SONG FOR FRIEDRICH HOLDERLIN

‘The lines of life are various;

they diverge and cease like footpaths

and the mountain’s utmost ends.’

(Extract from a Holderlin poem addressed to Zimmer the carpenter, in whose Tuebingen house Holderlin lived for the last thirty six years of his life).

‘When from the depths spring enters into life,

men marvel and new words aspire out of their intelligence;

joy returns and festively poetry and songs arise.’

(Written on Holderlin’s last birthday, 20th March 1843).

Suddenly, peacefully,

you’re slipping afloat,

your drifting past

in a poetry boat.

Scaliger Rosa,

Scaliger Rosa.

Buonarotti,

Buonarotti.

Scardinelli,

Scardinelli,

joy returns

and songs arise.

Crafted by Zimmer,

a sculptor of Woods,

your coffin is filled

with magical words.

Scaliger Rosa,

Scaliger Rosa.

Buonarotti,

Buonarotti.

Scardinelli,

Scardinelli,

joy returns

and songs arise.

                                                                               Keith Armstrong,

                                                                               Tuebingen.

Note: The chorus is based on pseudonyms used by Holderlin.

ROLL ON HOLDERLIN  (am Neckar)

(for Jochen)

‘To the Very Honourable Poet Mr. Keith Armstrong,

I wish you good luck for all the seasons in your life and always a high inspiration for your poems.

(Jochen from the Holderlin Tower).’

Holderlin

holds his own,

holds his own

in this sex-crazed country.

Holderlin

rolls his own,

rolls his own

in this burnt-out company.

Holderlin

rolling on,

holding on

in this fearful Germany.

The motor stalls,

the government falls - 

it’s Holderlin

knocking down walls:

Holderlin

knocking down walls.

                                                                           Keith Armstrong,

                                                                           Tuebingen.

I talked with my students about your reading and they enjoyed it very much. It was a very special occasion for them. They think that you absolutely have to come again next year. And I think so too.

 

We´ll keep in touch,

best wishes

 

Kristina

ON THE ROAD AGAIN!

POET GOES ON THE ROAD AGAIN

Whitley Bay based poet and publisher Keith Armstrong is heading for Tuebingen, Durham's twin city in South Germany, with singer-songwriter Gary Miller, of the Whisky Priest folk rock band, on Monday 18th March 

where they will perform in bars, cafes and schools with Tuebingen poets and musicians. 

Keith and Gary are also currently working on a double album to be launched in the autumn telling the story of the eighteenth century 'Mad Martins' family of Tynedale.

And a selection of Keith's recent poetry, with that of fellow poet Katrina Porteous, has just been released on a new album in the Czech Republic with settings by Jakub Zahradnik, a composer and keyboard player who Keith first met on an Arts Council funded literary visit to Prague a few years ago.

Literary activist Armstrong is currently working with Newcastle's Mining Institute on a series of projects and events and he is also involved in a jazz and poetry project with North Shields artist Peter Dixon which celebrates the great figures of jazz in a touring display and events programme.

FURTHER INFORMATION: tel 0191 2529531.

JUST OUTSIDE OF TUEBINGEN

It was a summer’s day

in 1817.

I was lying in a field

with Schubert in my heart.

Skylarks were flying above my soul

over the battlefields of bloody Europe;

love among the stench of war,

lust burning in the sweating grass.

That August dream,

I wanted my breath to die

in your swirling arms,

with the yellow butterflies

flitting in your dripping eyes.

I took some local wine

to soothe my startled nerves

and the lovely blood

leapt in the sun.

The future had swept me here

to sing of all the years advancing,

the awkward poems I never wrote

blowing

across the aching valley

for future birds

to peck at

in this graveyard of ambition

still

just outside of Tuebingen.

KEITH ARMSTRONG

TUEBINGEN/DURHAM LITERARY/ARTS TWINNING

The twinning continues to go from strength to strength. Poet Doctor Keith Armstrong and folk-rock musician Gary Miller, lead singer of Durham band the Whisky Priests, travelled to Tuebingen at the end of March 2012 for performances in pubs, cabaret venues and schools where they performed with Tuebingen poet Tibor Schneider who visited Durham in October of this year as part of the ongoing exchange. Tibor joined his Durham counterparts for readings at Durham University and at the Half Moon Inn. He was also interviewed on BBC Radio Tees concerning his Durham visit.

Keith Armstrong and Gary Miller will return the compliment with a trip to Tuebingen in March 2013 where they will perform again in bars, cafes and schools with Tibor Schneider and other Tuebingen poets and musicians. 

In 2011, Tuebingen rock musician Juergen Sturm jetted in with his music partner Mary Jane at the end of October for pub gigs, including a twinning event in Durham on Monday 31st October featuring Juergen and Mary Jane with Durham folk musicians and poets. That followed on from a visit to Tuebingen in South Germany in early April 2011 by Keith Armstrong and photographer/artist Peter Dixon. The intrepid pair worked together on a touring display featuring Armstrong's poems and Dixon's photographs documenting the unique link between Tuebingen and Durham which was staged initially in the Durham Room at County Hall, Durham in November. Armstrong performed his poetry in cafes, bars and schools and met up with Tuebingen friends, old and new, with the multi-talented Dixon capturing all of it on film. 

This trip reciprocated a visit to Durham in November 2010 by Tuebingen poets Henning Ziebritzki and Carolyn Murphey Melchers, when Juergen Stuerm also took part in a series of pub performances. There was a special event at Clayport Library, Durham City on Monday November 1st with the Tuebingen poets and special guests from Durham, followed by a rousing session in the Dun Cow when Juergen, with Mary Jane, and his Durham counterparts, Gary Miller and Marie Little belted out their lively songs.

In addition to his most recent visit, Armstrong was in Tuebingen in May 2010 with Gary Miller for performances in his favourite Tuebingen bar ‘The Boulanger’ and at a local school. This followed a special guest appearance in 2009 at the biannual Book Festival, a reading with Tuebingen counterpart Eva Christina Zeller and a visit to local schools. Eva visited Durham for readings in schools and at a special event on May 13th 2009 at Clayport Library which also featured poets Katrina Porteous, Jackie Litherland, Cynthia Fuller, and William Martin, as well as Doctor Armstrong and music from the Durham Scratch Choir and Andy Jackson.

A highly successful series of events were held in 2007 to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the literary/arts twinning established by Keith Armstrong when he first visited Tuebingen in 1987 for a month’s residency, supported by Durham County Council and Tuebingen’s Kulturamt. Since then, there have been readings and performances in pubs, universities and castles, schools, libraries, book festivals, jazz and cabaret clubs, even in Hermann Hesse’s old apartment, involving poets, writers, teachers and musicians from the twin partnerships of Durham and Tuebingen.

Tuebingen’s music duo Acoustic Storm, poet/translator Carolyn Murphey Melchers and Cultural Officer visited Durham and the North East in October/November 2007. The musicians performed in Durham schools and pubs and there was a special evening in Durham’s Clayport Library to celebrate the twinning, with Keith Armstrong launching his new Tuebingen poetry booklet and performances by poets Carolyn Murphey Melchers, Katrina Porteous, William Martin, Michael Standen, Ian Horn, Cynthia Fuller, Hugh Doyle and musicians Acoustic Storm, Marie Little and Gary Miller. Margit Aldinger of the Kulturamt in Tuebingen and Brian Stobie of the International Department, Durham County Council, also addressed the audience.

For the record, here's a list of those who have made it happen so far:

Tuebingen visitors to Durham since 1987:

Carolyn Murphey Melchers, Karin Miedler, Gerhard Oberlin, Uwe Kolbe, Johannes Bauer, Eva Christina Zeller, Simone Mittmann, Florian Werner, Juergen Sturm, Mary Jane, Wolf Abromeit, Christopher Harvie, Eberhard Bort, Marcus Hammerschmitt, Henning Ziebritzki, Andy and Alessandra Fazion Marx, Otto Buchegger, Tibor Schneider.

Durham visitors to Tuebingen since 1987:

Keith Armstrong, Michael Standen, Julia Darling, Andy Jackson, Fiona MacPherson, Katrina Porteous, Marie Little, Ian Horn, Alan C. Brown, Linda France, Jackie Litherland, Cynthia Fuller, Margaret Wilkinson, Jez Lowe, Jack Routledge, Gary Miller, Matthew Burge, David Stead, Hugh Doyle, Peter Dixon.

These events were supported by Tuebingen’s Kulturamt and Durham County Council.

FURTHER INFORMATION: NORTHERN VOICES COMMUNITY PROJECTS TEL. 0191 2529531.

THE SCOTLAND PAGES

http://www.thescotlandpages.com/#!keith-armstrong-and-paul-salveson/c91p

YOU'VE GOT TO BE JOKING

You've got to be joking

if you think this is democracy,

this quango land

insult to our history,

this emptiness

of false celebrity,

this wretched shallowness,

this shattered ignorance

of all that shines from our fought-for heritage,

this media connivance

and bone idleness,

this following of the fast buck,

this grovelling to the greed of capital,

this sickening homage to materialism,

this lack of human spirit

in our city centres,

this brutal selfishness

encouraged by a government

that denies our European roots,

that scans the wonder of the vast Atlantic

for feeble ideas to run with,

this rat race of a society

that puts self above solidarity,

these feeble careerist substitutes for activism

who have lost any real will for change,

who have become corrupted by a power-lust,

who lack any passion

other than to climb grimly up their greasy poles,

clinging on to their self-delusion,

ignoring, in their centrist way,

the true beauty of community,

handing out their gongs to the servile

and rubbishing the selfless folk

who work their little miracles every breathing day.

KEITH ARMSTRONG

Absolutely brilliant, my thoughts exactly.

Heather Wood

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

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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

COMING SOON!

Monday 18th March 20.00  Cafe Piccolo Sole D'Oro, Metzgergasse, Tuebingen, Germany with poetry/lyrics and music. Featuring: from Tuebingen's cultural partner Durham: poetry from Doctor Keith Armstrong with folk singer/songwriter Gary Miller of The Whisky Priests band and from Tuebingen: music by Mary Jane and Juergen Sturm, featuring lyrics by Veit Mueller. 

Wednesday 20th March at  20.30  Boulanger Bar, Collegiumsgasse, Tuebingen. From Tuebingen's cultural partner Durham: Poetry from Doctor Keith Armstrong with folk singer/songwriter Gary Miller of The Whisky Priests band. Special guests from Tuebingen: poets Tibor Schneider and Sara Hauser with music from Peter Weiß on accordion and Christian Roch on Uillean Pipes.

POETRY BY HEART!

BALLAD OF THE INCENDIARY

(in memory of Jonathan Martin (1782-1838) who set York Minster on fire in 1829)

‘My soul’s full of glory, which inspires my tongue,

Could I meet with Angels I’d sing them a song;

I’d sing of my Jesus and tell of his charms,

And beg them to bear me to his loving arms.’

With his fiery red whiskers

and eyes burning with rage,

Jonathan Martin broke out of his cage

to set York Minster ablaze.

Selling pamphlets of his life

so his dreams would always shine,

his lips to the tips of an angel’s wing,

he said he’d brought the sun.

He told the ‘Lord’s Folk’ around him,

those Citizens of Devilish Mind:

‘Hell is opening to take you,

ye blind leaders of the blind.’

When half-past two o’clock struck,

he lighted up his fires

and this crazy Incendiary of Unsound Mind

ignited his wildest desires.

And it’s blood, fire and smoke,

long may you Beef-eaters choke.

You serpents and vipers of Hell, 

in flames your Minster I burn.

‘Lord what a wretched land is this,

that yields us no supply.

No cheering fruits, no wholesome trees,

nor streams of living joy!

But pricking thorns through all the ground

and mortal poisons grow;

and all the rivers are found

with dangerous waters flow ...............

Long nights and darkness dwell below,

with scarce a twinkling ray;

but the bright world to which we go

is everlasting day.’

And its blood, fire and smoke,

long may you Beef-eaters choke.

You serpents and vipers of Hell,

with flames your Minster I burn.

                                                                                              

Keith Armstrong 

AN OUBLIETTE FOR KITTY

There’s a hole in this Newcastle welcome,

there’s a beggar with a broken spine.

On Gallowgate, a heart is broken

and the ships have left the Tyne.

So what becomes of this History of Pain?

What is there left to hear?

The kids pour down the Pudding Chare lane

and drown a folksong in beer.

So here is an oubliette for you, Kitty,

somewhere to hide your face.

The blood is streaming from fresh wounds in our city

and old scars are all over the place.

There’s this dirt from a history of darkness

and they’ve decked it in neon and glitz.

There are traders in penthouse apartments

on the Quayside where sailors once pissed.

So where are Hughie and Tommy, Kitty?,

the ghosts of Geordies past?

I don’t want to drown you in pity

but I saw someone fall from the past.

So here is an oubliette for you, Kitty,

somewhere to hide your face.

The blood is streaming from fresh wounds in our city

and old scars are all over the place.

While they bomb the bridges of Belgrade,

they hand us a cluster of Culture  

and tame Councillors flock in on a long cavalcade

to tug open the next civic sculpture.

And who can teach you a heritage?

Who can learn you a poem?

We’re lost in a difficult, frightening, age

and no one can find what was home.

So here is an oubliette for you, Kitty,

somewhere to hide your face.

The blood is streaming from fresh wounds in our city

and old scars are all over the place.

So here is an oubliette for you, Kitty,

somewhere to hide your face.

The blood is streaming from fresh wounds in our city

and old scars are all over the place.

 KEITH ARMSTRONG

LEITH WALK, EDINBURGH

Leith Walk it was

where Thomas Carlyle realised

that God did not exist:

Leith Walk

where Stevenson lit

his student pipe

and leched

after a shopgirl’s arse.

He spat

at dashing businessmen,

faces gripped

by hate,

and he loved

the night

did RLS:

the swinging hips,

and lifted dresses;

the tartaned whores spread

over a wild Scots wasteland,

showing their floodlit thighs,

keys flashing

in expert hands,

ready to unlock,

tease out,

the strangest dreams;

in full sight

of a devilish moon,

Leith Walk,

and a nonexistent God.

KEITH ARMSTRONG

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JINGLE IN LEEDS!

Wednesday 27th February - Headingley Enterprise and Arts Centre (HEART) Ltd, Bennett Road, Leeds LS6 3HN  7.30pm.  A reading featuring three Ward Wood poets – Keith Armstrong, David Cooke and Joy Howard.

SKY THE GUIDE DOG

Sky is a guide dog.

He will lick you

into light.

His eyes are pools of sparks.

He is a star hound.

Sky leads us across the universal fields,

opens up the lids of daydreams,

teaches us to feel

those tender rays.

Sky’s vista runs deep,

shows up a braille galaxy.

In this cold, blind dark,

we follow his moonlit trail.

We marry our lonely visions with his

and see

heaven.

KEITH ARMSTRONG