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)

26.12.20

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


I HAVE FALLEN IN LOVE WITH THE FORTH BRIDGE


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

the jingling geordie

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