FREE THINKING POEMS

FOLK SONG FOR THOMAS SPENCE

(1750-1814)

Down by the old Quayside,

I heard a young man cry,

among the nets and ships he made his way.

As the keelboats buzzed along,

he sang a seagull’s song;

he cried out for the Rights of you and me.

Oh lads, that man was Thomas Spence,

he gave up all his life

just to be free.

Up and down the cobbled Side,

struggling on through the Broad Chare,

he shouted out his wares

for you and me.

Oh lads, you should have seen him gan,

he was a man the likes you rarely see.

With a pamphlet in his hand,

and a poem at his command,

he haunts the Quayside still

and his words sing.

His folks they both were Scots,

sold socks and fishing nets,

through the Fog on the Tyne they plied their trade.

In this theatre of life,

the crying and the strife,

they tried to be decent and be strong.

Oh lads, that man was Thomas Spence,

he gave up all his life

just to be free.

Up and down the cobbled Side,

struggling on through the Broad Chare,

he shouted out his wares

for you and me.

Oh lads, you should have seen him gan,

he was a man the likes you rarely see.

With a pamphlet in his hand,

and a poem at his command,

he haunts the Quayside still

and his words sing.

KEITH ARMSTRONG

(from the music-theatre piece ‘Pig’s Meat’ written for Bruvvers Theatre Company)

IN THE DEPARTMENT OF POETRY

‘Our paths may cross again, they may not. But I wish you success for the future. I don’t think you are a person who is easily defeated through life as you are by nature a peacock which shows at times its beautiful feathers.’ (Margaretha den Broeden)

In the Department of Poetry something is stirring:

it is a rare bird shitting on a heap of certificates.

He bears the beautiful plumage of a rebel,

flying through the rigid corridors,

the stifling pall of academic twaddle.

He pecks at the Masters’ eggheads,

scratches pretty patterns along the cold walls of poetic power.

He cares not a jot for their fancy Awards,

their sycophantic perambulations,

degrees of literary incest.

These trophies for nepotism

pass this peculiar bird by

as he soars

high

above the paper quadrangle,

circling over the dying Heads of Culture,

singing sweet revolutionary songs,

showing off

his brilliant wings

that fly him

into the ecstasy

of a poem.

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

TELL ME LIES ABOUT NORTHUMBERLAND

(in honour of Adrian Mitchell)

Say this land is ours,

these pipe-tunes do not cry.

The birds all sing in dialect,

old miners breathe like dukes.

Tell me lies about Northumberland.

Tell me it isn’t feudal,

that castles were built for us.

We never touch the forelock,

bend to scrape up dust.

Tell me lies about Northumberland.

Your pretty girls don’t stink of slaughter,

your eyes don’t blur with myth.

You’re as equal as a duchess,

saints never smell of piss.

Tell me lies about Northumberland.

Your roots are in this valley,

you were never from doon south.

You never hide your birthplace,

you’re a real poet of the north.

Tell me lies about Northumberland.

The churches are not crumbling,

the congregations glow with hope.

We are different from the foreigner,

our poetry rhymes with wine.

Tell me lies about Northumberland.

There is no landed gentry,

no homes locals can’t afford.

There’s no army on the moors,

the Romans freed us all.

Tell me lies about Northumberland.

That the hurt is in the past,

the future holds no war.

Home rule is at our fingertips,

the Coquet swims with love.

Tell me lies about Northumberland.

‘The Garden’ is our children’s,

Hotspur spurs us on.

The seagulls are not soaked in oil,

the cows are not diseased.

Tell me lies about Northumberland.

This Kingdom is United,

‘Culture’ is our God.

Everyone’s a Basil Bunting freak,

there’s music everywhere.

Tell me lies about Northumberland.

We will have our independence,

we’ll get the Gospels back.

We live off museums and tourists,

we don’t need boats or trades.

Tell me lies about Northumberland.

We’re in charge of our own futures,

we have north east citizens here.

In this autonomous republic,

we’re free as dicky birds.

So shut your eyes.

And tell me lies

about Northumberland.

KEITH ARMSTRONG

FAT MAN LODGED ON DOG LEAP STAIRS

He pounded the cobbles

of the Castle Garth,

bowling along

with his brain hanging over his neck

and his belly

looming over his huge pants.

His overeducated head

weighed a ton

and bore down

on an arse

fattened on home- made pies.

He was carrying a plan

for the working classes

but forgot his heart was too small,

dwarfed by his huge mouth

and an expensive ego.

He had a board meeting to go to,

the big fart,

and he sweated grants

as he blundered along

to the narrow alley.

He was far too broad of beam really

but he was late for everything,

including his funeral,

and thrust his plates of meat

onto the slippery steps.

History closed in on him,

the Black Gate,

the Keep,

as if to tell him

it wasn’t his,

as if to say

‘get out of my town’.

He squeezed himself onto this narrow stairway

and, like his poetry,

got stuck.

He coudn’t move

for his lack of lyricism.

The Fat Man

was firmly lodged

on Dog Leap Stairs

and the crows

began to gather

to swoop

and pick

the bloated power

from his face.

KEITH ARMSTRONG

WHIRRING OVER THE MOON FIELD

On a Monday, 

with fruity schnapps 

boring away in my gut, 

I scraped along, 

through a bloodstained subway,  

into a grizzly Tübingen play.

Through this fine mist,

the blessed slugs slid 

in the park of 

lovers and drifters;

with the clap of a scream,

the hungover day 

came dawning

into our lives.

The stretch of Wilhelmstrasse

poked out my eye,

my tongue slurped around

in my brain,

looking for verse

to drown the old pain

in the mouth 

of a beautiful

waitress.

‘Kiss me out of my misery,’

I breathed in her delicate ear;

she gave me a flash

of  a Swabian smile,

a hint of Wurttemberg lace.

I stared at her eyes the whole morning,

alone by the cafe door;

I injected my coffee with whisky

as crazy clouds winked 

through dark blinds.

‘Eines Tages als die Gurke sirrend über das Mondfeld haspelte.’ 

(‘One day when the cucumber reeled whirring over the moon field.’):

I had had too much to think,

needed the touch

of a swallow in sunlight;

the love of a sky blue hostess 

on the wings 

of this wasted day. 

KEITH ARMSTRONG

Street Art on Wilhelmstrasse, Tübingen on a wall which separates Osiander Bookshop (no 12) from Cafe Schöne Aussichten (no 16) 

TUEBINGEN/DURHAM LITERARY/ARTS TWINNING

The partnership with County Durham and the City of Tuebingen in South Germany was established in 1969.  

Poet Doctor Keith Armstrong, who gained his doctorate at the University on Durham in 2007, following on from Bachelor's and Master's degrees there, first visited Tuebingen in November 1987, with the support of the County Council and the Kulturamt in Tuebingen, to give readings and talks there for a period of a month. Since then he has travelled to the city over 30 times and helped arrange for Durham poets, musicians and artists and their counterparts in Tuebingen to visit their respective cultural twins.

Doctor Armstrong will be back in Tuebingen from Wednesday 2nd to Saturday 5th April 2014 with artist/photographer Peter Dixon for readings with Tuebingen poets Sara Hauser, Tibor Schneider and Florian Neuner at Weinhaus Beck, a school visit and other networking initiatives. This follows on from his visit from Monday 4th November to Thursday 7th 2013 when  he took part in a major symposium on the theme of writer Hermann Hesse who lived and worked in Tuebingen from 1895-1899. As well as joining in with the discussions and giving a reading from his poems on Hesse and Tuebingen, Keith met with poets, academics, teachers, musicians, cultural and media workers.  

Sara Hauser will visit Durham from Monday 12th to Thursday 15th May 2014 for sessions at the University and meetings with local poets and at Durham County Council's International Office. 

So the twinning continues to go from strength to strength. Looking back on things, 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 that 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 returned the compliment with a trip to Tuebingen in March 2013 where they performed again in bars, cafes and schools with poets Tibor Schneider, Sara Hauser and Tuebingen 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, Sara Hauser.

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.

Tweet tweet!

Retweeted Ben Dickenson (@benjitoon):

@JckCmmn @OldHeaton just finished @jinglinggeordie biography of Jack. Excellent. Now off to write a play 
based on it!

TUEBINGEN - POETRY & MUSIC AT WEINHAUS BECK

Join me with other poets and musicians in Tuebingen on Thursday 3rd April 20.30 at Weinhaus Beck, Am Markt 1 

SHILDON STEAM!

NORTH TYNESIDE STEAM!

Hi friends!
We are working on a new publication commissioned by North Tyneside Council. We are looking for some poetry and prose on the theme of George Stephenson in Killingworth with particular reference to his steam engine Blucher which he built in 1814 (bicentenary).

Please see what you can do. Deadline is end of March and publication is planned for July. Send to: k.armstrong643@btinternet.com

Best wishes,
Keith

SPENCE 200

On the site of Thomas Spence (1750-1814) 'Hive of Liberty' bookshop, Little Turnstile, Holborn, London 
Photos/film: Peter Dixon

Spence's most ambitious production, which bore the imprint of ‘The Hive of Liberty, No. 8 Little Turnstile, High Holburn,’ was entitled ‘Pigs' Meat or Lessons from the Swinish Multitude collected by the Poor Man's Advocate.’ (1793, 1794, 1795).

PIGS' MEAT

“Learning will be cast into the mire and trodden down under the hoofs of a swinish multitude.” (from Edmund Burke’s ‘Reflections on the Revolution in France’)

We are the swinish multitude,

Who feed off the Loose Meat,

Our brains are bacon,

Our balls pork chops,

We honk instead of speak.

We’re pigs’ meat,

Pigs' meat,

We wallow in our muck.

Our snouts deep in the stinking trough,

We don’t give a toss.

Pigs’ meat,

Pigs’ meat,

We riot in the street.

Pigs’ meat,

Pigs’ meat,

We piss on the elite.

We are the swinish multitude,

With sties that blind our eyes.

No sense of direction,

Just one big erection,

We bonk instead of think.

We’re pigs’ meat,

Pigs’ meat,

We wallow in our muck.

Our snouts deep in the stinking trough,

We don’t give a toss.

Pigs’ meat,

Pigs’ meat,

We riot in the street.

Pigs’ meat,

Pigs’ meat,

We piss on the Elite.

We are the swinish multitude,

Incapable of speeches,

We drink royal blood,

We eat the rich,

We fart in Halls of Art.

We’re pigs’ meat,

Pigs’ meat,

We wallow in our muck.

Our snots deep in the stinking trough,

We don’t give a toss.

Pigs’ meat,

Pigs’ meat,

We riot in the street.

Pigs’ meat,

Pigs’ meat,

We piss on the Elite.

KEITH ARMSTRONG

THE HIVE OF LIBERTY

(AFTER THE NAME OF THOMAS SPENCE’S BOOKSHOP AT 8 LITTLE TURNSTILE, HOLBORN)

I am a small and humble man,

my body frail and broken.

I strive to do the best I can.

I spend my life on tokens.

I traipse through Holborn all alone,

hawking crazy notions.

I am the lonely people’s friend.

I live on schemes and potions.

For, in my heart and in my mind,

ideas swarm right through me.

Yes, in this Hive of Liberty,

my words just flow like wine,

my words just flow like wine.

I am a teeming worker bee.

My dignity is working.

My restless thoughts swell like the sea.

My fantasies I’m stoking.

There is a rebel inside me,

a sting about to strike.

I hawk my works around the street.

I put the world to rights.

For, in my heart and in my mind,

ideas swarm right through me.

Yes, in this Hive of Liberty,

my words just flow like wine,

my words just flow like wine.

KEITH ARMSTRONG

WITH VLADIMIR MAYAKOVSKY IN MOSCOW, 1980!

Photo: Tony Whittle

FROM A SWAHILI PHRASEBOOK

That's a really beautiful video, Keith, very moving indeed, and I loved your lyric and poem contribution. It really is very well put together and quite haunting. Thanks for sharing. - Noel Duffy (Dublin poet)

FOR PATRICIA

Is it the optimist in me

that remembers you for your smile?

Out there in a cruel Northumberland

there is a sun

behind the Army tanks at Otterburn

if you strain your eyes

to face it.

Often it seems

so pointless;

our pathetic scribblings

amongst all the sordid agony

of this poisoned world.

But you made me think

that my little trembling efforts 

were so much worthwhile.

For that, I humbly thank you 

and, when I am down again,

your well remembered smile

will touch me

from the heavens

and make me want to sing.

KEITH ARMSTRONG