from newcastle's twin city in the netherlands!

bordering on the ridiculous - from 1977

MAP OF THE WORLD

We turned its global head as babies,

traced its edges onto paper,

scarcely scratched

the surface

of that old familiar spotted face

shaped up, boiling for a fight.

Hung on walls,

it looked so static

but in its latitudes and longitudes we knew

that people moved,

homes grew,

cities drowned

and cliffs broke.

Later, travelling,

we stepped out

across the sheet,

skipped the Channel,

entered 

new squares.

Then creeping back

at dusk,

we folded up this map,

packed away the ice

and sunny beach,

stuck it all in a small back pocket

and shrunk back

into our own world’s frontiers.

That tiny territory

of our scars.

KEITH ARMSTRONG

The Diamond and the Flame

Crushing a diamond

Between thumb and forefinger

Remains a rare talent,

One

Not to be used

Promiscuously.

As for the residue,

Precious dust that it is,

Almost certainly

Best stirred widdershins

Into molten tallow;

Not, mind you,

Synthetic wax

White enough for feint hearts

Palpitating

At a prospect of light

Emanating from fat

Rendered through slaughter.

Adamant glistered tallow-dip,

Hand fashioned

Into slender candles,

Sparkling

By their own flame

When set in sconces,

High overhead,

To mark an occasion.

As for thumb and forefinger,

They can be soothed,

Sterilised,

By nipping out

A burning wick.

The diamond and the flame,

Both pinched

In one movement,

In one moment,

In one morsel

Of history

With which five,

Five hundred,

Five thousand might be fed.

Dave Alton

(Award winning poem at the Warkworth Show, August 2012)

HARTLEY

THE HARTLEY PIT CALAMITY 1862: 

a display in words and images to mark its 150th anniversary

The Hartley Pit Calamity of 1862, when 204 men and boys lost their lives, was the first large scale mining disaster of Victorian times. The extent of the Calamity, together with the spreading of news by rail and telegraph, brought this tragic event in rural Northumberland into the homes of families throughout the land on a daily basis.

The reaction from the public, together with the interest shown by Queen Victoria, kept the story in the press for more than a month. Just as evidenced in 2010 in the Chilean mine rescue, the public were gripped by the horror of men trapped underground and the heroic efforts made to rescue them.

A new display has been produced by Northern Voices Community Projects to mark the 150th anniversary of the Calamity. It has been compiled by Dr Keith Armstrong and Peter Dixon of NVCP and members of the Hartley1862 Research Group and was commissioned by North Tyneside Council with the support of the Heritage Lottery Fund. With historical documents and images, alongside the background history and poems and photographs by local people, it forms part of a series of events and activities intended to ensure that the story of Hartley is not forgotten.

The display begins its tour at the beginning of September 2012 as part of the Heritage Open Days programme in St Alban's Church, Earsdon and at New Hartley Memorial Hall where it runs alongside the newly commissioned pathway in the memorial garden.

Further venues follow from October until December 2012 when it appears at Blyth Library, Wallsend Memorial Hall, Segedunum Museum (Wallsend), the Linskill Centre (North Shields), Newcastle Library, Seaton Sluice Community Centre, the John Willie Sams Centre (Dudley) and Wellfield Middle School (Whitley Bay).

FURTHER DETAILS: 

NORTHERN VOICES COMMUNITY PROJECTS, 93 WOODBURN SQUARE, WHITLEY BAY, TYNE & WEAR NE26 3JD TEL. 0191 2529531 

EMAIL:  k.armstrong643@btinternet.com

two rivers meet

MORE FROM 'POETRY NORTH EAST'

THE WAY TO ALSTON

On top of the Pennines, the way turns wild;
The bracken breaks through the grassed hillside,
And the road falls like a dancing girl
Flinging her hair and swinging

Down to Staward Pele
To tunnel in trees of quiet secrecy
And ghosts of hidden animals.

And up onto the drizzled fells
Where rivulets scar the barren mounds,
The road twists childlike to the valley's side
Dependent, searching support.

But Alston's mountains reach the sky:
Adults, unashamed
Of their force and stature.
Stone walls tumble like brocken shackles:
These hills are bondage free
And of unshakeable identity.


WENDY ZOULA


REVELOPMENT


Like Wellsian Martian War-machines
The cranes occupy Newcastle,
Dribbling buildings ugly as money
Across this reluctantly human town.


MICHAEL STANDEN


THE INVALID


I'm surrounded by brick.
Brick walls,
                                      Brick houses;
Not a green stick visible.
Brick, with its autumn-tint
Of nicotine,
                                      Denying summer
Like a faded print.

How like an immigrant
In quarantine,                 
                                      Brick curbs
My green exuberance;
Though summer's pungency
                    Wafts strong as mint.


CYRIL PATTERSON

Memory Tree

Tree

Determined to be

A shrine?

Passers by

Along the by-pass

Pass by

Sorry rose bouquet

Still wrapped in cellophane

Twine tied

By a drunk it seems

About the knotted trunk,

Which also displays

A poem,

Washed out

Through

Stanzas of tearful rain,

And a few

Photographs

Bleaching to greys.

German cemeteries,

Predisposed

To the disposal

Of their Great War dead,

Are lead tinted,

Not blessed

Short order lawns

Set

With serried

Rank on rank

Of whitewash crosses

Right dressed.

Gravestones

Are grey stones

Beneath

Sombre oaks

Grown full height

For spirits

To soak

Like sap

From saps

In which the bones lie,

Shell shattered,

Upwards

Through scattered clouds

Into the limitless sky.

Memory

Sinks deep roots

Seeking nourishment

To feed shoots

That,

Season by season,

Seem evermore slender,

Liable to wither.

Remembrance tree,

Hitherto

Merely a tree,

Has no reason

To serve,

As bonds that bind

Fray through

Releasing

Decapitated flower stems,

Words

And pictures,

Ceasing

To bear the weight of them

All.

Here Woden

Once hung Christ-like

Fearing the fall,

Spurned,

Waiting for when

Crows returned.

                        Dave Alton