DOMINIC WINDRAM - OUR GUEST POET FROM TEESSIDE

The Great Artists

The great artists pass through this life

Like stars of different seasons

Like comets of different centuries

Like broken Messiahs bloodied by doubt

Like flowers barely surviving in snow

They have the deepest need

To shower us with their gifts

As they patiently carve out

The marble and stone of their dreams

But they are rarely understood

Or regarded till long after their deaths

In a world content to live in shadows

Gaza 2014

A trickle of pellucid light

In the smoking ruins of truth

An illuminated word freed

From the tyranny of language

A splinter of memory

In a perpetual present

The grey spectre of the real

In the graveyard of illusion

The Thieves of Holiness

The thieves of holiness hoist their flags

With no genuine authority

They only rule over the chaos

They have cynically created

Their marching songs are discordant shrieks

As they wage their war against Mercy

On the streets the mercenaries

Are a mirror of the general malaise

Barking out crude monosyllables

Fuelled by hatred and hysteria

Their covenant is broken and dishonoured

They have turned justice into wormwood

Their crowns of beauty into ashes

Unlike Jacob they do not wrestle with their angels

In time they will decompose behind their masks

Their flimsy deceits and third rate uniforms

They want generations of ‘ lesser’ beings

To pay for their exodus in the wilderness

Their paranoia strikes at the heart of love

They present a picture to the waiting world

Of a glorious and noble nation

Poisoned by the ‘illegitimate’ other

The truth is lost in translation

And mired in mythologies

Waiting for a New World

I shiver at night in an indifferent world

Where elites violate the poets’ harvest

Where newspapers continue with their careless stories

Targeting the dispossessed and the voiceless

I’d like to tear this Age into intricate shreds

And put it back together again with rich patterns

I’m obsessed with objects that are dipped in light

That counteract the darkness of these times

My poems are for the unseen & unborn

I await a new world that will receive me

Light enters when we are wounded

My words are weeping twilight and sunset

As I pick at fragments of my ruin

Days and nights speed by so fast it’s surreal

I can’t seem to get a firm hold on Time

I think that the glittering veil of Mammon

Hides the bleakest of truths from our eyes

And only when we are burnt by

The black sun of despair, can we be reborn

My heroes are the biblical prophets

Who knew the dryness of bones in the desert

Who knew that holiness had to be earned

From bitter trials by fire, locusts and flood

What I’ve learnt from them is crystal clear

What is torn or broken lets in the light

Why silence is golden

Some say that it’s rain not thunder

That causes great flowers to grow

If that is so I’ll raise the power

Of my poetry not my voice

There’s so much in the world

To raise a clenched fist against

But I will learn to unclench

My heart and all its sorrows

A hymn in praise of silence

Is better than a war of words

In silence truth and beauty

Find their proper place

For silence is the language of God

Anything else is muddled translation

The Varied Fortunes of Poets

One stood among the sunflowers

Listening to birdsong

One was struck by moonlight

In the febrile realms of night

One was lost in despair

For a dry, ungodly season

And then the thunder & lightning

Arrived and he was reborn

Blessed by silvery shards of rain

Another was plagued by madness

And is now sectioned; he is just

Another number in a white, sanitised ward

It turned out that words were no help

It was just like pissing in the wind

I stand upon the precipice

Bursting with dreams & visions

With one hand on my horoscope

One hand on the edge

Poetry can’t change the world

I stand in liquid light by the water’s edge

Wondering what’s happened to my childhood dreams

So far I’ve built my life on poetry

It seems as though I’ve raised a house of sand

I thought that I could heal with shining words

Our contaminated consciousness

But I have been foolish I didn’t reckon

On people’s desire to dwell in shadows

Some say that art is the proper task of life

That might be the case – but to do it right

You have to adapt to the conditions

Imposed by rampant modernity

Or live in a state of permanent exile

While others shut their eyes to truth and prosper

Think for yourself

Don’t depend on the’ mercy’ of the state

Demand your right to exist

For Truth is being straight jacketed

While we remain distracted

Lost in a hyper real haze

Politics is so much window dressing

Democracy is just another modern church

With its secular hymns and slogans

With its hierarchy unchallenged

With its liturgy so meticulously prescribed

To Pinochet

You created the iron cage

To imprison the singing bird

You devised rigid systems

To ‘cure’ the subversives

You trampled the radiant dreams

Of the weary children of the dust

You masterminded the machinery

That broke the bones of paradise

I believe

I believe in the belittled and the benumbed

Gazing like dumb beasts in the wounded night

I believe in chaos that gives birth to stars

I believe that God resides in the mad

And that the pious are way off the mark

I don’t believe in the sermons of the rich

And the wretched rhetoric of elites

I believe that Love abides in a diaspora of dust

I’m set free

His vast realms of silvery Mercy

Rain down on me in the house of decay

This time I will extricate my soul

From the great tentacles of Moloch

And the twisted wires of machinery

At the heart of consumer dreaming

I need to escape the faceless crowds

Of the rampant marketplace

Where the fake, plastic flowers

& the billionaires bloom

I could live with rocks and silence

I could live in awe not comfort

Praised be

Praised be – the rebellious gestures of Jesus echoing through time

& the dialogues of dreamers in the potent bliss of Spring

Praised be – The ripening of stars in the fertile night

& the diaphanous words that glide with the birds on the wind

Praised be – The peace activists railing against the vast, intractable machinery of war

& the so called mad who’ve broken out of capitalism’s metal ways

Praised be – The wounded children of the dust who lie weeping

In the graveyard of frozen vision; may this abundant age address their suffering

Praised be – The unknown saints so humble in their utter ordinariness  

& the most fragile of flowers barely surviving amongst neon & concrete

Praised be The angelic artists scratching at the heart of life; searching for a pulse behind the plastic

& the wilder ones with wandering, fevered minds who cannot rest

Praised be – Those who sip the liquid light from the vital sun of longing

& those who proselytise in plagued streets at midnight

Praised be – Those who find a dwelling place in the soft embrace of imagination

& who oppose its strangulation in the crucible of calculated education

Praised be – The non conformists refusing to follow regimented consumption

& the debunkers of myth & fairytale in the caustic kingdom of advertising

Praised be – the poetry - a flash of light in the midst of a dark, discordant universe

& the revolutionaries buttressing the burning question marks of these times

Praised be – The flesh and the fire of genius thought which reinvigorates leaden lexicons

& the mellifluous music that heightens critical consciousness

Praised be – The saviours of wanton humanity who sacrifice themselves so that we may live

& the mystics and the monks who repeat their mantras to end all pain

Praised be –The holy ocean of infinite wisdom in an age of tainted information

& the immensity of joy that refuses to be crushed by fearful Pharisees

Praised be – The fruits of eternity sweetening in the gilded gardens of existence

& the secular prophets who proclaim the Word but who deny its gleaming reality

Praised be – The redeeming rain pouring through the cracks in our elaborate designs

& the healing days when limitless Love soars over the abyss

Praised be – The rebirth of wonder in deadening democracies

& the Spirit that remains as fleeting illusions fade away

Biography

I am a poet from Teesside with a strong interest in literature, philosophy, comparative religions, politics and psychology. I have a 2.1 B.A Honours degree in philosophy and a Masters degree in Cultural Studies. I have taught many subjects at G.C.S.E and A level and am currently working as a freelance tutor.

In 2009/10 I created and performed an audio visual spoken word project entitled ‘Artificial Eden’ which is a critique of consumer society fused with a deeply human search for an underlying spirituality behind the world of appearances. In addition to this, I have had several poetry books published by Trevor Teasdel of Glass Orange productions.

BRIDGE HOTEL, NEWCASTLE

WILLIAM BLAKE IN THE BRIDGE HOTEL

A few pints of Deuchars and my spirit is soaring.

The child dances out of me,

goes running down to the Tyne,

while the little man in me wrestles with a lass

and William Blake beams all his innocence in my glass.

And the old experience sweats from a castle’s bricks

as another local prophet takes a jump off the bridge.

It’s the spirit of Pat Foley and the ancient brigade

on the loose down the Quayside stairs

in a futile search,

just a step in the past,

for one last revolutionary song.

All the jars we have supped

in the hope of a change;

all the flirting and courting and chancing downstream;

all the words in the air and the luck pissed away.

It seems we oldies are running back

screaming to the Bewick days,

when a man could down a politicised quip

and craft a civilised chat

before he fed the birds

in the Churchyard.

The cultural ships are fair steaming in

but it’s all stripped of meaning -

the Councillors wade

in the shallow end.

O Blake! buy me a pint in the Bridge again,

let it shiver with sunlight

through all the stained windows,

make my wit sparkle

and my knees buckle.

Set me free of this stifling age

when the bland are back in charge.

Let us grow our golden hair wild once more

and roar like Tygers

down Dog Leap Stairs.

KEITH ARMSTRONG    

SURREAL NEWCASTLE

NORTH TYNESIDE STEAM IN NEWS GUARDIAN

THE ENERGY BILL SONG!

THE ENERGY BILL SONG

They’ve got you on the run to run your juice,

They’ve got you on the run to run your juice.

Oh me oh my which one to choose,

You’ll be picking up the tab no matter whose.

You’ve gotta have a stash to burn your gas,

You’ve gotta have a stash to burn your gas.

Oh me oh my they cannot lose,

You’ll be picking up the tab but you don’t know 

whose.

What’s coming through the wires is all the same,

What’s coming through the pipes is all the same.

For everybody knows they’re coming the game,

For everybody knows they’re coming the game.

G. F. Phillips

FOR CUNY- JOHN CUNNINGHAM PASTORAL POET 1729-1773

‘Search where Ambition rag'd, with rigour steel'd;

Where Slaughter, like the rapid lightning, ran;

And say, while mem'ry weeps the blood-stain'd field,

Where lies the chief, and where the common man?’

(John Cunningham)

‘Unto thy dust, sweet Bard! adieu!

Thy hallow'd shrine I slowly leave;

Yet oft, at eve, shall Mem'ry view

The sun-beam ling'ring on thy grave.’

(David Carey)

This week an elegant tombstone, executed by Mr. Drummond of this town, was set up in St. John's church-yard to the memory of the late ingenious Mr. John Cunningham. The following is the inscription thereon:

‘Here lie the Remains of JOHN CUNNINGHAM.

Of his Excellence as a Pastoral Poet,

His Works will remain a Monument

For Ages

After this temporary Tribute of Esteem

Is in Dust forgotten.

He died in Newcastle, Sept 18, 1773,

Aged 44.’

The ritual slaughter

of traffic,

hurling itself

against the furious economy,

the commerce of suffering,

the pain of money,

nudges your bones

in this graveyard of hollow words.

I hear you liked a jar

well, here’s me

sprinkling

your precious monument

with a little local wine,

lubricating the flowers

that burst from your pastoral verses.

You toured the boards like me,

torn like me,

with your heart,

terrific heart,

pouring real blood on your travelling sleeve.

Oh, my God!

your lips trembled

with a delicate love

for the fleeting joy,

the melancholic haze,

the love in a mist,

that Tom Bewick sketched in you

amd Mrs Slack fed

as you passed along

this way and that

despair in your eyes.

The fact was

you were not born

for the rat race

of letters,

the ducking and fawning

for tasteless prizes,

the empty bloated rivalry,

the thrust of their bearded egos.

You wanted wonder,

the precise touch

of the sun on your grave,

the delicious kiss

that never comes back.

I’m with you, ‘Cuny’

in this Newcastle Company of Comedians;

I’m in your clouds of drunken ways;

I twitch with you

in my poetic nervousness

along Westgate Road.

And the girls left their petals for you

like I hope they do for me

in the light of the silver moon,

thinking of your pen

scratching stars into the dark sky.

KEITH ARMSTRONG

meanwhile back in newcastle!

BEAUTIFUL NEWCASTLE - PHOTOS BY DR KEITH ARMSTRONG

THOMAS SPENCE 1750-1814

NEWCASTLE UNIVERSITY RELEASE – 10 NOVEMBER 2014

Radical idea unearthed in Newcastle

 

A revolutionary document that lay undiscovered in a Newcastle library for over 200 years has just been published.

 

Thomas Spence’s penny pamphlet Property and Land in Every One’s Right is one of the founding texts of the English radical tradition, pre-dating Marxism.

 

Believed lost for many years, the original has not been in print since 8 November 1775.

 

This year marks the 200th anniversary of the death of its author - an important and original voice in political history.

 

“Spence’s story is a rags to rags tale of defiance and ingenuity,” explains Prof Bonnett, of Newcastle University. “Today his name is little known but this in no way reflects his significance. ’Spenceanism', which called for the democratic, common ownership of the land, was once hugely influential among the poor,” he adds. “It also appears to be the only political ideology to have ever been outlawed by the British Parliament.”

 

Thomas Spence: The Poor Man’s Revolutionary is edited by Prof Bonnett and local poet Keith Armstrong, and includes expert opinions from all over the world about the wide-ranging impact of this unique, working-class polymath.

To reach a mass, semi-literate audience, Spence invented his own phonetic alphabet and spread his message in unique ways, issuing thousands of coins embossed with political messages.

 

“Perhaps Spence can be best summed up by one of the inscriptions he placed on one of his self-minted coins, the coin his friends chose to place in his coffin,” says Prof Bonnett. “It depicts a cat, staring straight out at us, and around it are the words, ‘IN SOCIETY LIVE FREE LIKE ME’.

 

“He was very stubborn and not at all interested in compromise, or reforms and half-freedoms.”

 

Born into poverty on Newcastle Quayside in 1750, Spence is seen as the father of children's rights. He also accorded women equal democratic rights and is believed to be the first person to write about 'the rights of man' in English.

 

In 1787 he moved to London, setting up a bookshop on Chancery Lane, and became immersed in the capital’s turbulent radical sub-culture. He went to prison for selling Thomas Paine’s The Rights of Man, but disagreed with him on a number of fundamental issues so began issuing his own inflammatory penny weekly, Pigs’ Meat or, Lessons for the Swinish Multitude. “Spence took considerable risks in a dangerous city: spies, threats and conspiracy swirled around him,” says Prof Bonnett. “His wish for ‘perfect freedom’ often took him one step further than his peers.”

 

Prof Bonnett will be discussing Thomas Spence: The Poor Man’s Revolutionary, with Dr Keith Armstrong at the North East Labour History Society Open Meeting at 7pm on 18 November 2014 at the Lit & Phil, Westgate Road, Newcastle http://www.litandphil.org.uk/index.shtml

 

Ends

10/11/14

 

Notes to Newsdesks:

 

(i) Dr David Garner-Medwin, who died in June 2014, was leafing through some battered 18th century documents at the Literary and Philosophical Society when he came across an intriguing penny pamphlet titled ‘Property and Land in Every One’s Right, dated 8 November 1775. He immediately recognised it as one of Thomas Spence’s founding texts of the English radical tradition.

 

(ii) Three years after Spence’s death an Act of Parliament was passed prohibiting ‘All societies or clubs calling themselves Spencean or Spencean Philanthropists’.

 

(iii) Prof Bonnett will be discussing Thomas Spence: The Poor Man’s Revolutionary, with joint editor Dr Keith Armstrong, at the North East Labour History Society Open Meeting at 7pm on 18 November 2014 at the Lit & Phil, Newcastle.

 

(iv) Book details: Thomas Spence: The Poor Man’s Revoluntionary pub Breviary Stuff Publications £15.00 214pp paperback ISBN 978-0-9570005-9-9 http://www.breviarystuff.org.uk/thomas-spence-the-poor-mans-revolutionary

 

(v) For more information, contact Newcastle University press office on 0191 208 7580 or email press.office@ncl.ac.uk

 

 

Sarah Cossom

Media Relations Manager

Corporate Affairs

Newcastle University

King's Gate

Newcastle upon Tyne

NE1 7RU

Direct line: 0191 208 6067

Mobile: 07814 143551

Please note that my usual work hours are Mon-Tues (full days) and Weds (half day – am)

AKENSIDE SYNDROME - BOOK LAUNCH

BOOK LAUNCH AT THE TYNE BAR, MALING STREET, NEWCASTLE SATURDAY 1ST NOVEMBER.

3:30pm to 4:00pm - Joe Sharkey talking a bit about the book with some musical interludes and poems by Keith Armstrong.

4:00pm to 4:45-5pm - Burger and chips from the BBQ and book sales (or exchange/give complimentary copies etc.).

5:00pm - stand-up John Scott does a set to finish the event (probably about 20 minutes).

GRAINGER MARKET, NEWCASTLE - A NEW PROJECT

This is life,

the gloss and the flesh,

Weigh House of passion and flame.

You can get lost in this market’s amazement

but you can never lose yourself.

Sometimes,

a sleep walk in these grazing crowds

can feel like a stroll through your brain.

Keith Armstrong

A city

within a city,

light cage.

Bazaar and blind,

these swollen alleys

flow with a teeming life’s blood.

Geordie !

Swim for your life !

Keith Armstrong

Photos: Peter Dixon

ALAN C. BROWN 1922-2014 - A BRIEF BIOGRAPHY

Photo by Tony Whittle

Alan C. Brown was born on the 23rd of November 1922 in Newcastle upon Tyne. 

He served in the R.A.F. from 1940-1948, after which I trained as a teacher and taught in several different types of school until his retirement. 

He was then free to focus on writing and on translating poems from the Russian and other European languages, putting a selection of poems by Maya Borisova and Galina Gamper into an English translation and having these published.

Alan pioneered the Tyneside Poets group who wrote, read, performed their work at home and abroad in Russia, Germany, Sweden, Bulgaria and elsewhere and welcomed visiting poets from these countries over to Newcastle to give public readings for many years.

His own poems were extensively published in small magazines and books over recent years.

He was married to Sheila, an artist and violinist, and leaves two daughters, Dorothy and Helen.

As Chair of the Tyneside Poets group, he held a fortnightly Writers’ Workshop at the Old George Pub in Cloth Market, Newcastle where members learned about European and World Literature.

Alan’s main interests were history, philosophy, politics and religion.

He published many poetry books over the years including:

THE SECRET RIVER, THE RAG DOLL PEOPLE, VERITAS, MIRRORS OF LIGHT, WATERED GARDEN, REEDS AND REFLECTIONS, ADJUSTMENTS, THE ANGRY DUST, REALITY SANDWICH, WATER AND SHADOW and BLETHORSKITES (poems in Geordie dialect).

He also compiled two anthologies: GOLDEN GIRL (a celebration in poetry of Newcastle uopn Tyne) and ST. MARY’S LIGHTHOUSE.