IN THE SPANKING ROGER, MILES PLATTING, MANCHESTER

 










This must be
the lowest hour
of the low.
I am
wet through in the dog-end gutter
of a whiplashed Manchester,
where the rain
bolts down
and the darkness
simply soaks you
to the guts of your soul.
I am
a lost boy,
drenched
from the black Pennines;
a stranger drinking
a glass of gloom
with Thatcher’s underclass.
Here, in the Spanking Roger,
Miles Platting,
they are all
making a racket,
working the rotting
system.
You can get
touched up
for a tanner
or spanked,
wanked
and rogered
for a bob.
It’s all in a sodden carrier bag,
a greasy spoon;
all in
a backstreet cruise,
a sopping blow job,
a blob
for a raindrop:
this Manchester-wet
dream.


KEITH ARMSTRONG

In the 18th centrury, Kersal Moor was  used for nude male races, allowing females to study the form before choosing their mates. Roger Aytoun, known as "Spanking Roger" who was later a hero of the Siege of Gibraltar, acquired Hough Hall in Moston, through marriage after such a race. On 2 Feb 1769 he married wealthy Manchester widow Barbara Mynshull, 65, whose fortune he then squandered.

The pub named after him has been demolished since my visit there. 

photo: simon buckley

WILLIAM BLAKE IN THE BRIDGE HOTEL

A few pints of Deuchars and my spirit is soaring.
The child dances out of me,
goes running down to the Tyne,
while the little man in me wrestles with a lass
and William Blake beams all his innocence in my glass.
And the old experience sweats from a castle’s bricks
as another local prophet takes a jump off the bridge.

It’s the spirit of Pat Foley and the ancient brigade
on the loose down the Quayside stairs
in a futile search,
just a step in the past,
for one last revolutionary song.

All the jars we have supped
in the hope of a change;
all the flirting and courting and chancing downstream;
all the words in the air and the luck pissed away.
It seems we oldies are running back
screaming to the Bewick days,
when a man could down a politicised quip
and craft a civilised chat
before he fed the birds
in the Churchyard.

The cultural ships are fair steaming in
but it’s all stripped of meaning -
the Councillors wade
in the shallow end.

O Blake! buy me a pint in the Bridge again,
let it shiver with sunlight
through all the stained windows,
make my wit sparkle
and my knees buckle.

Set me free of this stifling age
when the bland are back in charge.
Let us grow our golden hair wild once more
and roar like Tygers
down Dog Leap Stairs.

 


KEITH ARMSTRONG

POEM FOR PETE

POEM FOR PETE


The lines on our faces
show us testing times
we survived,
scrbbling poems and drawings
often against brick walls,
pleading for the funds
to make our crazy dreams happen.
Down the back lanes of home,
in Spencean Holborn,
tacky Amsterdam
and surreal Den Bosch,
we have trudged
with our artistic gifts;
on to the ancient boulevards of Prague,
inside the boozy nooks of Tuebingen,
on Isle of Man steam trains,
we fearfully hawked our pamphlets
hoping that they’d make
someone’s little life a little better.
Now, catching a moment of oral history
in the sunshine of our days,
we drink for the moment
to be done with pain,
brief as a kiss
in a sudden poem
or life-sketch.
Expressing ourselves endlessly
in a way that lights up others’ lives
we carry on planting
bolts of joy
on the banks of the sloshing Tyne.



KEITH ARMSTRONG

HUIS DE BEURS

HUIS DE BEURS

Spinning and reeling,

days slipped by the window,

thudding clouds.

We rock in candlelight,

piano glows.

Sun’s sunk into the red carpet,

blood in the skin of the wine,

juicy dregs of another spilt day.

Old friends they have come

through this infernal revolving door

and gone on to evolve

long faces in the mist.

New vistas swing

through the old market

to make the lifelight

shine in our hearts.

Dragging on the stubs of years,

blowing out memory’s vague smoke.

Wet cobbles

glint with the dreams of fish,

flashing girls stream by

on darting bikes.

The crippled sunset

of war years,

the modern politics of fear.

Throw me another cigar

hand over your gear,

let us meet

in socialist song.

Your fleeting poetry

is a scarf tossed

round my neck.

My handsome northern mate,

I am going Dutch tonight.

That Mr Piano Man

flies across the bar

to catch an A Train again

for the fresh morning,

love’s daybreak.

My darling,

kiss my poet's lips,

let us greet the warm flesh

of Groningen

breathing.

KEITH ARMSTRONG

POEM FOR THE COMMUNITY

POEM FOR THE COMMUNITY


The purpose of life
is living,
walking, running,
dreaming, loving.
No more than to create
with others.
No more than to live, drink, eat, share
with others.

Life is community.
Community is to link as lovers,
to give until your heart can give no more.

Caress that seagull’s wing,
lick the dew from the grass,
grow the most beautiful flower,
protect the ugliest weed,
hold the hand of a cripple,
wave to the sea and the sky.

Go on
making stories of a lifetime,
taking from the past the best love songs.
Don’t ask what life is -
it’s in you,
it’s the breath you breathe
into others.




Keith Armstrong


I love this poem, Keith! It means a lot to me. Thanks!
Yours, Henk

IN A PALACE BAR AFTERNOON

Picture of Brian O'Nolan

 








IN A PALACE BAR AFTERNOON

‘When I first came to Dublin in 1939, I thought the Palace the most wonderful temple of art.’ (Patrick Kavanagh)


Dead conversations
and dud cheques
litter the gaps
between the gawping portraits
in this literary back room.
Here in the afternoon of Irish culture,
I hear the creak of Kavanagh’s knees
going down the steep bog stairs
pissing words away,
holding another conversation
in his clumsy hands.

So what’s a poetry boy to do?
Sozzle through another day,
dance betwen the lines of pints of plain,
wallow in the crevices of Beckett’s genius,
creep around the Palace floor,
scraping for scraps of dead oral histories?

For today,
I’ll put away my pen
worn out with trying
to trap the City of Limerick
in groping poems.
I’ll sit back
and crack with Lonsdale and the lads,
let Bertie Smyllie’s barking patter
wash over my weariness.
Leave it to the shawlies
in the huddled snug
to set things right,
I’m flying without a passport today,
buzzing along with Jimmy Joyce on board
this Ryanair Ulysses jet,
At Swim Two Birds.

And what’s the point
of lies in ink
when real poetry
should make a woman come
with the touch
of bird song on the lips of this hour?
Give your tongues a break,
Behan and Houlihan
and the rest,
we’re dust
on a skin of Guinness.

And yet
and yet,
the twinkle of light
through the old smoke of patter
does make the breath
in the lungs
of a Dublin dancing day
as worthwhile
as the sweeping kiss
of that gull’s wings
stroking the mouth of the Liffey. 




KEITH ARMSTRONG

WE CHANGE AT LIMERICK JUNCTION

WE CHANGE AT LIMERICK JUNCTION

(for Rense Sinkgraven)

We change at Limerick Junction.
Rain knocks the smiles off our faces,
the sun glows and exposes the dust in the faint traces of our poems.
We change at Limerick Junction.
Weather makes our eyes fade,
the hours grow tired of breathing in the pain of the world.
We change at Limerick Junction.
Hearts thunder along the crazy rails,
the weight off our feet lands with a thump on the daily platform.
We change at Limerick Junction.
Carry gifts for old friends,
the urge to go on trailing poetry along the lines.
We change at Limerick Junction.
Girls get too young for us,
the flesh weakens with the passage of whiskey.
We change at Limerick Junction.
Air races in the manes of horses,
the money drains from our exhausted pockets.
We change at Limerick Junction.
Jump from one train to another,
the inexhaustible desire to write a better verse.
We change at Limerick Junction.
Words are why we laugh,
beauty is what makes us want to live.
We change at Limerick Junction.

KEITH ARMSTRONG