ROCK 'N' REEL LATEST ISSUE

MARSDEN ROCK

 

MARSDEN ROCK


 

Sensational Rock,
swimming in light.
Bird cries clinging to ancient ledges,
Kittiwakes smashing against time.
What tales you could tell.

Your face is so moody,
flickers with breezes,
crumbles in a hot afternoon.

Climbing your powdery steps,
we look down on the sea
thrashing at you.

We join a choir of birds at your peak,
cry out to the sky
in good spirits.

Nesting for the sake of it,
our lyrics are remnants on the shore.

We keep chipping away,
do we not?

We slip
through the pebbles,
splashing
with babies.

We leave our mark,
a grain
on the ancient landscape.

We go.

We dance like the sunlight
on your scarred body:

tripping,
falling,
singing

away.




KEITH ARMSTRONG

I LOVE THE LIGHT IN TUEBINGEN

 






























I love the light
in Tuebingen
streaming down Marktgasse,
flooding in my beautiful blue eyes.

In this light,
I see
the good times
I have dwelt in here
over the bowling years:

the chemistry of Goethe,
the love of books
and poetry that sings
with the joyous swifts,
screeches with
the very pain of life.

This town
casts a glow
in me,
throws me lifelines
to write with,
fishing for ideas
in the sweeping river:

boats
of finished pamphlets
nodding at me
in the sunshine.

I love the light
in Tuebingen
streaming down Marktgasse,
flooding in my beautiful blue eyes.



KEITH ARMSTRONG

HEXHAM RACES - DR KEITH ARMSTRONG'S POETRY RESIDENCY

HEXHAM RACES POEMS INTRODUCTION


The following poems are by Tyneside writer Dr Keith Armstrong. They were first written in the year 2000 for his poetry residency at Hexham Racecourse and an exhibition of the poems with artwork by local artist Kathleen Sisterson was launched at an event at the Racecourse in September of that year, introduced by Hexham based sports writer Harry Pearson, with readings from Keith and folk music from Mike and Peter Tickell and Ray Sloan on Northumbrian Pipes.
Since 2000 Keith has been a regular visitor to Hexham Races and continues to find inspiration for his poetry in every visit.

Other commissioned work by Keith includes ‘Fire & Brimstone’ the story of Tynedale artist John Martin and ‘The Hexham Celebration’, both for the Hexham Abbey Festival.
He also has also compiled and edited a local history book ‘The Town of Old Hexham’ and organised a festival celebrating the life and work of Hexham born poet Wilfrid Gibson.

UNSTABLE GIRLS



I am drawn to them
by the luck of the draw:
unstable girls
who roll me in the hay
and romp
across the bolts of lightning in my head,
their hair flashing
through all my racing
uncertainty.



LAMENT FOR A TIC-TAC MAN



Tick tock
the tic-tac man
once waved
his white gloves
in my dreams,
signalling
the end
of lost ideals.
One of the old gambling school
he was,
his hands
flitting
across the dashing fields.
Riding
thin air
with his monied semaphore,
he guided life,
against the odds,
to a chancer’s death;
a Ladbrokes’ graveyard,
where all the old tic-tac men
lie buried
and uncomputerised.


LIGHT HEAVY



Light
from the steppes and plateaus,
heavy
with the weight of forests,
these proud ancenstral beasts
come galloping
through my dreams.


PRAYER  FOR THE UNKNOWN HORSEMAN



Let my breath
catch the sungleam
on an elegant head.
May my heart
soar,
my eyes burn
with the joy
of a hot day.
Horses are harnessed wind;
let me not frighten or harm them.
Show me ways
to understand them.
Let the scent of fresh hay
always be sweet to me.
Let my blood
stampede
with horses.


 
KEITH ARMSTRONG




 

RACECARD POEMS
 
The Federation Brewery Amateur Riders’ Selling Handicap Steeple Chase

THE GREEN FOOL
OLD ALE
GONE AWAY
 
The Buchanan Ales Conditional Jockeys’ Handicap Hurdle Race

ETERNAL CITY
ON YOUR OWN
FASTNLUCE LADY
 
The Keoghans ‘National Hunt’ Novices’ Hurdle Race

ONE STOP
THE SNOW BURN
SIT BACK
HAPPY BLAKE
FOREVER GREY


The Levy Board Maiden National Flat Race

FOR CAROL


VALLEY OF HOPE
THE OTHER HALF
GLACIAL PRINCESS
LITTLE TWIG


The Federation Brewery Novices’ Steeple Chase

AIDE MEMOIRE

SIX CLERKS
SUPREME SOVIET
PATTER MERCHANT


The Grant Williamson Chartered Accountants ‘National Hunt’ Novices’ Hurdle Race (Div 2)

JUST HUSH
DANTE’S AMOUR
NAUGHTY FEELINGS
FIERY BELLE


The Service Welding Novices’ Hurdle Race

EVENING CHORUS
CLASSIC BLUES
CHOIR BELLE


The Keoghans Novices’ Hurdle Race

DARING NATIVE
CHERRY TART
ANGEL IN DISGUISE
FROSTY LIGHT
GOLDEN MEADOW


The Consett Printing Company Standard Open ‘National Hunt’ Flat Race (Class H)

WILLING
PRIMITIVE COUNTESS
GOLDEN GROOVE
DANCE N’ SKIP


Hexham Courant Novice Handicap Hurdle Race (Class E)

NORTH MOSS
COOL MINER
LOOKING MAGIC



The Carnaud Metal Box Conditional Jockeys’ Novices’ Hurdle Race

BLOOD BROTHER
HAND OF STRAW
INTO THE BLACK
GALE AHEAD


The Pensher Security Doors Selling Hurdle Race

ENERGY MAN
BALCONY BOY
SINGING PROFIT
FLUTTERBY LADY
PETITE BUSH
LA PERDOMA


The Consett Christmas Novices’ Steeple Chase

SLAUGHT SON
UP FOR RANSOM
HALF EACH


The Tote Handicap Steeple Chase

BLAZING DAWN
SUPER SANDY
SINGING SAND


The Founders Ales Novices’ Hurdle Race

SOUTHERN BELLE
BIG TARGET
ONE FOR ALL
IN DEMAND
THRASHING
BORDER FARMER


The Federation Brewery Standard National Hunt Flat Race

YOUNG RAB
SILVER REBEL
SILKEN MEMORIES
MIGHTY FINE

HEXHAM TANS

‘Hides lifted from a lime-pit were soaked for days, scraped and ‘bated’ in solutions of dog excrement and ground bark before hanging up to dry.’

 
You ancient company
of skinners and glovers,
you gossiping crafts.

You hatters and tanners,
leather dressers and cutters,
we can hear you and sniff you in Hexham’s dank lanes.

You clockmakers and bookbinders,
pipemakers and joiners,
we touch your worksore hands.

You shoemakers and collarmakers,
weavers and saddlers,
we bear your burdens and your smiles.

You dressmakers,
ropeworkers,
cabinetmakers,
basketmakers.
Tinsmiths and
millwrights,
butchers and
engravers.

You 1000 sewing women in your homes,
you bakers and tapestry-makers,
you’ve led us here -

we worship you,
we drink your sweat.



KEITH ARMSTRONG

FREE THINKING POEMS

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

NAKED!

(for Spencer Tunick & his followers)


Naked at the conference table
naked
naked on a beer label
naked
naked in Iraq
naked
naked on the bloody rack
naked
naked as torture
naked
naked as a Baghdad butcher
naked
naked to a public school
naked
naked as a pubic fool
naked
naked in a Gateshead alley
naked
naked as a nuclear family
naked
naked as a pub dart
naked
naked as a bleeding upstart
naked
naked in the corporate office
naked
naked on the bleeding coalface
naked
naked to a stupid war
naked
naked as an arts whore
naked
naked as a councillor in hock
naked
naked as a business hack
naked
naked as I can’t be arsed
naked
naked in a uk farce
naked
naked as a Brendan Foster
naked
naked as a duty roster
naked
naked as a boomtown rat
naked
naked as a poetry brat
naked
naked in the supermarket
naked
naked as a sitting target
naked
naked as the bomb
naked
naked in a Bosnian womb
naked
naked in the Belsen darkness
naked
naked in our wilful blindness
naked
naked under manipulation
naked
naked under a brain tarpaulin
naked
naked as an artist’s prop
naked
naked in the cop shop
naked
naked at the wrong time
naked
naked at the pantomime
naked
naked in the Lottery Gallery
naked
naked as a stick of celery
naked
naked as a stripper in the club
naked
naked as a bourgeois shrub
naked
naked as a strapping Geordie
naked
naked as a gunning Saudi
naked
naked in an Utrecht gutter
naked
naked as a poor kid’s stutter
naked
naked as a star on tele
naked
naked as a starving belly
naked

naked!




KEITH ARMSTRONG




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)

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
 

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

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

LAMENT FOR A WRITER DEAD


He died,
clinging on to his pen,
at six in the morning,
his usual stint.
He’d run out of anything to write about.
For years, he’d watched the world go by his study,
observing other people’s lives.
All he had to do was fill the page,
disengaged,
lacking in instinct,
without a history,
with no real vision of any particular community.

After all,
he knew he was
a writer,
a describer,
inscriber of someone else’s paving stones.
An expert on poetry,
with nothing much at all
to say.





KEITH ARMSTRONG 


outside your lonely window


My God,
we are
indeed lucky,
in this great and ancient city,
to have,
in our presence,
such a poet as you.
Sometimes,
it even seems
that you
are bigger than us,
with your huge dome
dominating
our history.
Such an immense
and supreme
ego,
larger than the space
in Grainger Market.
And, when it comes to writing up our story,
we, of course,
must turn to you,
with your flawless technique
and structured craft,
turn to you
in our peasant
ignorance.
Since,
though we have folk songs,
they cannot do justice
to the language,
like you
above all,
can.
Perhaps,
next time,
before we break
into song,
we should ask you
to subject our voices
to your analysis.
But then
I don’t think,
in your padded academic tower,
that you can hear us all
singing
in the trees,
outside
your lonely window.





KEITH ARMSTRONG 


the bearded wonder

(who ate all the pies?)


The Bearded Wonder
takes you down a dark alley
to teach you
to write a degree.

The Bearded Wonder,
shorn of modesty,
man of power
above all.

The Bearded Wonder,
brain wrapped
in shock of hair,
hiding love.

The Bearded Wonder,
Presidential Bard,
Committee Man
so hard to please.

The Bearded Wonder
in joyless covers,
his intellect brooding
over Wor City.

The Bearded Wonder,
arse parked in dictionaries,
barks out his verse
behind our backs.

The Bearded Wonder
wears rootless hair,
could fart in any town
and crow.

The Bearded Wonder,
so chuffed with his output,
comes to tell us
how not to sing.




KEITH ARMSTRONG