not Shakespeare,
to this I most surely agree.
He has served his time,
done with verse and rhyme,
and now for ever gone has he.
He's served his time,
these poems are mine,
yes truly mine as you can see.
So have no fear,
I'm not Shakespeare,
why should I wish to be ?

MOUTH WATERING
A 'Tequila Sunrise'
with a girl at sunset ?
Yes, my appetite
is greatly whet !

REMEMBRANCE
I pop pennies
inside a tin
carefully designed
to pop pennies in,

buy a poppy
which I then pin
to the front of the coat
that I'm shopping in.

The pin pricks,
breaks my skin,
too shallow is the wound
for remembering.

A CHILD'S PLAY GARDEN
There in the garden were small children
who played with a cork-and-feather shuttlecock.
"So sorry to interrupt your happy game,"
said a strange creature from behind a rock,
"but my friends and I are from a distant land
that your own has surely very much forgot.
Such creatures as we know no tick of time,
in the world of fairy old age exists not.
The hobgoblin, the pixie, the dwarf, the elf,
are but a few of our many various names.
Why don't you both come and join us
in our land's magical fairy games ?
You shall be given no cause to worry
and can bring your cork-and-feather shuttlecock,
while your mother and father are too busy
working like slaves around your country's clock."

CROSS SWEAR WORDS
Seven years the young pair lived together,
four across the street and three down.
Their seventh was a cryptic clue
of what was to call around.

The eighth sees the pair now wed
and both completely square.
Before the two had got married
cross words were very rare.

CHEEKY
My tongue in your cheek,
that would be bliss.
Humour me, lady,
with a French-kiss !