(in memory of Jack Routledge, folk singer)
In ‘The Phoenix’,
you belted out
your heart again
for us,
playing on those bones,
the minutes beating on your bodrahn,
and your lungs full to bursting
with the music
of days long gone:
‘the wash house
standing in the rain,
the smell of washing
through a broken pane.’
I thought you were a brick,
safe as houses,
but you crumbled,
just like your beloved Byker Bank,
broken.
Sinking the darkness of a Guinness,
I listen to a tape of you
that night in Lauffen,
your voice filling the pub,
and I can see
the sweat dripping from you,
all those sung memories
shared with us,
flowing
like the Tyne.
We grew apart, I know,
but, friend Jack, now that you have gone,
I’ll treasure even more
the times we socked it
to ‘em all
those nights merry
with my sweet poetry,
and brilliant
with your sweet songs.
KEITH ARMSTRONG
Your description fits him to a 'T' - his clear voice, lungs bursting, beads of perspiration, he put everything into his singing - oh, and not to mention his playing of the bones !! Such memories stay with us.
With thanks and all good wishes - Ken Hudson
- Lower Wyke, West Yorkshire
