Sensational Rock,
swimming in light.
Bird cries clinging to ancient ledges,
Kittiwakes smashing against time.
What tales you could tell.
Your face is so moody,
flickers with breezes,
crumbles in a hot afternoon.
Climbing your powdery steps,
we look down on the sea
thrashing at you.
We join a choir of birds at your peak,
cry out to the sky
in good spirits.
Nesting for the sake of it,
our lyrics are remnants on the shore.
We keep chipping away,
do we not?
We slip
through the pebbles,
splashing
with babies.
We leave our mark,
a grain
on the ancient landscape.
We go.
We dance like the sunlight
on your scarred body:
tripping,
falling,
singing
away.
KEITH ARMSTRONG
That spare room of yours,
telephone between us on the floor.
You, mock gun poised to frighten off
junkies who might steal
your bicycle.
World turning,
night falling
all around us.
Your long red hair,
wide free eyes
taking me in
and the cat you’d just taken in
purring
as the phone rang again to say
that ‘Yes, Sadat was dead.’
Semed that a moment of history
got trapped between us.
You, a journalist,
had to record it quickly.
Me,
I just flew back to England in the lightning
as someone else’s plane
crashed over Holland.
Forgive me breathing in your ear,
I just had to telephone to say
that some way I’d come back maybe
meet you for another drink
of Amsterdam
and Amsterdam rain.
KEITH ARMSTRONG
