GARCIA LORCA IN WHITLEY BAY
‘I’ve come to devour your mouth
and dry you off by the hair
into the seashells of daybreak.’
(Federico Garcia Lorca)
In the rotunda,
your voice lashes out at war.
You
sing
on the crests of the girls,
streaming up the Esplanade.
You
scream under a parasol of gulls,
skimming through the fairground,
on a mission to strangle
flying fish.
Haunting poetry
in the dead ghost train,
the palms of the fortune-tellers,
dust.
Lorca in a broken-down ghost town,
scattering your petals:
Garcia up against the wall
of last night,
eyes shot;
blood from the evening sky,
dripping down an ice cream cone,
down a sweet lass’s blouse.
Saw you on the Metro, Federico,
saw you in Woolworth’s.
Saw you in the crematorium,
on Feather’s caravan site.
Saw you drown
in a sea of lyrical beauty.
Lorca,
like Community,
you are gone;
ideals
torn into coastal shreds.
Still shells
glisten,
lips on the beach
ready
for kissing again
ready
for the re-launch
of childish dreams,
sticky
with candy floss
and cuckoo spit.
The Spanish City, Whitley Bay.
LIKE THE SPANISH CITY
The days have gone;
the laughter and shrieks
blown away.
We have all grown up,
left old Catalonian dreams
and the blazing seaside bullfights.
We are dazed,
phased out.
Spaces where we courted
bulldozed
to make way
for the tack of tomorrow;
the hope in the sea breeze;
the distant echo of castanets
and voices scraping
in a dusty rotunda.
I remember where I kissed you,
where I lost you.
It was in Spain, wasn’t it?
Or was it down the Esplanade
on a wet Sunday in July?
Either way,
we are still
twinned with sunny Whitley Bay,
and flaming Barcelona too;
and our lives
will dance in fading photographs
from the pleasure dome,
whenever we leave home.
KEITH ARMSTRONG
BAY WHEEL
Here I come
through Bay Fog,
gold ring glinting
in the Park Road dark.
Seeking a North Sea fortune,
looking for a tuneful lass
to make my aching skin sing
of Wooden Dollies
and Spanish Galleons,
sailing across the old fairground
to sunnier climbs.
There’s this guy in the Rockcliffe
and he looks like a ghost.
He’s as pale as the weather
amd mist drips from his nose.
He’s an Old Waltzer,
my young Uncle Walter,
and his eyes are all talk of the War.
He did his strong courting
in an Old Spanish City
and the rose he seduced
was a Cullercoats’ flame.
Now those cold bones are ready
for the warm Crematorium:
a Memoriam to seconds flown by;
the joy of the candyfloss,
the hum of the summer,
the simmer of hamburgers,
and the hot suck of kisses dashed off.
And I am the dome of your past,
the breast of the future,
and I will hug your treasured snaps,
stick your faces in my locket
and spin you down my blouse.
For I have given you joy.
I have thrown you lifelines
and bobbing girls and boys.
And my Bay Wheel
keeps on turning.
My Big Heart
goes on burning.
My Sweet,
my sweet Streets,
my Catalon Whitley,
kiss me.
Kiss me.
KEITH ARMSTRONG
Born in Newcastle upon Tyne, where he has worked as a community worker, poet, librarian and publisher, Doctor Keith Armstrong now resides in Whitley Bay. He is a coordinator of the Northern Voices Community Projects creative writing and community publishing enterprise.
He was awarded a doctorate in 2007 for his work on Newcastle writer Jack Common at the University of Durham where he received a BA Honours Degree in Sociology in 1995 and Masters Degree in 1998 for his studies on culture in the North East of England.
His poetry has been extensively published in magazines such as New Statesman and Poetry Review as well as in the collections Splinters (2011) and The Month of the Asparagus (2011) and broadcast on radio & TV.
He has performed his poetry throughout Britain and abroad.
In his youth, he travelled to Paris and he has been making international cultural pilgrimages ever since.
