I bought a pack of 2 cheesecakes yesterday.  When I got them home I realised just what a triumph of marketing over product they were.

Each of the tubs sat on a transparent plinth inside the cardboard packaging giving the impression they were 50% bigger than they really were.

Rather than feel aggrieved though, I started to give some thought as to how I might adapt the idea, making my gaz...

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Wirral Ode Show - Poet of the Year

More details can be found below

http://www.writeoutloud.net/public/blogentry.php?blogentryid=38886

@ Gallaghers Pub and Barbers

20 Chester Street

Birkenhead

Wirral

CH41 5DQ

4 minutes to read/perform your poetry

Independent judges - All Poets Welcome

One of the longest running poetry competit...

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I live in the desert on my own little farm near the damn secret airbase where they do their testing.                                                                                                      

My grandpa saw your nuclear tests in the 50s shook our walls and gave him cancer.                                                                                         ...

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My old soul has sung before.
It has lain many hands in mine;
I reach for yours, and link it to he
who needs. He stands in Bergen-
Belsen in the rain, waiting his turn
to expire. He takes hands he cannot
save and sighs and breathes
the gas. He is a petal;
I see inside his heart. I love you as
he and they who follow down
the stairs. My hand takes yours and hers
and his. Be c...

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(Somewhat tongue in cheek but here we go . . .)

You’re not expecting the thunderbolt to hit

Then when it does it hits you like a brick

One minute innocent and unmoved

The next incensed with passion and feeling bemused

Lovely face and beautiful eyes

The curve of your body is no surprise

Your smile affects me so, I’m feeling weak

And like a fool I can h...

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slowly decaying from the inside out..
sleep shall come to me that I have no doubt about, the ticking of the clock as it drowns out the noise of my slowing beating heart. It entwines it's self to a memory of what was my life a distant spell upon the horizon where the shallow graves of misspent souls linger in the shadows of the moon light sky, where the magpie birds captures it's prize, where ...

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Damsons at Bilberry Hall  SE 077 219

Blue velvet drupes with a white dusty bloom hang from scrubby hedge shrub

Germinating from a discarded stone years ago finding a favourable niche

Growing in the Quickthorn marking the edge of cleared moorland along the stony track

Some early ripened have become windfalls eaten by birds and insects on the dusty ground

Dry crazed stones add...

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On a hot night when sleep is full of sluts and the train is heading towards Paris I sit in a bathtub and bathe my hands so I can write heavy words with soft palms. Standing and yielding with my head high I was gentle in my strength listening to blues guitar. One more time in the bathtub with a beautiful lady who tells me sweet words that mean nothing so don't ask. She's bad for you my mother sa...

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When it’s going wrong

It’s him against ten

A boy can have the boots

Of a twenty year old

Can have the same boots

Since he was twelve

A young boy can only reach so far

Can only be seen to be trying

When it’s going good

He has nothing to do

Swinging from the bar

Excited and animated

Trumpeting breath

A young man

Awaiting a whistle of r...

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Unsure, Unopposed

lying in my arms

fleeting captivity

of bittersweet blossom

transient beauty as it falls

melting into the ground

and you’re gone

© Katypoetess 2013

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The Makings of Kings and Pawns

     Would you like to play a game?

The computer asked through sterile blips

In the soft tones of a lure,

     I thought of tic tac toe

And Wargames but then,

I figured,

Do I really want to be

Placed belligerently without

Care or warning

Within the new Bauhaus,

     ‘Games’ are not what I’m about’

I repli...

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On Sandal’s Field Of Ghosts.

Mist hangs over fields -

ahead, the castle looms where

died the Duke Of York.

At the willows three

a chill permeates the air

and touches nerve ends.

Here fell the Yorkist

hope – body mutilated

and dragged through the mud.

Decapitated.

His head sent on to York to

top a traitors spike.

I...

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Rain, beautiful, cooling
so  pacifying,  relentless.
Crowded  green trees dripping
tears  and  dew-drops,
spattering  in  shiny  puddles
around  bricks,  sticks  and
bits  of  floating  paper.
Amphibians  blink.
The  gnome  carelessly  throws  a  cast
hoping  a  tadpole - for - tea   passes  by.
Red  hat  in  the  downpour  shining.
Bending,  sharp  leaves, dripping,
...

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Warm memories of a long time ago

The street scene resembling a tableau

Whiter than white silent night glow

Temperature must be 10 below

Sloshing through the Arctic floe

The road salt is running low

Sliding down the street like it's Skid Row

As I walk in dog shit

Past the bloodstains in the snow

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 (From the ninety thousand member

(year of 2012) Celestial Abortees

Feminist  Society)

Dear Anne,

So, certain girlie-sprigs were sorted,

Selected, gendered and aborted

Sorted from mothers and next of kin

On the ground of being feminine?

Bravo! we here are all supporting

Selecting females for aborting.

You ...

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My cupped hands warm

and still the shake

of heavy breasts

that bear the weight

of all the sex

that we’ve performed.

I make a guess,

that with encores,

the tally breaks

three thousand -  four!

We’ll overtake

The Mousetrap yet

you darken red

and say there’s more.

I understate

your current score.

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Why does my hurt come of late
from others who never stop
to think that their acts come from their own self-hate.

Cover-ups and broken promises,
continue to make my life a living hell.

The heat so hot,
with no shade in sight.

Worse off is the mirage
I see the in the distance
of people posing to care.
Saying words that only desperate fools
like me want to hear.

...

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ImproviXation #107 

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A lone tree survives

In Man's greed to make money

Is our own downfall

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From Plush Green Fields and abundant forests

To sleepy hamlets and hazy meadows

Sprouted monsters in the sky to smoke and choke

Factories of the Industrial age to dictate and invoke

Soon villages became towns, and towns became cities

Communities swallowed up, the ruling classes showing no pity

Slumlords charged extortionate rent

Working class relied on charity ...

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Unfamiliar livery

Adorns familiar trains

Myriad trees, multi-shaped

Silent window frames

Station signs unreadable

A metal phonetic blur

Speeding on through Somewhereshire

On a train to who knows where

TK Maxx and Staples

Retail worship shrines

Ears burst in tunnels

As beneath the soil we dive

Conservatories and patios

Buzzing power lines

Tearing on th...

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The following story was related to me by a poet, in the autumn of the year 2013.  The poet had retired to bed after partaking of herbal tea and cigarettes, from the effects of which she fell asleep, just as she was contemplating the opening lines from Kubla Khan.

The poet remained in a deep sleep until awoken by the radio alarm clock, at which point she began to experience the most vi...

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"Lances, shields and armour plate?

They're long since out of stock.

The ancient art of jousting, mate -

It's taken a bit of a knock."

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David Farrow is looking for Writers, Poets, Illustrators and artists (especially those who work with children but not exclusively) who would like to participate in some voluntary work.  This starts with going along to a brainstorming session to try and come up with a creative, alternative and enagaging theme to help with David's writing project.

The project is being set up based on this:
...

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Godfrey Bloom

Too quick to quip

To a waiting room

Upset UKIP

But much worse -

And infinitely seedier,

Is the "outraged" curse

Of a modern media.

Manipulating words like 'sluts'

Removing proper context,

Minus any 'ifs' and 'buts'...

Who knows whatever's on next? 

You cannot hope

To bribe or twist - (they say!)

The British ...

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#greenpeace

#Arctic #fleeced

#School #Dinners

#LibDem #sinners

#UKIP #whips

#Bloom #quips

#ships

#arising

#Brown #descending

#weektrending

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It's Thursday morning in Asylum Link.

The English class has a visitor,

Community policeman Phil.

Kindly, friendly Phil.

His honest face has our attention.

He smiles, they smile, we all smile.

Roads – safety – cars – safety -

licences and rules – safety – bikes – safety.

How to be safe, in a nice warm voice

in a nice, warm country.

Good old Phil.

Ra...

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''This machine kills fascists'' ...

''this is not a pipe'' ...

''Policeman accused of 'inappropriate' treatment of Whitney Houston's corpse''...

which, if any, are considered Art? 

A repost:

The gallery

Someone left luggage
in a pile on the floor,

I lifted it up
to a hook by the door.
 

A crowd had then gathered,
and to my lasting surprise
t...

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I am performing the BIRMINGHAM TOWN HALL on Saturday 21st September 2013 at the following times:

1pm

2pm

3pm

At the POETS CORNER- Come and find what I am about

check out:http://blackexposurelive.co.uk/marcia-calame/

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No need to give away the loved ones,
Those who are near you or far away,
And those who are almost invisible,
But very often so dear and desirable,
They come into your life as the sun ray.

When all is good and in the brightness,
Your life is burning like a fire.
Why do you worry about happiness?!
If all comes true and do not tire!

But when the evil of caustic words,
The...

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Tunnelling in the dirt below my feet
I've been digging here all week
carving this hollow so deep
today, I hit bone

This is heavier work than I imagined
surveyed the ground from beyond the fence
And we both agreed that this was right
but now the toil is breaking me apart

As a new day rises
I'm bawling in the shower
never knew I could feel this pain
with the taps turned up to ten
nev...

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Stay with me boy we gonna

run tonight

like flies do run

burning after touching the light bulb

stay with me, 'cause  it's an empty and sad little century

i might have tears in my eyes

but i don't wanna see

just don't want to see

Right on time

pain arrived

why would we

stroll apart?

Walk with me now we never

had any time

it...

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Here we go -

Dredging her room and netting the hairdryer, straightners, bulging cases of clothes and IT, dismantling the computer desk, loading buckets and bleach

To squeeze the car skyscraper high

And driving through screwdriver rain

The length of England.

Scrubbed and kitted

The past, present and future  knitted with cuddly toy and pillowed dreams,

The bed now empt...

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(Poem dedicated to the Liverpool Tate art gallery which has chosen to buy and display this piece of abusive exploitative art)

Sometimes I wonder if I'm wearing the right glasses

wrong glasses

wrong lens

or  wrong vision?

All around me

people see things

differently -

depersonalise

rationalise

intellectualise

forgive

the unfo...

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No longer do we slice, strangle

bludgeon or burn victims

upon our godly altars

live offerings for appeasement or power.

Death for personal gain.

Yet behind intimate walls

with calculated cruelty

daily

we sacrifice child, partner, parent

upon slabs of self-interest.

Not much different -

‘Death for personal gain.’

                           ……...

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Shattered Saturday.

I was shattered before I had started,

With yesterday bearing me down,

Just living my life in a circus,

And cast as the unhappy clown.

Of course we have days to remember,

And days that are better forgot,

There are days that are studies of rapture,

And days that are certainly not.

Yesterday started with promise,

A shini...

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“The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars.” 

Jack Kerouac, On the Road

“The only people f...

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As a was goin tut traycle shop I met mi awld swaytart Mickey Finn

An wot dust think e sed tu mi ?

Wilt cumpt funrel if a dee ?

An a thowt a bit an a thowt a bit

an a sed Aye a might us well

Eeee an he did dee  

Thi all cried but a laughed 

Thi all wore black but a wore red

Thi all brought flowers but a spit on is grave

An that was the end of ma awld swa...

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Years

Stacked up

Sentinel like

A wall of defeat

On every side

Watching

Me

Microscopic me

Dictated to by giants

Running

The mouse on the wheel

No destination

A thirty year chasm is inside me

Ever famished

Its mouth is wide open

Wanting my surrender

Waiting for dominance

But......

A tiny crack has shown up

In the dam that...

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Weekend Wanderer

A buffeting breeze smashes the cobwebs from befuddled braincells

As the sun glints off gleaming chrome, many a mile away from home

As the flies embed in grins miles wide, over hill and tor, past idling tide

The sights, the sounds the scenery abounds

The sensations the feeling the tyres a squealing

My company on this voyage of spee...

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Thinking the unthinkable is easy;

Just ask any politician – in fact, don’t even bother –

I can think the unthinkable, right here, right now:

I can imagine, for instance, an elephant

In pink polka-dot boxer shorts,

Its vast, grey, crinkly arse, looming and ridiculous.

It’s unthinking the unthinkable that’s the problem;

Once you’ve thought it, it’s like shedding ...

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Whilst basking in the sun last week

I gazed up to the sky

Before I had a chance to blink

A bird crapped in my eye

From the shudd’ring hammock I duly fell

And rolled along the grass

Two snails, a slug were landed on

I squished them with my ass

On rising to beflip-flopped feet

A toe, it got a mangling

A hasty glance confirmed the new...

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If the world was black and white ... YACK !!! It just wouldn't be right ..... Would it? .....

A TINT.
When I paint.
Do I taint
The words I use?
When I write.
Do I abuse
The paint I choose
To colour my world?
Its beauty unfurled.
With each brushstroke
With each word that’s spoken
A moment broken 
By the sound
That’s bound
To echo into nothing
But paint sticks
...

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Cormorant

dedicated to the memory of Seamus Heaney

So often I have seen the S of the neck

 the black majesty of its poise

steady on a post or other construct

the glossy outline affirming estuary’s flow

its inky darkness almost two dimensional,

rock-still, so that even though I stand and wait,

willing the cormorant to move,

it outwits me with its accepta...

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Aberystwyth
a mouthful of a name
meeting of two rivers
that flow into the sea
Aberystwyth
youthful memories of
a town still tugging
at my sleeve like
the hauling of nets
bursting with fish
the smell of diesel
and blood on the
harbour wall
Aberystwyth
all caravans and students,
churches, castles, seagulls,
soggy ice creams,
postcards, monuments
a...

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