(for Tony Whittle)
In the Hotel Utopia,
we’re as happy as mortal sin.
You can hear an old man crying
through the city din.
There’s a tap that’s always dripping
and walls that are paper thin
and, in this Hotel Utopia,
we’re really dreaming.
There’s a picture in the bathroom
of a resort miles away
and the stairs creak like the old man’s lungs
as he lives another day.
Outside, the trams go tumbling past
and a young girl lights the glass.
It’s Amsterdam and more days lost
on the streets that run so fast.
Yes, here in the Hotel Utopia,
we’re as happy as mortal sin.
You can hear an old man crying
through the City din.
There’s a tap that’s always dripping
and walls that are paper thin
and, in this Hotel Utopia,
we’re really dreaming.
Remember Anne Frank passed this way
so you could grab some Speed,
get high on Sex and learn tp pray
for this City of Eternal Greed.
Take a canal boat, a Rembrandt Ride,
take a hippie down a diamond mine.
I’m a happy man but this City’s sad
and we’re running out of time.
Here, in the Hotel Utopia,
we’re as happy as mortal sin.
You can hear an old man crying
through the City din.
There’s a tap that’s always dripping
and walls that are paper thin
and, in this Hotel Utopia,
we’re really dreaming.
You can lose your eyes in a haze of dope,
you can drink your life to death.
Lying down, in these days of hope,
you’re running out of breath.
So pack your bags and fly away,
through the crowds on these Amstel streets.
Just one last whiff of a Tulip Day
and the weight is off your feet.
In the Hotel Utopia,
we’re as happy as mortal sin.
You can hear an old man crying
through the City din.
There’s a tap that’s aways dripping
and walls that are paper thin
and, in this Hotel Utopia,
we’re really dreaming.
KEITH ARMSTRONG
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vLOUbuFxQI
'Well Keith your beautiful poetry melts my heart, you know that don't you?
Good to see you writing about current politics, don't stop, our country may be depressing politically but the things that are happening are still brimming with meaning and young people today especially need to believe that poetry can be powerful.'
(Jen x)
'No one in the North East has written and read and
encouraged and organised so consistently and over so
long a period as Keith Armstrong. His poetry is
different, original, and politically exhilarating.’
'It doesn't matter which way his poems are facing, or
the subjects they address, it is recognisibly the same
sensibility, each part of a unified whole, and unified
by the same, strong identifiable voice.' (Andy Croft).
