THE MUELLER GIRLS

(for Andy Marx)

It’s a lonely day

in Tuebingen.

I’m floating in insecurity

along the Neckar,

riddled with last night’s schnapps.

Not knowing

where the hell

I’m headed,

I need a lady’s touch

just there,

where it matters.

That’s why

I’m homing in on Bismarkstrasse

to that scarlet house

where the Mueller Girls wait

to lick my brains 

a little better

than anyone else will 

this afternoon,

feeding my appetite

for breath

and lust

for that special feeling.

This minute I wish 

to be surrounded 

by girls,

for them to make me warm

and hold my dreams

in their strong arms.

Coming to Tuebingen

has become a habit

as natural as drinking;

I know just where to sit

in the Boulanger bar,

just where to drown

and just where to float

and drift.

Drink helps me

to alter my mind,

to raise and lift my spirits.

But it’s not the same

as Monika

lifting her skirt

and raising me up

on her massive bed.

And so 

we rock on

in this Swabian storm,

breathless

and shaky

as Hoelderlin’s hands.

I am lying 

with my head 

in her thighs

and only now

am I feeling alive.

She

is helping me

finish 

this poem.

It’s a long one

and needs to be shaped

into action.

She whispers crazy words

into my left ear

because I am left handed

and need her to tell me

just what to write

on these sheets

I caress

with a lyric touch.

She pampers my mind

with fresh ideas,

hot thoughts.

When other folk

are at their work,

this juicy text

drips 

from her tongue.

She licks all 

my poetry books

and comes to me

down Lange Gasse

in her boots

and stockings

from another century.

I go upstairs,

along the path

to the hottest girls in town,

to a golden shower

running 

with river water.

Open my mind

you can find 

sweet fantasies in there,

smuggled through Customs,

drenched with alcohol

and knowledge.

What do you say

to a Market Place massage,

a walk

through the park

with a lovely girl

whose hair is wild?

This life is limitless.

We must explore

the dirty lanes

behind Town Halls,

the balls

of light

in the graveyard of poets,

tongues

playing wildly,

this unforgettable hour,

kissing away

life.

KEITH ARMSTRONG

Wow!!!! A very honest poem!!!

Is it to keep for myself or can I share it with others ?

Thanks very much! Unfortunately in Boulanger is no Monika (yet) and a golden shower is also not available - but I`ll try to find a way.

Take care!

Cheers,

Andy

CREATIVE SCOTLAND

• 
  
• 
  

WEDNESDAY 5 DECEMBER 2012

 

Creative Scotland was a project doomed to failure

Ian Bell

Columnist

IT took fewer than three years for the bright, shiny new model to come apart at the seams.

All that effort spent liquidating the Scottish Arts Council (SAC) and dissolving Scottish Screen, all the hideous jargon masquerading as coherent speech, all that careful work to turn the arts into something called "the creative industries": what remains?

For one thing, there's a long session ahead for the board members of Creative Scotland as they survey the wreckage and wonder where their next chief executive is coming from. For another there is, or ought to be, deep embarrassment within government that a strategy – as these things are called – could become a shambles in such a brief span of time. If Andrew Dixon is the only casualty, justice will be in short supply.

The departing chief executive lost the confidence of those who make art. Some 100 of them wrote a letter to say as much in the sort of plain language that Creative Scotland never cared to master. Yet even at the end Mr Dixon seemed unable to grasp where, how and why he might have gone wrong. Those who remain to pick up the pieces, if they can, are unlikely to be any less perplexed.

This is fundamental. The people who make and talk about art or culture are worlds apart from those who regard such things as branch economies of their "creative industries". The latter are in the business of tourism, economic development, "gross value added", and the promotion of anything – fashion, computer games, advertising, cookery shows – capable of being called creative. The other lot care about art. There's a difference.

It has nothing to do with cultural hierarchies, elitism, or who is best served by a diminishing pot of public money. It is an argument, chiefly, over Creative Scotland's purpose. Scottish Enterprise, by its own account, is "here to support the businesses behind the creativity". It is already "helping hundreds of creative companies achieve great things". But it does not exist to aid the 49 theatre companies and art galleries who next year will face being funded on a project-by-project basis thanks to Creative Scotland.

That body doesn't deserve all the blame. It didn't break the solemn promise, repeated by successive Westminster governments, that Lottery money would never replace core funding. Creative Scotland was the victim, like everyone else, of public spending cuts and austerity. The decision to take the country's main arts institutions into direct government care was none of the body's doing. Neither Mr Dixon nor anyone around him took the actual decision to treat creativity as an industrial commodity.

Creative Scotland was eager to please, nevertheless. It talked the asinine talk of "experiential opportunities", "creative pathways" and "outcomes". It accepted the grisly "Year of Creative Scotland", now drawing to a merciful end, at face value, as a straightforward marketing opportunity. It did not once pause to ask a simple question: is this how art works? You can and must market a thrilling computer game or a fashion show. Good luck to you. But what has that to do with those who make art in solitude?

They could do with a funding body willing to listen and capable of listening. We could call it an arts council. Such was the burden, after all, of the letter from the 100. It pointed to a fundamental misconception. There is plenty of room and need for an organisation to represent and promote those creative industries. What is there, practically speaking, for those who work in art, those who tend to be remembered when a politician decides to boast about the national culture?

Creative Scotland is but one part of something called Scotland's Creative Industries Partnership. This also embraces the Scottish Government, Scottish Enterprise, Highlands and Islands Enterprise, Skills Development Scotland, The Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, the Scottish Funding Council, and Scottish Development International. Try getting poetry out of that lot. Better still, try getting these worthy bodies to understand the delicate balance between support for the arts and artistic autonomy.

Creative Scotland developed a taste, to put it no higher, for the artistic command economy. It quickly acquired the habit of telling arts people what they ought to be doing while turning a deaf ear – so the allegation goes – to anything it didn't care to hear. So-called "project-based funding", destroying any hope of artistic independence, was the predictable result. It was a notion dreamed up by people who see no problem in bureaucrat-sanctioned art.

The crack about reviving the arts council was not a joke. Collectors of jargon and threatened theatre companies alike are entitled to conclude that Creative Scotland is not – may the gods of literacy strike me down – fit for purpose. It was swamped, from the beginning, by contradictory demands, and it has sunk ever deeper into that mire with each passing month.

The old arts council was never far from controversy. Arts people hated it, too, for much of the time, especially when a grant application failed. That body suffered from its own contradictions. Arguments over public subsidy, its extent and purpose, were never resolved – how could they be resolved? – to general satisfaction. For four and a bit decades, nevertheless, there was a rough and ready agreement over what the SAC thought it was for. The same cannot be said of Creative Scotland.

Some of the 100 who wrote the now-famous letter were keen to say that the row "wasn't about money". They were wise. A good case can be made to show that governments driving austerity or driven by austerity neglect the arts at their peril. But in which sphere of the public realm is funding irrelevant? The ability to disburse £80 million makes Creative Scotland the envy of a great many important organisations and charities now being slaughtered by cuts. Arts people had better not forget it.

That must not become the issue. A cultural body could be reduced to handing out used fivers in the street and Scotland would still be entitled to ask what it was doing, why, for which purpose, and for whose sake. Far from providing answers, Creative Scotland has failed to understand the questions.

EPITAPH FOR A FROSTY GIRL

To please you

I made a Snow Woman.

It felt just like you,

melted away

in the morning sun.

Keith Armstrong

DESMOND O'GRADY POETRY COMPETITION

First 10 of 40 shortlisted poems for the Desmond O'Grady Poetry Competition (http://www.desmondogrady.com/poetrycompetition.html) read Wednesday 14th November at White House Bar:
"November" by Ann Dempsey" read by Marian Cody,
"In The 

Hands of White Men" by Cait Morris,
"MAGPIE" by Carlos Reyes read by Tom McCarthy,
"FLYING FISH" by Carlo Reyes read by Martin O'Briain,
"Fear is the Cheapest Room in the House" by John Saunders,
"IN THE GALWAY HOOKER BAR" by Keith Armstrong read by Dominic Taylor,
"Everyday Holocaust" by Mary Jo Gibbons read by Mark Mulvey,
"On a swing" by Rachel Sutcliffe read by Bertha McCullagh,
"My Lemon Tree" by Tammara Or Slilat (Video),
"The Man With The Silver Tinged Hair" by Teri Murray

TUEBINGEN AGAIN

I come back to you

when I am feeling hopeless,

when I am in despair of the heartless.

I trail my hefty books through Customs

to reach you,

to plunge into your depths,

to swim in the mystery of your streets,

the beauty of your trees,

the melancholy of your seminar rooms.

Yes, Tuebingen,

it’s me

looking for myself once more

in your troubled mirror.

So I dive

into La Boheme

and back and back and back

into the Boulanger.

So I stagger

out of Hades

and into the arms 

of the Neckarmueller 

to feed the ducks

with scraps of my trembling poetry.

Your Hoelderlin Tower

always makes me feel sad.

My body droops like a weeping willow

as my mad muse floats up river

to liberate new dreams,

to greet fresh friends.

I sail in your skies

in a Lufthansa trance.

Let me sing

of all that’s good in Swabia

for you.

Let me wish your lovely children joy

and then let me break my heart again

when I have to leave you.

KEITH ARMSTRONG

AFTER THE UK

Shreds of the UK

flapping in the downturn,

decayed Britain

broken into smithereens.

No Kingdom now,

no United State.

We are

citizens

with no obligation

to genuflect

in front of an overstuffed Queen.

Get the UK out of your system,

no going back.

We take the power

to rule ourselves,

make community,

build our own spaces.

Break

the hegemony

of dead parties,

lifeless institutions,

let debate flower,

conflicting views rage.

We want to breathe

and strip away

executive power,

share

the beauty and culture

of these islands

around.

Make good things,

good love.

Empower ourselves

with an autonomous freedom

in a new England,

in a new Europe,

in a New World

of real ownership

and delicate emotion.

KEITH ARMSTRONG

55 DEGREES NORTH

They’re going to illuminate Scotswood,

make floral entrepreneurs in Elswick.

Someone’s set fire to our Arts reporter,

it’s another Cultural Initiative.

Sting’s buying the Civic Centre,

they’re filling the Baltic with tanks.

The Sage is changing its name to onion,

Shane’s pissed on the classical conductor.

They’re floating quangos down the Tyne,

the bonfire will be at Shields.

They’re bringing tourists to witness miracles,

the Chief Executive will strip for money.

They’re blowing up the Castle Keep

to build an installation.

They’re giving the locals more public art,

it’s something to rhyme with.

They’re taking live theatre to the cemetery,

the vicar will write an Arts Council poem.

Steve Cram’s taken up painting

to stop his nose from running.

The river will be made into an ice rink,

we can play with our boats in the bath.

Let New Labour bomb Iraq,

they’re making a museum of politics.

Stuffing glass cases with old principles,

the head hunters are out and about.

It’s cultivated jobs for the boys and the girls,

they’re putting the Arts into centres.

Drain the music from our souls,

we have to be grateful to be patronised.

Their self-righteousness grins from on high,

let the bombs fly and rockets rip.

We can enjoy some more tamed Art,

say cheerio to your history.

They’ve wrapped it up in moth balls,

thank God for the boys from the south.

They’ve saved us from self-government,

we’ve missed out on the Love Parade.

This City of Culture got lost in the end,

the Angel glowers over us though.

Thanks again City Fathers,

it looks uglier every day. 

You’ve reinvented our culture for us,

you’ve rendered it meaningless.

Guts ripped out,

we touch our forelock to your glorious Lords.

From the orifice of the Deputy Prime Minister

leaks the corrupt emptiness of your manifestos.

The aching past of the working man

has become the death of England.

Let us hail you from NewcastleGateshead,

a city you made up for yourselves.

Let us watch your empty schemes plummet,

let us learn to dance in community again.

We are Geordies naked with a beautiful anger to burn.

KEITH ARMSTRONG

Desmond O'Grady Poetry Competition

White House Limerick Poetry presents the Desmond O'Grady Poetry Competition, open to all poets from all around the world.

Shortlist

  Poem title  Poet

IN THE GALWAY HOOKER BARKeith Armstrong

Our curseJosephine Doyle

Fear is the Cheapest Room in the HouseJohn Saunders

My Lemon TreeTammara Or Slilat

On a swingRachel Sutcliffe

In my mother's house nothing went to wasteSiobhan Flynn

My viewSiobhan Flynn

MAGPIECarlos Reyes

FLYING FISHCarlos Reyes

In The Hands of White MenCait Morris

SyriaMary Ellen Fean

The SpirePeter Branson

Idir MhnáMáirín Mhic Lochlainn

CITY RAINMae Leonard

NothingAmy O'Donoghue

WarAmy O'Donoghue

DosserMike Gallagher

Paint MeBernard Kariuki

Out a many one peopleChristena williams

Harrison makes a clock 1727Jim Bennett

ReflectionsPat Mc Coubrey

SisterDarren Donohue

The IslandMajel Haugh

Remembering PadraigPapick Stack

NovemberAnn Dempsey

Everyday HolocaustMary Jo Gibbons

Dá mbeifeá in ann mé a fheiceáil anoisLucy Weadick

Lydia Dwight Resurrected. V&A Museum Number 1054-1871Phil Howard

DAWN AT FALLMiriam C. Walsh

EnduranceMary Angland

KintsugiDoireann Ni Ghriofa

The Dark and the WindEdward O'Dwyer

The World is ColorfulMary McCormack

SavedMary McCormack

I wish I went with youGerard Doyle

Divine revelation - In dedication to Desmond O'GradyMaysa AbdelAal Ibrahim

The Man With The Silver Tinged HairTeri Murray

DOES MY BUM LOOK BIG IN THIS?Seamus Harrington

SEDUCED IN APRILMarie Cadden

FinaleMarie Cadden

FOR DAVID STEPHENSON

David Stephenson was a deep friend,

I met him through books.

He came from Carlisle

with that intense and craggy look.

We studied life together,

smoked Full Strength

and sipped Real Ale.

He liked his women big.

I learnt from him

to visit pubs at lunchtimes

to end up pissed in lectures

but, most of all,

to read the letters of Van Gogh,

the diaries of Franz Kafka,

to go inside 

the jazz 

of Ornette Coleman

and Cecil Taylor.

David told me that 

‘Most people are thick’

and, as a socialist of a kind,

I sometimes think he had a point.

I wonder where he is today.

Back across country I surmise,

smoking and looking at the sunrise,

with a fat woman kissing his neck,

listening to Mingus 

and the sky.

KEITH ARMSTRONG