Set by the ever original Phil, this is a topical workshop for you all to try...

"You have been asked to read in the middle of a performance of an act at the Edinburgh Festival. You can choose the genre of show you feature in, such as Comedy, Contemporary Music, Theatre, Visual Art, Dance, Opera, Monologue. Try to grab the attention of the audience and keep them from getting the
ice-cream they are thinking about getting." 16th August 2007

Rothko
Fudgy mud frames
a blood rectangle.

Orange lies wanton
and needy across the red.

This landscape of dreams
headaches, screams and desires
fills my lungs like muscus.

I cough so hard my feet hurt.

When I close my eyes
Purple comes down over me
like a death.

There is little space for fear,
and only the hollow sound
of my past leaving me.

When I die I will become a circle,
bland, and free from the colours of pain.

Charlotte Harrison


Stage

In the middle of a stage,
Two trees stand.
I put a laundry line between them.
When night comes,
I rip the sky with a knife.
The planets around the sun
drop onto the stage.
I pick them up and put them
on the line with plastic pegs.
I give stones to children, asking them
to break the planet.
If anybody is successful,
I can give them a present.
They start throwing stones to
the moon, Neptune, Mars,
but nothing will crack.

Yuko Adams
(Sorry, Phil. I wrote as a visual artist rather than a poet.)


Words at the Mayfest

The band ends its strum & strut
and the poets come on

(or at least one of them)

and the men look
to their empty glasses

the women to their mobiles

and they all get up and walk

to the bar

and the process is repeated
- a band comes on - goes off

and the poet is left

to gibber unheard
words spacing an interval

between acts

unaccompanied -

a sideshow.

They came to hear the longhaired boys,
guitars and amps. When the words came on

they only wanted beer & chat

not the poets
with their verbiage

not until the drugs kicked in

together with the alcohol

...then they listened

Richard J. N. Copeland.