My Space
sit and thinking
think and sit
myself
my mind
my own planet
whereby alone
along the shore
I sit and spin
and think some more

I sink into my inner space
my very own creative place
inside my secret galaxy
a world created just for me

Kate Eggleston-Wirtz
November 2006
Creature magazine number 4

Secret Agents
Secret Agent MI5
Get in that car and drive and drive
And drive as you’ve not done before
In heart, my soul – a secret door
That’s opened me, whose MI6:
An ageing woman full of tricks
Who’s opened up to let you in,
I dare to wonder where you’ve been
My Secret Agent man who’s steering,
Turning hands of time and fearing
Life internal, turn it on
And drive down avenues beyond
To my garage, oh I am waiting
For elusive love, I’m stating
Facts with tools but not to fix
You MI5, this MI6
Whose eyes entice, oh MI5
Start motoring, I feel alive
And anxious for a rendezvous
Doing things that lovers do
Alone as one in secret places
Trashing all the social graces,
Flogging rules the agency
Insists we play, forget – you’re free
To feel the speed and hug the road
With map in hand and secret code
So turn the corner, come on down
To be uncovered, underground.

Kate Eggleston-Wirtz
Love Exhibition February 2005
OXO Centre London


DYLAN
I live with those at Knowsley Hall.
I am a dog that knows it all.
I know for when I’m left alone
I do not sleep or chew my bone,
nor chase my tail or bark or lick
for I have got a better trick.
I climb aboard a nearby chair
to reach the distant shores up there
pulling books from shelves I shove
my nose into the lands I love.
Diving into pages me
sailing ‘cross a Learian Sea,
trotting down Dickens’ cobblestone -
the world’s my oyster on my own.
I am a clever dog indeed…
One Chocolate Lab that likes to read.

When I hear my People talking,
outside up the stairs they’re walking
I gently push with nose and paw
my treasure trove behind the door
and curl up on the carpet floor
and be the dog that they adore
and when they enter I slowly raise
my head and listen to their praise.
They’re clueless to the fact I’ve read
and traded sleep for words instead.
They pet their pet that likes to hide
the fact he holds the world inside.

Kate Eggleston-Wirtz
Response to a visit to Knowsley Hall
December 2007

Why Remember?

Cod liver oil,
Milk and malt -
Scott's Emulsion
And pots of salt

Rice and bread pudding,
Bubble 'n Squeak -
Dishin' up fish
At the end of the week

Wringerlettes wringing,
Mangles and mash -
Tithing on Sunday
And keeping the cash

Guilty on Monday,
Caught in the lie -
Things I remember
With fondness, but why?

Four Corners of the City Project
National Museums Liverpool
2006

Beach Ball

Bums and bellies, breasts like balls
from beaches bouncing on the sand
and bobbing by the seaward walls,
from hear to there and distant lands
as postcards bought for fun and sent
away from seaside towns they went
and found their rightful place in hands
of those who had been left behind
with lily fingers, white ne'er tanned
that had to work but read the signed
saucy scrawling from the ones
they lost to calling on the strand
where bums and bellies, breasts like balls
were bouncing without reprimand.

Secrets of the Saucy Seaside Postcard Touring Exhibition
Kirklees Community History 2004