LEAVING FRIENDS/FRIENDS LEAVING

 

(in memory of Paddy Bort)

I have lost my roaring boys and girls.

They are left behind,

fallen from Collegium stools;

the poignant moments in Lange Gasse dust.

Times and laughter shared,

dwindled to an Ammer trickle

in a bleak semester,

worn out days.

Friends are for leaving.

I’m afraid

I am too old to chase it.

These young Swabian mistresses

are too damned quick

for me to grab anymore

their lightning glances,

hints of a possible romance

boarding trains,

flickering

in frigid seminar rooms.

Tear yourself from me

as I stumble

through security.

I know I’ll miss

your touch.

Horst has gone with Hades bar

and the old man

from the Boulanger;

Mick has flown

to the heavens,

now Paddy has fallen,

with all those twinning hours.

Nothing is still.

Her eyelashes flicker,

new wounds open;

the light streams on Wilhelmstrasse,

darkness fills Hafengasse.

A special sunlight

sparkles in my beer,

shafts of it

dart on the counter.

A bird flaps

across my face,

shadow

of a former glory.

So that’s the story:

we lose it all,

we lose everything

and everyone.

It’s why I cling

to the night wind

beating against my cheeks,

to the whisper of the leaves

along this dull suburban street.

The old voices

of mates I made

howling

through the mediocrity

of lonely petrol stations,

soul-destroying car parks.

Puddles

of former joy

winking at the moon.

KEITH ARMSTRONG


Allan Savage I've just been reading your excellent memory to Paddy Bort and came across your farewell to my best friend Jack Routledge. It really brought a tear to my eye. I think about Jack very often and the good times we had singing together. I can remember when Jack and you went to Germany, and how he was so excited when telling me about your trip. Thanks again Keith.

Cath Campbell Ah, Keith. Ah, Godammit. You made me cry. Beautiful poem. Brought my own memories of the gone ones roaring back. 

Harry Gallagher Lovely stuff Keith. 

GORDON PHILLIPS - TYNESIDE POET (1949 - 2017): IN MEMORIAM

Gordon Phillips – Tyneside Poet

I first met Gordon in the early 1970s, both of us “incumdons” to the North East, he from St. Albans while I’d arrived from Burnley. It was poetry that brought us together as active members of The Tyneside Poets.

We shared the ethos of taking poetry away from the self-regarding circles of academe and the cliques to encourage a wider participation. At the same time we developed and honed our own poetic voices.

Gordon’s verse always had a strong musical current pulsing through it and he went on to work with composers to produce work that was lyrical and had strong strains of North Eastern traditions and heritage running through it.

True to the belief in encouraging others we worked together on two anthologies of young people’s poetry under a small press imprint, Pivot Press. For the first one we had a goodly number of contributions and the detailed planning of the anthology was well underway. What we didn’t have was a title. Then Gordon received an envelope with a couple of good poems in it.

The accompanying letter also proved significant. The boy, early teens, was enthusiastic about the possibility of having a poem or two published. However, he was somewhat concerned about how he might be perceived by his peers. This led him to write that he’d be really pleased if we used one of his poems but, “…don’t tell my friends.” Both editions of “Don’t Tell My Friends” were very successful.

Before I left Tyneside in 2012 Gordon had been showing me a poetic project he was working on with St. Mary’s lighthouse in Whitley Bay as its focus. Recently, almost five years later he gave me a copy of the CD, “The Square and Compass”: the project was completed and set to music. A grand piece of work.

Unfortunately, the CD has been followed far too quickly with bad news. On Sunday, 5^th February 2017, the illness Gordon had alerted me to finally claimed him. Perhaps it is always too soon, but this is truly so. On my last visit with him he told me of other projects he still had in mind and I had hoped he might at least be able to bring some of them to fruition. It is not to be.

However, as a poet his voice, Gordon’s words, will live on. It was poetry that brought us together, sustained our long friendship and will remain to speak to me.

Dave Alton

POEM FOR GORDON (1949-2017)


Across a Fenham avenue,
through the pools of stars in your eyes,
the seering light of your vision,
I saw your finely hewed words running towards me,
a crystal stream
tearing along these Newcastle lanes.
We tripped along together
in huddled poetry readings,
throbbing public houses
and ancient mansions,
searching for images
to make our days
brighter,
longing for a folk song
to drink with
in the approaching darkness.
Searching,
always searching,
for the right words
to sing to our loved ones,
we crossed the sea
to fulfil our dreams
from the flat land of East Anglia
into the arms of Scandinavia,
returning with that smile of yours
still intact,
beaming with the sun
breaking up the clouds
on any dogged northern day
in your adopted home,
lending a sparkle to Grainger Street,
a twinkle to our beer;
the joy of a lasting friend,
the spilt dreams
forever flowing with us.


 
KEITH ARMSTRONG




THE TREATMENT BELL (GORDON'S FINAL POEM)

 
On the side wall, beside the reception

hangs the treatment bell,

pristine, silver,

its shine an encouraging glow.



Before it, hopeful patients sit.

The next ringer strikes a note for them all:

a customary three times

for an end of plan toll,

excitement measured in the hammering and applause.

 


Gordon Phillips, 18th December 2016


Note from Maureen Phillips:

The first time Gordon and I heard the three rings of the bell was on his first visit to the Department of Radiation Oncology for consultative purposes to evaluate and determine his most optional treatment.  

The inscription on the bell is:
Ring this bell
Three times well
It's toll to clearly say
My treatment's done
This course is run
And I am on my way
 



FOR THOMAS BEWICK

 
In your precious art you raised
delicate species fresh, alive
with every searching niche of blade,
on metalled tints of bone
in flesh, conceived.

Today, our clear eye can review
that aggregate of animals
and speading plants which grew;
now your thoughts to Cherryburn
are our adoption.

Through sludge of field flung back
from my drag of parting feet,
crossing rutted rural lands
you swept in light and shade,
a lock of trees
inside a border to engrave.


 
Gordon Phillips

(as read by Dave Alton at Gordon's funeral on Thursday 16th February 2017 at St Robert of Newminster Roman Catholic Church,  Newcastle upon Tyne)

AFTER THE UK

Shreds of the UK
flapping in the downturn,
decayed Britain
broken into smithereens.
No Kingdom now,
no United State.
We are
citizens
with no obligation
to genuflect
in front of an overstuffed Queen.

Get the UK out of your system,
no going back.
We take the power
to rule ourselves,
make community,
build our own spaces.
Break
the hegemony
of dead parties,
lifeless institutions,
let debate flower,
conflicting views rage.

We want to breathe
and strip away
executive power,
share
the beauty and culture
of these islands
around.
Make good things,
good love.
Empower ourselves
with an autonomous freedom
in a new England,
in a new Europe,
in a New World
of real ownership
and delicate emotion.




KEITH ARMSTRONG

VAN GOGH

(1)

Years ago Van Gogh the marksman
hijacked a low flying plane and
forced its pilot to fly to the sun:

a few Dutch masterpieces were all that survived,
a few flakes of experience,

sunlight
trapped on the wing.


(2)*

His canvas bleeds,
black gun lies frozen by his side.
His heart falls
broken
from the butcher's cart,
slides
onto the infested street
and in his paint
metal vultures skid,
Van Gogh
stirring it up again.


*The original inspiration for this poem came from a chance observation of what looked like a sheep's heart lying in the middle of a Newcastle street. Evidently fallen debris from a passing vehicle, its blood spattered the road as cars darted over and around it. The following quotation from Artaud's essay 'Van Gogh, the man suicided by society' discovered shortly after the completion of the poem is also relevant: 'Van Gogh was terribly sensitive. To be convinced of this just look at his seemingly panting face, which is also, from certain angles, the spellbinding face of a butcher.'



KEITH ARMSTRONG