WALLINGTON MORNING BY DR KEITH ARMSTRONG

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Wallington-Morning-Keith-Armstrong-ebook/dp/B077517R1F/ref=sr_1_1_twi_kin_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1512059608&sr=8-1&keywords=keith+armstrong+wallington+morning
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https://orwellsocietyblog.wordpress.com/2017/10/31/wallington-morning-by-keith-armstrong/

ELEPHANTS IN TUEBINGEN

Such a postwar circus, 

swill of pigs and drawn out cold war,

the bleeding never stops.

Under the straw,

the claw of a miserable history

grabs down the years

at the young who are innocent

of all the butchery and whoredom.

Imperial Germany is a fagged out colonial office,

a sweating prison

of bashed up ideals,

a broken clock

covered in ticks and leeches.

The animals have escaped

and invade the Market Place.

Elephants sup at Neptune’s old fountain,

spurt out the foam of stagnant days, 

trunks curling to taste the Neckar water.

This Tuebingen is a surreal pantomime:

barmaids swing from ceilings,

policemen hang from their teeth.

Frau Binder throws them buns.

And our Max Planck is a dream inventor.

Some boffin of his crosses a peach with a tulip,

the genetics of a bayonet in a breast.

The menagerie moves on to the Castle,

a giraffe nibbles at a church.

The sun gnaws at the clouds.

Like a clown,

I leap to down beer.

And a hideously sweet lady cracks a whip

and flashes her milky thigh at me.

It is no good.

I cannot raise a glassy smile anymore.

This circus is a tragedy.

The animals are sad 

and rotten

with the stink of carnage,

seeping 

from your television screens.

KEITH ARMSTRONG

FOR MY MOTHER AND FATHER

THE BIRD WOMAN OF WHITLEY BAY

(FOR MY MOTHER)


She is out feeding the birds,
on the dot again,
in the drizzle of a seaside morning;
the seed
cast fom her hand
to the jerking beak of a cock pheasant.

She is alone
in a flock of dark starlings,
scattering crumbs to make them shriek.

She is a friend of spuggies,
gives blackbirds water.

Her eyes fly across the garden
to catch a quick robin,
to spot a wee wren,
to chase a bold magpie.

She is innocence,
she is a lovely old lady;
still giving,
still nursing.

She deserves heaven,
she deserves a beautiful nest
to dream out her last hours
in bird song;
in the rich colours of music,
in the red feathers of sunset,
she is my mother,
she is a rare bird
who fed me beautiful dreams.

Thank you for letting me climb
with the skylarks.

Thank you
for the strength of wings.


 
KEITH ARMSTRONG
 

SPLINTERS

(FOR MY FATHER)

You picked splinters
with a pin each day
from under blackened fingernails;
shreds of metal
from the shipyard grime,
minute memories of days swept by:
the dusty remnants of a life
spent in the shadow of the sea;
the tears in your shattered eyes
at the end of work.
And your hands were strong,
so sensitive and capable
of building boats
and nursing roses;
a kind and gentle man
who never hurt a soul,
the sort of quiet knackered man
who built a nation.
Dad, I watched your ashes float away
down to the ocean bed
and in each splinter
I saw your caring eyes
and gracious smile.

I think of your strong silence every day
and I am full of you,
the waves you scaled,
and all the sleeping Tyneside streets
you taught me to dance my fleeting feet along.

When I fly, you are with me.
I see your fine face
in sun-kissed clouds
and in the gold ring on my finger,
and in the heaving crowd on Saturday,
and in the lung of Grainger Market,
and in the ancient breath
of our own Newcastle.



KEITH ARMSTRONG

 
‘This is one of the poems I'll never forget. I see the struggling of my own dad in your words.
Thanks for your fine poem.’ (Klaas Drenth)

‘Beautiful poem. Loving, moving memories. Most excellent Keith.’ (Strider Marcus Jones)

‘Love the poem Keith. That’s my dad.’ (John McMahon)
 
‘Beautifully visual Keith, nice to share your memories.’ x (Annie Sheridan)
 
‘Lovely poem, loving memories too.’ (Imelda Welsh)
 
‘So, so good, Keith - I'll share this, if you don't mind.’ (Kenny Jobson)
       

WALLACE'S RIGHT ARM BY DR KEITH ARMSTRONG

 




































On 23rd August 1305, William Wallace was executed. At that time, the punishment for the crime of treason was that the convicted traitor was dragged to the place of execution, hanged by the neck (but not until he was dead), and disembowelled (or drawn) while still alive. His entrails were burned before his eyes, he was decapitated and his body was divided into four parts (or quartered). Accordingly, this was Wallace's fate. His head was impaled on a spike and displayed at London Bridge, his right arm on the bridge at Newcastle upon Tyne, his left arm at Berwick, his right leg at Perth, and the left leg at Aberdeen. Edward may have believed that with Wallace's capture and execution, he had at last broken the spirit of the Scots. He was wrong. By executing Wallace so barbarically, Edward had martyred a popular Scots military leader and fired the Scottish people's determination to be free.

WALLACE’S RIGHT ARM

Wave goodbye ye oafs of culture,
let your rootless dreams drift away.
History has come to drown you in blood
and wash up your empty schemes.

Yon tottering Palaces of Culture
are seized by the rampaging sea.
They are sailing back to the Equator
to burn in a jungle of fear.

Three hundred million years me lads,
unseen from these high rise days:
an ice sheet thick as an ocean,
all those hours just melted down.

Into rich seams of coal,
tropical plants were fossilised;
the sandbanks grew into sandstone
and the mudflats into shale.

And the right arm of William Wallace
shakes with wrath in this firework night.
It is waving goodbye to your history,
it is saying hello to Baghdad.

All the brains of your Labour Party
are stashed in a carrier bag.
Down Bottle Bank in the darkness,
you can hear Wallace scream in a dog.

And will you hang, draw, and quarter my home street?
Will you drop bombs on the music hall?
You have taken the bones from our loves
and taken the piss from the Tyne.

So give me your arm Good Sir Braveheart,
I’ll take it a walk through the park
and I’ll use it to strike down a student
with an empty shell of a soul.

And I’d give my right arm to make ships,
my left to stoke dreams alive.
And I will dance on in the brilliance of life
until oppression is blown away.


KEITH ARMSTRONG