JINGLE ON MY SON!

JINGLE ON MY SON!
A doughty champion of his local culture.(Poet Tom Hubbard)Your performance at the city hall was soooooooooo good! Christoph thought it was excellent! (Carolyn)

29.12.15

YORK IS IN SPATE




















York is in spate.
Schoolgirls run 
the length of the Ouse.
They fill up the day
with their heaving breath,
faces flushed with sweltering youth,
juice of life running down their breasts.
And my eyes are watering
with the frustrated steam
rising from the Railway Museum;
the empty passion of the Minster.
As glistening ducks swim The Avenue,
wet typists bob through Saviourgate,
their fingers damp with history,
tingling with the touch of word-flow.
So cry me this river,
torrents of ale drown my throat.
Sup me a city,
soak me in song.
Let their warm blouses cling 
to their gorgeous skin,
nipples erect with drops of rain.
We are flooded.
It gets everywhere
this stream of consciousness,
this welter of water,
pouring into archives,
gnawing at timber
and bones.
We have no control.
We cannot stem the tide of hours.
Our boat floats along stream,
urged on by the waves
of boys in a rush,
and dogs swimming like fish.
York is in spate
and I’m lost in its Shambles;
weary arms flapping, 
up to the pits in it.
This Yorkshire Life, 
and things I do not really understand:
the planes in the sea,
the girls,
and the ships 
in the sky.
KEITH ARMSTRONG




Your poetry is incredible. Just brilliant.

the jingling geordie

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whitley bay, tyne and wear, United Kingdom
poet and raconteur