SONG FOR NORTHUMBERLAND

Drifting in moonlight,

the dunes sing their songs.

Wings of old battles

fly all night long.

Cry of the seagulls,

curse of the ghosts;

aches of dead warriors

scar this old coast.

Hover the kestrel,

sing out the lark,

we will be free in our time.

This air is our breath,

this sea is our thirst

and our dreams are sailing home.

Wandering through castles,

their walls are our lungs.

Searching for freedom

in country homes.

Forbears and old cares

blown in the wind;

pull of loved harbours

draws our boats in.

Surge of the salmon

and urge of the sea

leaps in our local blood.

Peal of the bluebells

and ring of bold tunes

reel in all those grey years.

Slopes of the Cheviots,

caress of the waves.

Shipwrecks and driftwood

float in our heads.

Pele-stones and carved bones

hide in these hills,

roots of new stories

in ancient tales.

Dew on our lips

and beer on the breath,

drinking the countryside in.

Bread of the landscape

and wine of this earth,

flows on these river beds.

Drifting in moonlight,

the dunes sing their songs.

Wings of old battles

fly all night long.

Cry of the seagulls,

curse of the ghosts;

aches of dead warriors

scar this old coast.

Hover the kestrel,

sing out the lark,

we will be free in our time.

This air is our breath,

this sea is our thirst

and our dreams are sailing home.

KEITH ARMSTRONG

Poems from the archives of Poetry North East

Détente




Nothing, in the certainty of knowing goes


evermore regretfully, but this shadow,


an intimacy, which


lengthening through the cool dust of an evening,


dies along these, our familiar streets,


darkly, and in its own quietness.




                                             George Charlton






The North East




Her face is like the murky, muggy Tyne


Belching her detritus into the sea


Of emptiness


Which no face-lift can efface and leave fine.




Your head is like Consett’s skyline


Which tears at the sky like broken marble


Trying to pull it down to shield its children of


Iron and steel born in the black furnace.




Your eye are like the embers of a dull fire


Fighting to keep alive


But losing and dying


Bearing the craters in tranquillity.




Your brain is still alive


The railway lines sprawling across


Your body which feels the pain.




Your mind counts each loss


Like the machine that replaced it,


But could not the monotonous


Beating of the waves – the final humility.




I see nobody, only a mind


Which could not succumb today.


That life is still living in the


Beauty of its birth of yesterday.




                                             Tim Heavisides