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Being at sea aboard huge luxury vessels is very glamorous. As a skipper-come-captain, it is easy to be wined and dined each evening by billionaires with the finest foods and drinks. The only drawback is that you steadily become an old soak. I worked alongside many captains who became just that. Thinking back to a collision at night with JJ, the skipper, and a refugee boat – he had gotten drunk with a stewardess and gone to bed, leaving the vessel on autopilot. The similarities to the Titanic are on a much smaller scale but just as deadly. Doing double dog watch shifts doesn't help. Instead of 4 hours, you do 8, covering for someone or even the milk shift when you start at midnight and sometimes finish six hours later. Dozing off is so easy if the autopilot's on. Many of our crew used to come on the milk shift smelling of booze – sea watches disorientate you. I've seen quite a few old sailors having a beer for breakfast as they come off the first watch at 4 am.

A living monument of mystery Robin Hoods oak is by far the most famous tree in all of ancient history , a thousand years of silent still sophistry , with all its empty holes and hollow the winter winds howl through her creating a mournful sound of sadness and sorrow.

Is vanity a sin or just the selfish substance we need in order to win ?.

A short poem about how AI artificial intelligence is now learning from other Ai algorithms using the deep learning techniques then competing against each other in the AGi' tournament what with all the different i's ranging from sci-fi ,WiFi ,hi-fi , to the secret service abbreviations of SI FBI CIA MI5 MI6 let's hope the deep learning machines know the difference between so many different i's an don't the biblical vindictive lexicon of taking "An eye for an (i) The poem is written in' haiku 5 7 5 syllable continuous which is probably more to an Ai's algorithmic programmed personality.

A preacher man told me that all of us come pre-packaged with the seven shades of sin, which are basically our primitive seven instincts of survival that we needed while hunter-gathering on the savage African Savannah. Through evolution and ecclesiastical endeavors, we have been trying to adapt our mammalian species to a more sacred, sentient state of being ever since.

A musing for a wonderful women we called Ann Summers due to her working there, she asked for a birthday poem and caused me a writer's block which when I tried to explain she cursed me a look of pure disdain so I wrote it as if she was serving me at the Ann summers shop.

The sloth is portrayed as the epitome of laziness but this little arboreal adaption turns out to be a perfect green dream a hairy little leaf eating machine that has a zero carbon footprint and could save the world all on its own we would do well to put a little of the sinful slow sloth back in our own fast food life styles in order to try and save our poor planet .

The third slave uprising in Rome was brutally crushed; a hundred thousand men lay dead on the battlefield, and another six thousand were crucified along the Appian Way, left to rot as carrion crow fodder, serving as a lesson for anyone else inclined to rebel against the might of Rome.

We lived our lives like nocturnal belfry bats fuelled by drink our cranial crashes and darkness of depression were common place the only way to fight against them was with serotonin smarties and a daily dose of humour .

A short minute musing about infecting your friends computer's with a virus and how they treat it as though you've infected them with a sexually transmitted STD .

A person who is cast in abject austerity remains of the same mind set forever even though they may have risen to a position of privileged prosperity .

A poem I wrote about the sixty three year love affair between a member of the royal family and one her dutiful long standing servants known as G M for short the old Queen mums cool companion.

A short sketch I wrote about a Christmas bash with the Old deaf relatives cooking programmes and war movies on alternative TV stations with their daughter trying to talk a little sense in between both of them .

Hidden in her locked silver box were her secret letters of love from a dead American pilot who in a moment of war when passion was in fashion she fed her heart red and raw to his hungry dog of amour .

The British boarding schools were without doubt what built the British Empire, anyone subjected to this kind of brutal cruelty or treatment could easily subjugate a sufferance over someone else especially another nationality , the British empire managed to achieve for a few hundred years each school had peculiar traits Eton used to be famous for its flage Friday where boys would be placed onto a birching block and thrashed.

The old post office Harrogate is located about a century behind Greenwich mean time, the pensioners there are disciplinarians by design if you slip out of sync or cross the red line then these old soldiers would quickly bark you back into the align.

To own a car in the swinging sixties was extremely rare especially for young people but if it was a jaguar then you were the nouveau rich make believe millionaires the fake faux movie stars . Members of my family and their friends were just this usually their balloons burst into bankruptcy debt and divorce, too much money in young hands its like mixing desire together with hell fire .

A short poem for Todd's forth birthday his name means the fox although the only thing I've seen him foraging for are lollipops from the ice box.

A birthday poem for NENO it's called Black Rod because for the first time in Britain's 1000 year parliament's history the position is now held by a women this spiritual and temporal appointment of power is long overdue for a changing of the guard the willow may look soft and gentle but inside lies her heart of oak .

With courage commitment and candour these extraordinary women did something that had never been done before and that was to bring the age of equality knocking heavily upon the British empire door , legions of suffragettes issued their declaration of war against the centuries of bigotry slaughtering dead the fat old British empires dinosaur .

A poem for big Manchester Pete, the hardest looking man you'd ever meet, a face made for a trick or treat but inside his heart was softer than a boiled swede of sugar beet .

A poem about falling into destitution especially soldiers and sailors who you find in the beggars brigade of most British towns. How easy it be to cast contempt , lest we forget our debt.

Musing about Lord Kitchener, whose saber-rattling speeches turned into sermons that garnered rapturous applause in Whitehall and Westminster. Unfortunately, his young, inexperienced soldiers were dying at a rate of 6,000 a day. He had "avoid wine and women" printed into their guidebooks for war, referring to French prostitutes. With a life expectancy of only 17 hours, contracting a little pox would have been the least of their worries.

The Harrogate Belles Angels were a group of girls who rode motorbikes wore leather , took drugs and slaked drink but most of all they were stunningly beautiful and highly educated God bless them all.

Covid 19 as seen through the eyes of a squirrel watching them  fighting for scraps from the dustbins whilst under lock down they appear so confident and carefree without us I think possibly the only thing they've missed about our absence is the leftover Ben and Jerry's ice cream .

A poem for NENO who used to be a traveller with wings upon her feet up untill Gabriel gifting her a daughter with the same name as his immortal horn the beautiful Lily .

A musing for Lily's tenth birthday with leather jacket to match my own design of cause - mother not too keen I have a sneeking suspicion she'd like one too . By ten years of age kids of today are silicone valley sage a decade old an they're ready to fledge the family fold , far too cool for school they just let TiK ToK Rock and Rule !! .

Mustang men in middle aged look like mirages of their former selves , once they were war-faced warriors now they're warfarin worries , they use to be part of the night fever disco scene today they're scared of cottage pie and cholesterol cream.

A musing about the Boer war ,whilst tens of thousands were dying of disease and starvation because of lord kitchener's scorched earth policy he was heartbroken about losing his pet starling thank heavens he's not here to sort out the coronavirus .

The Westminster war of brexit has split a lot of blood onto the backbenchers but who will win the feudal few or the milky middle class crew .

The loss of a lion's mane is similar to that of a man's hair as it recedes they both become a little timid and tame loosing pride and prowess both these mammals are now out of the mating game .

A poem about an old rag and bone man who started out with just a horse and cart then after a life of skinflinting strife became very rich but even there upon acquiring great weath still retained his beggar man roots and rhetoric.

Twenty years ago it came as quite a shock when someone we knew became bisexual especially after they'd been such a lady killer and then became very much a maneater still what seemed a big squeal back then is now an every day done deal .

A poem about an angry old man who was released from his angst after he being given a course of oestrogen hormone therapy to combat prostate cancer freeing up his feminine side he's a much happier man now that he's let loose his lesbian libido .

A musing about the private member's bills passed with British Parliamentary pomposity it sounds like a serious aural atrocity but it's usually diatribed by someone that's spieling through their own suppository .

A poem about a miserable neighbour called stan who once had everything a palace and a kingdom but then unfortunately he lost everything and was reduced to a normal man alas such a tragedy that he should hav't to fall amonst we the mere mortal clan .

They serve it up for breakfast all red and raw, The news papers land like a fry up of blood and gore , you need the stomach of a matador to swallow down the cover stories carved out by these carnivores.

A short poem written about the money monsters in the city of London thay feed the needy to the greedy down on London's squire mile all the while with their wry smirk and smile hence why this rapacious reptile called Mr mercantile .

A poem I wrote for my father, who was born in 1926 and is now similar to a motor car, needing constant tinkering to keep him up and running. I've done my best to capture his gasping Yorkshire accent. He was born in the days of horse and cart, starting work at the age of twelve in the steel mills on the east side of the iron river. He mentioned that not only were the steel drays pulled by the huge shire horses, but during the Second World War, they also used elephants from the zoo due to the lack of trucks and fuel. For a boy of twelve, it was a terrifying experience walking past these huge rumbling beasts that were stabled under the railway arches. Each time a train rumbled over the viaduct, these massive mammals would bellow out their deafening roars.

A poem written about my rolly Polly fat flat mate who lost a massive amount of weight slimming down from 21 stones to 12 becoming ever so serious and slim I've taken his place by becoming fat and happy obviously you do become the company you keep .

It's about time the human realised that a tree is flesh and blood not just timber or a price of wood , these beautiful living entities give us shelter shade and our lifesaving breath ,without them we are condemning our selves to a curtain death

A poem about a very beautiful woman called Claudia who's powerful persona ricochete around us like a midnight thunder , on first meeting she would still and seduce ya with her silent stare of medusa .

A deadly sin this jade eyed Jekyll our secret  schadenfreude that hides within waiting to hatch out into its true reptilian skin .

The building blocks of life are made from nucleic acids , Lysergic acid has also been around since the dawn of time doubtless it would have been eaten by our early primate mammalian species in the form of magic mushrooms so increasing hallucinogenic and conscious brain capability hence where the homo sapiens may have got their synaptic kick start from.

A poem I wrote to commemorate the courage of Christine the first transexual beauty queen who back in 1953 decided bravely to have her gender reassigned to its rightful sexuallity in order that she may be set free from the burden of having to live with her very unwanted masculinity, but it would be a long haul from the first roll of that snowball before the gay community finally made they're stand for equality at the Inn we now know as stonewall.

A poem written for a crazy young woman who I fell hopelessly in love with during the summer of 1992 whilst working in the South of France aboard yachts in the port of Antibes . Together we stayed in a huge stone pile called the chateau Laval courtesy of Jack et Michelle Olga was a green-eyed goddess with olive skin and a temper that she'd borrowed from the dog cerberus , I was a dotting fool but hay to everyone who's ever suffered from the lightning strike of love at first sight or as the Italians call it "amoure a prima vista" or in the French" le coupé de foudre", all I can say is that like myself i hope that you've never recovered and never do because it's a beautiful feeling of being processed by the madness of passion.

Another eccentric sketch delving into the life of Thornton Harding Jr., an aristocrat with an intense passion for his pets. He bestows upon them the most peculiar names, like his dog, Greyfriars Warton Benson. It's worth noting that this canine companion is permitted to engage in all manner of activities, including lounging on his master's lap and taking the wheel of his car.

A prick of our precious pride is all that's needed to derail and deride our sensibility into taking a walk back onto its wild side .

The birds and bees are leaving the flowers and trees to join us for the fast food tease lapping up our left overs they'll hardly be floaty lite on the breeze after eating our fast food sleaze.

A poem about the rain cycle's continual celestial cleansing this perpetual purification of precipitation shows no discrimination of skin treating us all to the same asperging sanctification from sin .