36 GOALS

(in memory of Hughie Gallacher, Newcastle United’s record goalscorer in 1926-7, who committed suicide in 1957)

Thirty six goals,

more than one way to skin a halfback.

Thirty six snapshots

of a legend

framed in Tyneside pubs.

That’s how we remember you Hughie,

for the good things in life.

Thirty six steps to fame

and a sprinking of treasured ashes

in a football boot.

You put us on the map for a season.

A thirty six gun salute

is the least we can do

for a man

with poetry in his feet,

a bottle of Brown in his pocket,

and a championship medal

round his neck.

You kicked us 

into ecstasy,

into the Blue Star yonder.

You were a magic dribbler

and stocky with it.

So, keep your feet still Hughie hinny.

They’ll never drive

those bonny dreams away.

KEITH ARMSTRONG 

THE YEAR OF THE OX

TALE-PIECES
THE BLOG OF THE BEWICK SOCIETY
SUNDAY, 29 MARCH 2009

THE YEAR OF THE OX
The Whitley Great Ox Festival – Saturday 28 March 2009.
In memory of the 18th century Quadruped immortalised by Bewick in his copperplate engraving of The Whitley Large Ox.

The original Ox engraving was produced for the owner Mr Edward Hall and published on the 10 April 1789. The Ox became a beast of folklore in the 1780s due to its immense size, growing to a height of over 5ft 9ins and weighing a massive 216 stones. It was said to have grazed near the site of the aptly named Fat Ox pub in Whitley Bay before it was walked all the way to Newcastle to be slaughtered.

Keith Armstrong has penned these lines:






THE YEAR OF THE OX

It was 1789 the Year of the Great Ox,
the year the beast got loose in Paris,
when Whitley Bay was sleeping.
The year of the storming,
when John Martin was born in Haydon Bridge,
his heart breaking with painting visions;
the year of the slaying
of old regimes
when royalty hung in the slaughterhouse.
The Ox walked seven days,
like a doomed aristocrat
to have its tallow used to light the night,
to show the way
for the Rights of Man,
to sacrifice its beastly life
to keep a candle burning
and give us hope
and faith and charity,
a glint from God
and a gleam in Thomas Bewick’s eye
as he engraved the swollen moment
for all to see.


KEITH ARMSTRONG

THROUGH THE EYES OF A GREAT OX

Exhausted,
what could you see?
The mob grabbing your life,
and Tom Horsley’s butcher’s axe
hanging over your great spirit
as you valiently strode
the mucky road,
along the throbbing seashore,
through the pestilence of Tyneside,
its filth and flames,
its poisoned air and quack’s potions,
its Geordie beauty and debauch.

Edward Hall thought he owned you.
After a few beers, he thought the very universe was his.
But you, my sturdy fellow, were your own Ox
and could see the folly
of the swinish multitude
as it came to get you
to rip out your guts
and feed the Duke and Duchess,
and all their grasping subjects,
to satiate their appalling vanity.

You had more dignity than them.
You gave up your animal life
for others.
While Eddie Hall he died in pomp,
you, my massive beauty, were unselfish,
a Great Beast
full of love,
the very meat
of life itself
in all its morning glory,
in all its starry wonder;
the wide and beautiful sky
through the miraculous eyes of an Ox.


KEITH ARMSTRONG

THE CONSTITUTION OF AN OX

It had the Constitution of an Ox:

Girth at the belly 10 feet 9 inches
Girth at the loins 10 feet 4 inches
Girth at the shoulders 10 feet 3 inches
Girth behind the shoulders 9 feet 9 inches
Breadth at the hips 3 feet
Breadth at the shoulders 2 feet 6 inches
Height at the fore-crop 5 feet 9 iches
Height at the loins 5 feet 11 inches
Height from the ground to the breast 1 feet 6 inches
Weight 216 stones 8lbs.

That was the Constitution of the Ox.
The track record, shape, volume, build, realm, history, cut and nub of it, the scale of things, the order of the Ox, the full measure of the beast drawn by Thomas Bewick for all of us in awe of it, in a world that never ceases, to astonish.



KEITH ARMSTRONG

ST. MARY'S ISLAND, WHITLEY BAY

FRIENDS OF ST. MARY’S ISLAND

Around the low water mark,

kelp beds grow.

Network of rockpools,

boulder shore.

Long-legged bar-tailed godwit,

expert

at finding

mud and sand-living worms.

Seabed of rocky reefs,

shipwrecks dived within and around.

Wrasse and lumpsucker.

Seashore Code.

Remembered rambles,

geology jaunts.

Soft coral communities.

Relic dunes.

THE BEACON

A St. Mary’s Light

incandescent

with rage.

A three ton lens,

balanced

on a trough of mercury,

kept revolving,

round the gas mantle,

by a simple pendulum 

wound up

on the hour.

A climb

up 137 steps,

inside the 120 foot tower,

a hiss of flame,

clamping 

of a prism

constantly

turning.

Since medieval times,

across the ocean fields,

this beacon 

has burned,

blinking

on the drink.

Years sailed by,

memories

of shipwrecks,

of Russian soldiers

cholera-wracked

in 1799,

of the ‘Gothenburg City’

and rats with chewed tails.

These heartbreaking waves,

the illumination

of shafts of history:

the rays

and days

of a shining Empire

sunk.

KEITH ARMSTRONG

NORTH TYNESIDE STEAM - KILLINGWORTH BOOK LAUNCH

GRAND POETRY

GRAND HOTEL, TYNEMOUTH RESIDENCY 

GRAND TIMES - A NEW PUBLICATION 

Featuring Keith Armstrong’s sequence of poems inspired by his recent artist's residency: 

(1)

From this Grand window

My eyes

Surf

Across the sea

To a world 

Of stars

And tranquility.

(2)

In Room 333

I feel free

To admire

The view

And dream

Of a Duke 

And a Duchess

And a world

Passed by.

(3)

The Grand

Long Sands

So much

To understand.

(4)

Ships in the Night

Passing along

Hotel corridors

Full

Of memories

And exotic cargo.

(5)

The gulls’ wings

Flicker

Between the curtains

In my room.

(6)

I have written

A Grand poem

On the Long Sands

For visitors to read

From their windows.

(7)

Snapshots

At Reception

Today

All my dreams

Are

In colour.

(8)

There’s a seagull 

In Copperfield’s

And its wings

Are wet

Full 

Of the drink 

And tales

Of the Ocean.

(9)

The dogs

Are bounding

RIght across the Sands

And I

Am breathless

With love.

(10)

I am 

Getting married

To a barmaid

Today

All my dreams

Will come true.

(11)

This Hotel

Is friends

And its rooms

Are full

Of kisses.

(12)

I give 

You

This ring

To wed you

To the Sea.

(13)

The Grand Hotel 

Is on our flight path

And the sky is

On the Menu.

KEITH ARMSTRONG

Grand Hotel, Tynemouth 

SONG FOR ANNELIESE

You can’t analyse Anneliese,

she has too free a view.

Anneliese flies through the breeze

And makes a dream come true.

She’s a free floater, not a voter.

There’s a song inside her head.

When she dances she prances, no disco romances;

She sways into my bed.

She’s a German daughter, no teacher taught her.

No nails can hold her down.

When she needs to, she’s free to, no rules to bow to;

She wears no fancy gown.

You can’t analyse Anneliese,

she has too free a view.

Anneliese flies through the breeze

And makes a dream come true.

She’s a true feminist, a brainy anarchist.

She has no hatred in mind.

She’ll love and she’ll give and try to forgive;

She’s not the possessive kind.

She’s a poet on skis, on a flying trapeze.

For her beliefs, she’ll travel miles.

She’s a constant surprise, she’s a gleam in my eyes;

I see planets in her smiles.

You can’t analyse Anneliese,

she has too free a view.

Anneliese flies through the breeze

And makes a dream come true.

KEITH ARMSTRONG

THE STORY OF STEAM: FOR GEORGE STEPHENSON 1781-1848

‘How wonderfully has his invention facilitated the meeting of thousands of fond and happy lovers.’ (Thomas Summerside)

The story of steam,

history’s hiss 

through the passing

of engines and 

clapped-out hours.

The pereptual urge

to move

into the peace

of sleeping valleys;

iron dreams

and the nagging drive

of cruel ambition 

on the banks of the sliding Tyne.

You knew all this George,

how violent life is,

as, thoughtless in your youth, 

you stole a blackbird’s eggs,

developing an understanding

of mankind’s urge

to rip forests apart,

to make ways

through gardens and castles, 

for commerce

and selfishness to have their way.

That and the wonderful offshoots

like lovers

getting together

and children laughing

in cultural deserts.

Your broad Northumbrian tongue

echoed along rails,

barked orders

to force idle workers

to spark the engines

that scared the crows

and brought terror to horses and cattle

with the fiery blast of mechanical power.

Your ambition surged roughshod

over delicate flowers,

more interested in the mechanics of time 

and fixing watches

than the whispers that the clocks of dandelions

heard in the breeze.

Mister Practicality, 

though you knew that the human lot

ended up in vapour,

you still told the pitmen’s sons that the earth

was round,

taught algebra to the lads

in a curiosity shop

of working models,

self-acting planes

and perpetual motion machines.

In your litttle garden,

you grew gigantic leeks, astounding cabbages,

scarecrow ams to fly in the wind

and a sundial to record the ticks of days.

Hammering the flaming hours

into the rickety shape of Blucher,

you moved people along the way,

crafted the valves, the rods and cylinders

of life

into a breathing thing

that lolloped along,

careering like you

into a famous night.

It did not come without a price;

My Lord, they can’t imagine

how much you scraped along in the dirt,

the bursting blisters on your feet,

your hurting fingers as you began to write.

Wriggling out of the Militia,

you earned everything you got,

forced 

to suffer the deaths of wives and daughter

and the blinding of a father.

Weeping bitterly on the West Moor to Killingworth road,

thinking of leaving for America,

you got to your own station in the end.

Geordie,

with Ferguson’s ‘Astronomy’ in your hardy hands,

you gave us many a glorious smoke-filled day,

brought young lovers together on platforms

awash with the smell of smoke

and the sparks of hearts 

spreading lightning across the land. 

KEITH ARMSTRONG

from 'North Tyneside Steam', Northern Voices Community Projects, 2014.