HIER KOTZTE GOETHE (GOETHE PUKED HERE)

 



























‘About Goethe, the legend says that he was invited to stay here in Tuebingen for a while but on the very first day that he was walking around he couldn't stand the smell of the open channels and did what he had to do.’

Goethe puked here
he did.
Poured out a tide of words
on the street.
Couldn’t stand the smell of war,
the decay of stinking empires,
ugly whiff of bad poetry.
He did,
he puked on Tuebingen,
on all the drivel
coursing from the normal text books.
He had to.
To keep his guts open to the theory of beauty,
vomit out the wretched ugliness
from this town’s pouting ulcers.
Clear ‘Coin Alley’
for all the shouting children
to dance along,
for his mate Schiller to rhyme by,
for the swifts to sing
over it all,
over and over again
in this distinct order of loveliness.





KEITH ARMSTRONG

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

Mo Shevis  I think Adrian Mitchell would have been well and truly honoured by that one Keith!

TRAVELS IN CUBA WITH DOCTOR KEITH ARMSTRONG

photos by keith armstrong

CUBA, CROCODILES, RAIN

It is raining on crocodiles,
bullet-tears on the scales.
Here, where the balance of power has changed.
These banks of hardened green-backs, spread
stoned along the water’s edge,
are caged
like old dictators,
reigns ended
as young Cuba
surrounds them.


MUSEUM OF THE HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION, MONCADA BARRACKS

Here there are:
field guns,
remnants of scorched earth
and grass
the Guerillas chewed
All enclosed in;
pock-marked walls,
a shot-up barracks
with windows
you can now see children through.

This is:
the Museum of the History of the Revolution;
outside, across the road,
it is being extended,
all the time.


IMAGE OF CHE GUEVARA

Across Revolution Square,
his face beams
redder and larger than
the sun.
Can any one man
be this big?
He is a Christ to them;
an ideal inflatable,
blown by a strong wind
that clenches the U.S. flag
in its grip
and tears it
into what it is:
pieces of bought skin.
Guevara -
whose dreams go on
purposefully drifitng,
pinning shirts
to sweating backs.
In the haze of Havana,
the heat from his gaze
burns a laser way
through the Yankee jungle
to the other side.
Across Revolution Square,
he is above all men
a man.



KEITH ARMSTRONG,

Havana.

I WILL SING OF MY OWN NEWCASTLE

I WILL SING OF MY OWN NEWCASTLE

sing of my home city
sing of a true geordie heart
sing of a river swell in me
sing of a sea of the canny
sing of the newcastle day

sing of a history of poetry
sing of the pudding chare rain
sing of the puddles and clarts
sing of the bodies of sailors
sing of the golden sea

sing of our childrens’ laughter
sing of the boats in our eyes
sing of the bridges in sunshine
sing of the fish in the tyne
sing of the lost yards and the pits

sing of the high level railway
sing of the love in my face
sing of the garths and the castle
sing of the screaming lasses
sing of the sad on the side

sing of the battles’ remains
sing of the walls round our dreams
sing of the scribblers and dribblers
sing of the scratchers of livings
sing of the quayside night
 

sing of the kicks and the kisses
sing of the strays and the chancers
sing of the swiggers of ale
sing of the hammer of memory
sing of the welders’ revenge

sing of a battered townscape
sing of a song underground
sing of a powerless wasteland
sing of a buried bard
sing of the bones of tom spence

sing of the cocky bastards
sing of a black and white tide
sing of the ferry boat leaving
sing of cathedral bells crying
sing of the tyneside skies

sing of my mother and father
sing of my sister’s kindness
sing of the hope in my stride
sing of a people’s passion
sing of the strength of the wind


KEITH ARMSTRONG

(as featured on BBC Radio 4) 

"I heard the broadcast. You should be congratulated on your contribution. It was certainly more enjoyable than a man describing the photographs he'd taken on the wireless." (Brian Bennison, North East Laboury History Society).

A PRAYER FOR THE LONERS

 

The dejected men,

the lone voices,

slip away

in this seaside rain.

Their words shudder to a standstill

in dismal corners.

Frightened to shout, 

they cower

behind quivering faces.

No one listens

to their memories crying.

There seems no point

in this democratic deficit.

For years, they just shuffle along,

hopeless

in their financial innocence.

They do have names

that no lovers pronounce.

They flit between stools,

miss out on gales of laughter.

Who cares for them?

Nobody in Whitley Bay

or canny Shields,

that’s for sure.

These wayside fellows

might as well be in a saddos’ heaven

for all it matters

in the grey world’s backwaters.

Life has bruised them,

dashed them.

Bones flake into the night.

I feel like handing them all loud hailers

to release  

their oppressed passion,

to move them

to scream 

red murder at their leaders -

those they never voted for;

those who think they’re something,

some thing special,

grand.

For, in the end,

I am on the side of these stooped lamenters,

the lonely old boys with a grievance

about caring 

and the uncaring;

about power,

and how switched off

this government is

from the isolated,

from the agitated,

from the trembling,

the disenfranchised 

drinkers of sadness.

 

 

 

KEITH ARMSTRONG

 

 

Kenny Jobson absolutely excellent

Davide Trame This is a great, powerful poem

Libby Wattis Brilliant poem x

Gracie Gray Very evocative Keith. x

Sue Hubbard Very strong

David Henry Fantastic! A powerful and very moving poem 

Strider Marcus Jones A great poem full of so many truths.

Dominic Windram Great stuff Keith... always a vociferous voice for the voiceless! 

Siobhan Coogan Beautiful Keith you give a voice to the lonely