THE SCOTLAND PAGES

http://www.thescotlandpages.com/#!keith-armstrong-and-paul-salveson/c91p

YOU'VE GOT TO BE JOKING

You've got to be joking

if you think this is democracy,

this quango land

insult to our history,

this emptiness

of false celebrity,

this wretched shallowness,

this shattered ignorance

of all that shines from our fought-for heritage,

this media connivance

and bone idleness,

this following of the fast buck,

this grovelling to the greed of capital,

this sickening homage to materialism,

this lack of human spirit

in our city centres,

this brutal selfishness

encouraged by a government

that denies our European roots,

that scans the wonder of the vast Atlantic

for feeble ideas to run with,

this rat race of a society

that puts self above solidarity,

these feeble careerist substitutes for activism

who have lost any real will for change,

who have become corrupted by a power-lust,

who lack any passion

other than to climb grimly up their greasy poles,

clinging on to their self-delusion,

ignoring, in their centrist way,

the true beauty of community,

handing out their gongs to the servile

and rubbishing the selfless folk

who work their little miracles every breathing day.

KEITH ARMSTRONG

Absolutely brilliant, my thoughts exactly.

Heather Wood

I HAVE FALLEN IN LOVE WITH THE FORTH BRIDGE

Dear Mr. Armstrong, I hope this finds you well.  I've never done this in my life - i.e. contact a writer - but felt I really had to thank you for the fabulous poem about the Forth Bridge which appeared in the Scottish Review.   It so inspired me that I wanted to hang out the window and shout it across the bay!  (I live on a wee island on the west coast.) Not only do I also love that bridge (I spent my childhood holidays in Fife and always got so excited whenever we crossed it), but I like bridges in general (don't know what that says about me and don't care to find out!).  I'm also a Russian speaker and absolutely love Mayakovsky's great poem inspired by the Brooklyn Bridge. Yours is equally inspiring, as far as I'm concerned. Anyway - all I wanted to do was to congratulate you and say thank you for that truly marvellous poem.  It made my day reading it. All the best, Moira Dalgetty

http://www.scottishreview.net/KeithArmstrong61.shtml?utm_source=Sign-Up.to&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=8427-288448-No+comment%3A+the+%27spokespersons%27+and+their+secrets

Strapping girders,
lusty arches:
the span of my ambition,
shore to shore
you link me with the old bones,
the new ways,
the true trains that take me
down the path of all my loves.
You lift up your wide arms
to take in the tide,
roll with the shaking wind
that whistles in the rushes
of the wild banks.
You thrill me with your size,
your strong embrace;
you roar with achievement,
you make me proud:
I could hug you.
Let me take the Queensferry train,
slide through you to freedom.
The pipes play
and the kilts sway
to greet us.
You are the opening,
the gap we streak through
to the woolly wilds
of Auld Reekie
and Bonnie Old Dundee;
to the sea of workers’ blood,
the red rust of the past that clings
and hugs the bones of dead engineers.
In the Albert Hotel,
tucked up, I hear you moan in the darkness.
Naked,
I pull back the curtains
and see you floodlit
in all your entrancing glory.
Shine on, shine
you crazy bridge.
You have my devotion,
you have my deepest darkest love.
I would climb you stripped;
I would feel you breathe in the Firth wind.
I give you my heart and soul,
I am frail against your depth.
You will outlive me,
do not mock me,
you are superb.
You are my outstretched lovely;
I will breathe through you,
long for you,
die for you.
Rock me,
go Forth
and inspire me.




KEITH ARMSTRONG

COMING SOON!

Monday 18th March 20.00  Cafe Piccolo Sole D'Oro, Metzgergasse, Tuebingen, Germany with poetry/lyrics and music. Featuring: from Tuebingen's cultural partner Durham: poetry from Doctor Keith Armstrong with folk singer/songwriter Gary Miller of The Whisky Priests band and from Tuebingen: music by Mary Jane and Juergen Sturm, featuring lyrics by Veit Mueller. 

Wednesday 20th March at  20.30  Boulanger Bar, Collegiumsgasse, Tuebingen. From Tuebingen's cultural partner Durham: Poetry from Doctor Keith Armstrong with folk singer/songwriter Gary Miller of The Whisky Priests band. Special guests from Tuebingen: poets Tibor Schneider and Sara Hauser with music from Peter Weiß on accordion and Christian Roch on Uillean Pipes.

POETRY BY HEART!

BALLAD OF THE INCENDIARY

(in memory of Jonathan Martin (1782-1838) who set York Minster on fire in 1829)

‘My soul’s full of glory, which inspires my tongue,

Could I meet with Angels I’d sing them a song;

I’d sing of my Jesus and tell of his charms,

And beg them to bear me to his loving arms.’

With his fiery red whiskers

and eyes burning with rage,

Jonathan Martin broke out of his cage

to set York Minster ablaze.

Selling pamphlets of his life

so his dreams would always shine,

his lips to the tips of an angel’s wing,

he said he’d brought the sun.

He told the ‘Lord’s Folk’ around him,

those Citizens of Devilish Mind:

‘Hell is opening to take you,

ye blind leaders of the blind.’

When half-past two o’clock struck,

he lighted up his fires

and this crazy Incendiary of Unsound Mind

ignited his wildest desires.

And it’s blood, fire and smoke,

long may you Beef-eaters choke.

You serpents and vipers of Hell, 

in flames your Minster I burn.

‘Lord what a wretched land is this,

that yields us no supply.

No cheering fruits, no wholesome trees,

nor streams of living joy!

But pricking thorns through all the ground

and mortal poisons grow;

and all the rivers are found

with dangerous waters flow ...............

Long nights and darkness dwell below,

with scarce a twinkling ray;

but the bright world to which we go

is everlasting day.’

And its blood, fire and smoke,

long may you Beef-eaters choke.

You serpents and vipers of Hell,

with flames your Minster I burn.

                                                                                              

Keith Armstrong 

AN OUBLIETTE FOR KITTY

There’s a hole in this Newcastle welcome,

there’s a beggar with a broken spine.

On Gallowgate, a heart is broken

and the ships have left the Tyne.

So what becomes of this History of Pain?

What is there left to hear?

The kids pour down the Pudding Chare lane

and drown a folksong in beer.

So here is an oubliette for you, Kitty,

somewhere to hide your face.

The blood is streaming from fresh wounds in our city

and old scars are all over the place.

There’s this dirt from a history of darkness

and they’ve decked it in neon and glitz.

There are traders in penthouse apartments

on the Quayside where sailors once pissed.

So where are Hughie and Tommy, Kitty?,

the ghosts of Geordies past?

I don’t want to drown you in pity

but I saw someone fall from the past.

So here is an oubliette for you, Kitty,

somewhere to hide your face.

The blood is streaming from fresh wounds in our city

and old scars are all over the place.

While they bomb the bridges of Belgrade,

they hand us a cluster of Culture  

and tame Councillors flock in on a long cavalcade

to tug open the next civic sculpture.

And who can teach you a heritage?

Who can learn you a poem?

We’re lost in a difficult, frightening, age

and no one can find what was home.

So here is an oubliette for you, Kitty,

somewhere to hide your face.

The blood is streaming from fresh wounds in our city

and old scars are all over the place.

So here is an oubliette for you, Kitty,

somewhere to hide your face.

The blood is streaming from fresh wounds in our city

and old scars are all over the place.

 KEITH ARMSTRONG

LEITH WALK, EDINBURGH

Leith Walk it was

where Thomas Carlyle realised

that God did not exist:

Leith Walk

where Stevenson lit

his student pipe

and leched

after a shopgirl’s arse.

He spat

at dashing businessmen,

faces gripped

by hate,

and he loved

the night

did RLS:

the swinging hips,

and lifted dresses;

the tartaned whores spread

over a wild Scots wasteland,

showing their floodlit thighs,

keys flashing

in expert hands,

ready to unlock,

tease out,

the strangest dreams;

in full sight

of a devilish moon,

Leith Walk,

and a nonexistent God.

KEITH ARMSTRONG

http://www.scottishreview.net/KeithArmstrong57.shtml?utm_source=Sign-Up.to&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=287603-Spies+in+St+Andrew%27s+House%3F%3A+MI5%2C+dirty+tricks%2C+and+the+referendum

JINGLE IN LEEDS!

Wednesday 27th February - Headingley Enterprise and Arts Centre (HEART) Ltd, Bennett Road, Leeds LS6 3HN  7.30pm.  A reading featuring three Ward Wood poets – Keith Armstrong, David Cooke and Joy Howard.

SKY THE GUIDE DOG

Sky is a guide dog.

He will lick you

into light.

His eyes are pools of sparks.

He is a star hound.

Sky leads us across the universal fields,

opens up the lids of daydreams,

teaches us to feel

those tender rays.

Sky’s vista runs deep,

shows up a braille galaxy.

In this cold, blind dark,

we follow his moonlit trail.

We marry our lonely visions with his

and see

heaven.

KEITH ARMSTRONG