for PATTAYA TRADER 263 (B)

THE-HEAD-AND-THE-TAIL
At the Mermaid Tavern,
there in Cheapside,
the Poets' Drinking Club
would meet and imbibe.
Serving wenches would serve
with a so saucy-nerve.
Big-thoughts-and-bawdy were the given.

AS-HIGH-AS-THE-KITES
The flying of a kite
or of a kid's balloon
while running, then resting
on a sunny Sunday afternoon.
The sharing of a bath
or of a shower too,
when home from the park,
or home from the zoo.
The lying in your bed
or the lying in mine
after another kind
of kite flying time !

ROB-ON-ROB
Robin was a poacher
pardoned by the King
to join his army
and pull the bow-string.

To pull the bow-string
and to shoot teach.
So said Robert Graves
with his historic-reach.

A NEW DAWN'S LATEST
Not far from Newgate
a Moll, a Fanny, met her fate.
A Tom, a Dick, swung free
from a world of misery.
For Tyburn Tree, no-one late ?

THE HOMELAND BRITAIN
I was not one
for building walls,
but we need safety, girl,
sometimes, after all.
Would you want, girl,
a burglar to call ?
Better the guy would be
behind prison walls ?
There are many homeless
who'd welcome four walls.
Britain too is a home
to all these poor souls.

A BOW BELLE ?
With his Cockney rhyming slang
up the 'apples-and-pears'
he invited the lovely lady,
to have her French foul his ears !

for PATTAYA TRADER 263 (A)

DRY HUMOUR DUO
We two were like
'Withnail and I'
who weren't Lake Poets
(too young and dry ?).
You no aristocrat,
more the footpad,
me a so-fed-up
back-to-London lad.

MENTALIST-OR-MATRERIALIST ?
Mind over matter
or matter over mind?
Would seem the many
are in the latter's bind !

INDIVIDUALITY VERSE
Highly individual ?
Feeling on your own ?
What of the very people
who act like clones ?
The same-as folk
can also feel alone.

CAN-CAN
In Paris, in Pigalle,
you said can't, I said can.
You went Parisienne
and I went Parisian.
The rude-as-roses dancers
danced for the man,
and for the ladies present
did not give a damn !

BEARERS-AS-TO-BEAUTY
She walked regally 'long Regent Street
but it was not until King's Road
a little girl called her "Princess"
though she carried her own load.

Yes she carried her own bags
and carried her own weight
though men have made the offer
due to her beauty and her gait.

CHAIN-GANG GIRLS ?
She liberated her leg
from its ball and chain
and slept with young men
again and yet again,
but she'd many friends
gave the lady a bad name.
Her leg, with shapely twin,
won't walk that way again.

DUALITIES ?
Man and woman,
night and day,
good and bad,
swear or pray,
love and hate
or middle way,
black and white
but also grey.

POETS, PROPHETS, PUZZLERS ?
Not so much a messenger,
perhaps more a challenger ?
Maybe a mystic warrior ?
A questing questioner ?

BRIAN A BELLOWING MINOTAUR ?
A postcard from Patten
had come my way.
He was over the sea
on a very hot holiday.
He liked Greek-girls
and I've got to say:
'The performance poet
was performing away' !?

for PATTAYA TRADER 262 (H)

CHINA TEA
So like china dolls
you are fragile,
and it is rarely
I see you smile.

But chin up, China,
just drink your tea,
crack a quick smile do
for your own beauty.

for PATTAYA TRADER 262 (G)

A GRANDMA WOLF
I hear that Little Red Riding-Hood
went at a gallop through the wood
on her pony, as if giving chase
to a chicken-thief fox, her heart a-race.
But with her was not one bloodhound,
for to her granny's cottage she was bound,
though the creature on her granny's bed
turned out to be a hairy wolf instead.
Her heart had raced because the moon
would be fully round so very soon,
and now it was racing far much more
finding a wolf-woman behind the door.
Granny was a werewolf as she was told.
The teeth were sharp, the eyes were bold,
the wolf-woman leapt at the child
who swung her axe, swung it wild,
and cut the beast with its silver blade.
Into a grave the granny-wolf was laid.

for PATTAYA TRADER 262 (F)

RAVEN
Either up or let down
her raven hair
crowns a creature
so fine, yes so fair,
has the boys raving
and flying to her.

THE BAD APPLE MADE FOR THE HANGING TREE
Cross the Thames to Whitechapel.
Jack the Ripper, a black-rotten apple,
crossed over into infamy.
An apple to merit old Tyburn Tree
if ever caught, damn fiendish he.

for PATTAYA TRADER 262 (E)

OUT OUR RIGGING !
Sail me do, my sailor girl,
as I sail you, around the world !
Be so naughty, Nautical.
Wheel my mind like a wheeling gull.
I'm the top and you bottom bunk,
I must be like a junkie on junk.
Yes sail me do, sailor girl,
as I sail you, around the world !

TWISTED TYRANT ?
Mussolini was an anarchist,
a communist, later a fascist.
We all change our minds.
Find Benito's seemed to twist !

BEFORE A DOWNHILL AGE
Call him spring-heeled Jack,
yes spring-heeled Jack,
he's up at dawn's crack,
over the wall, down the track.

Call her spring-heeled Jill,
yes spring-heeled Jill,
she shall meet fine Jack
behind the spring day's hill.

Behind the hill, behind the hill,
meet her Jack will fair Jill.
Young love shall have its fill
before the two are over the hill !

FLOATING THE IDEAS
At least when Big Bombs drop
we're all in the same boat.
Dying with each other.
There's an idea to float !
At least when overpopulation
weighs heavily down the boat
we'll sink with each other.
There's an idea to float !
No soldier will die alone,
no nurse will miss the boat.
I myself will not survive
with more ideas to float.

SMELLING PISTAKES
Typing errors I make
most of the time,
but not a mistake
is my near-rhyme.
Vernacular nor archaic
will you find a mistake.

THE COLOURFUL CLOTHES COCK-UP ?
Women like to shop,
women like to buy,
women like the clothes
that catch a man's eye.

Women are like birds,
like males of the nest.
Look at the peacock
and the robin redbreast !

ART SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES
OF HIGHER EDUCATION
The paint-sprayed pictures
and writings on the wall,
colourful graffiti get to be seen
by one of us and all.
If only some could spell ?
If only some had art ?
But education and talent do
find often walls apart !

for PATTAYA TRADER 262 (D)

TOO HIGH AND TOO LOW
The law of opposites
is rich and poor.
The law of opposites
wind-sweeps the floor.
The law of opposites
scrapes, with clouds, the sky.
But fairer weather says
'less wet, more dry'.

for PATTAYA TRADER 262 (C)

RICH DEVIL AND POOR SAINT
He was born into high society
and led a life of luxury.
Why did he let crime taint ?
She was born into lowly circumstance
by divine design or by chance ?
But she turned out to be a saint.
The outcome of their lives predestined
or was it to do with choice of mind ?

for PATTAYA TRADER 262 (B)

A BLACK PEARL
All the words rhymed,
the girl sang in tune.
A pearl before swine,
reason left the barroom.

The white-folk jeered
in the cowboy saloon.
"No blacks, no red men,"
spat into the spittoon

the wild west males.
Outside a white-moon -
supported by black-space -
spotlighted the saloon.

for PATTAYA TRADER 262 (A)

AWESOME WELLES
The man Orson Welles,
awesome once stood he.
As huge as Citizen Kane
his film. A big news story.
Yes awesome he once stood,
idea-pricked by the Rosebud ?

for PATTAYA TRADER 261 (H)

CONSPIRACY CLUB
There are conspiracies,
be they high or low.
Whether it's big business
or petty hoods on Ratarse Row.
Whether it is government
(government of all kinds).
I'm no Conspiracy Theorist,
to the reality I'm not blind !

A SANDY-SKINNED GIRL
Her body was a map
I loved to explore.
A voyage-of-discovery
was the girl next-door
to the room I lived
in a tropical land
where I - a sure hot sun -
shone on her skin of sand.

STARRY EYES
You might well be from Venus,
I might be from the planet Mars,
but what we have between us...
we both arrived from the stars !

for PATTAYA TRADER 261 (G)

ENEMY LOVER ?
The absence of love
doesn't always mean hate,
and to be loved
isn't always to reciprocate.
You call every man your brother.
Do you think your enemy YOUR lover ?

MASKING DIFFERENCES ?
Some are beautiful,
some ugly find, or plain.
When it comes to looks
we are not all the same.

No, when it comes to looks
not all the same are we.
Which mask as to the three
aught we wear to get equality !?

MADE-FOR-MARYLEBONE
Yes from rags to riches,
from a duck to a swan,
the girl now resides
in posh Marylebone.
Boys pulled her pigtails
when she was at school.
They called her "ugly",
but now the guys drool.
She skips down the catwalk
like a lithe leopard.
She's come a long way
since the old-schoolyard.

for PATTAYA TRADER 261 (F)

FROM-SEA-LEGS-TO-SEA-WINGS ?
Yes my uncle was a sailor
who anchored down in Hull
where he spent his final-days
before his soul became a gull ?

THE UP-AND-COMING CROW
Find green with envy
was Sir Robert Greene,
referred to Shakespeare
as a damn Shake-scene
and an upstart crow.
How the higher disliked
the ever-rising low !

A QUICKENING

for PATTAYA TRADER 261 (E)

THE QUICKENING
Upon Pegasus rides the Muse
downwards to this earth.
Rides with speed on her steed
who speeds for all his worth.
And this is the quick-fire epigram
for the too-damn-fast unthinking man ?

LAUGH OUT LOUD
A laugh crept in
from under the door
and just left us both
roaring on the floor.

The laugh spread
and then crept out.
It left a full bar
rolling about.

A contagious laugh
that was to part
and leave merrier
the drunken heart.