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
