FOR YOU, WOMAN OF SOUTH AFRICA

You live under the wide horizon of Africa
Under her wildness of deserts and mountains
And in the night you hear the roll of the ocean


You live under a killing sun
In a shanty town called Crossroads
And you are waiting for a home
         Day after day
                      year
                           after year


Woman of South Africa
You want to live
On your land, in your city, in your street and your home
But THEY want to crush you and doom you
And you are sweeping the sand in the desert
          Day after day
                      year after year


They took away your husband
To use his strength for their wealth
They took you away from your children from
           Dawn
                 to
                     dusk


Woman of South Africa
One morning you woke up in anger and pain
And you shouted at the killing sun
And your friends and sisters woke up with you
Together you uttered the deep cry of South Africa


And together you clenched your fist
Together you started to fight
When they put you into prison
Despite despair, despite hunger
Despite your children dying
You only grew stronger


What strength lies in your heart!
What hope lies in your eyes!
Still sweeping the sand in the desert
You live from day to day
               from hour to hour
               from minute to minute


For the struggle of your people
                a struggle for justice
                a struggle for liberty
                a struggle for victory
Until the day you will be free and you will rise
Embracing the whole wide horizon of South Africa




Anneliese Kloeck


(from Bells Caught, a second anthology from Tyneside Writers' Workshop, 1984)
      

photo: tony whittle

No Turn for Revolution

Old Moor knew how serious things were when
Police didn’t burst into his apartment,
His subsequent non-arrest being followed
By there being no charges laid against him.
An expected show trial was a no show,
While a very public execution,
Complete with martial fifes and sombre drums,
Cohorts of yeomanry drawn up in ranks,
Top brass brassed off with having to turn out
On a brass monkeys’ morning early doors,
And a hand picked nose picking firing squad,
Each one hoping his rifle held the blank,
Was never publicly executed.
Instead there was only orchestrated
Indifference, a dark conspiracy
Of silence, so ubiquitous no one
Could ever quite remember so much as
A single word everyone new they’d all
Tasted on the tips of their tongues. And yet,
None could deny the persistent savour
Of salty words demanding to be spoken,
Invectives of such corrosive language
The very fabric of society
Might be bleached into such broad shades of grey
It would be a palimpsest upon which
A new contract could be written, put down
In such plain English the working class
Could be absolutely certain they’d signed
On their own behalf. That they also signed
Urgent warrants of arrest for bankers,
Stock mongers and general bourgeoisie,
Members of parliament of every stripe,
Not for expenses or other deceits,
Although the guilt is equally shared, but
Collaboration with the enemy
Being the real charge, whether it’s admitted
Or not. Claims to have been a partisan
Must be summarily dismissed as being
Fallacious for having accepted
A seat on the green benches. Ignorance
Of what selling your conscience to the state
For a constitutional stipend means
Is no defence. Worse, if “socialism”.
Or “labour” are only forged currency,
Spent all too easily at the bar of
Complicity upon precise measures
Of intoxicating reforms that seem
So wonderful while they are being swallowed,
But leave the working class with hangovers.
Such headaches and nausea, and much worse,
An alcoholic’s dependence upon
Regular shots of whatever narcotic
Will assuage persistent cravings without
Any thought being given to tomorrow.
Old Moor knows the conclusive temperance
Of his arguments and the clarity
Of his vision can be the only hope
For assuaging popular drunkenness,
Whereby everyone’s just having a laugh
Yet prepared to glass each other on the
Feeblest pretexts, rather than sobering up,
Realising that the world is definite
And neither wobbly nor uncertain, but
Is open to being changed for the better.
Despite such a clear headed assessment,
While the working class denies itself and
Is thoroughly distracted, Old Moor knows
The secret of the secret service is
To conceal themselves so completely they
Don’t arrest his caustic sobriety.

Dave Alton

NEW POEMS BY CATHERINE GRAHAM

The Hoppings Comes to Town Moor

We set off straight after school:

four aunts, mam and a tank of a woman

who called herself Aunty Mary. I preferred

to stay close to Aunt Edie, unmarried and working

at the Co-op. A razzmatazz of lightbulbs flashed

around the moor like a painfree migraine. 

As the music grew louder we could see masses

of Lowry people all heading for the rides.

Chart-topping records invited us to join the party: 

Del Shannon, Brenda Lee and Elvis - Aunt Edie loved Elvis. 

As if battery-operated, two aunts began to bop.

Overcome by a warm cowpat, they stopped

and nipped their noses like synchronised swimmers. 

Scarier than the Ghost Train, the sight of Aunty Mary

in the Hall of Mirrors was - bewildering. Of course,

I wasn't allowed to ride anything dangerous

but the excitement of prize-bingo was infectious.

Aunt Martha hooked a duck; mam complained

about the lack of decent coconuts and we all took a shine

to the goldfish with black spots. We called it Billy

after Billy the Fish, da's best pal at the Black Bull. 

Emerging from the fortune-teller's moonlit caravan, 

Aunt Edie suggested it was time to leave -

Rosa Lee had obviously read the wrong script. 

All the way home, Aunt Edie hummed that song from G.I. Blues.

I could have told her, marrying Elvis was never on the cards.

Crossing Northumbria

i.m. William Brown, Netherton Colliery

Some people follow haunted steps 

to ancient castles

while others leave fleeting prints

on glorious beaches.

Cyclists pedal 

into a seagull sky as the road rises up

to meet the harbour,

where fishing boats wait

with bated breath, their reflections

dancing on the water.

Collier lads call 

from grassed-over graves:

Remember us, we clawed out a living

bare knuckled 

where children now play.

Yellow and greens pleat the open fields

as if a mother's hand has pressed waves.

The question 

on every poet's lips:

Where do I begin

to capture her spirit, her timeless beauty?

REINVENTION

Reinventing

another’s life,

reinventing

their landscape,

you live a profound lie.

Fat

on gorging

on a history

not your own,

on music

which comes

from a river you weren’t born by,

you are a thief,

a stealer

of dreams

not yours.

Learn

about yourself,

your heart,

before you tell

the tales of others,

before you take over

and buy

into a culture

and landscape

you can never

really

understand.

KEITH ARMSTRONG

A Vintage Claret Amongst Black ‘n’ Whites

A Vintage Claret amongst Black ‘n’ Whites


Is such unequivocal evidence


Favours cannot be chosen. They’re conferred,


Passed down generations like a gold watch,


Anachronism this digital age


Of just in time and use by dates. Who’d keep


Such a mechanism now, other than


As a curiosity. Allegiance


Has become a commodity, freely


Traded, worn for a season, discarded


Once fashions change or someone else becomes


Top of the league, top of the range. No one


Is fobbed off with a fob watch anymore,


No matter how great it might have been once,


No matter hallmarks, though rubbed almost smooth,


Are still faintly discernable, no matter


Those marks are eloquent symbols of place,


Of origin, of value beyond price.


It’s so much easier to buy the new,


To sport the latest fad, to see being seen


Through trend-tinted spectacles, to be


Transparent enough for the heart. Sitting


In a Newcastle bar when three o clock


Chimes Saturday afternoon kick-off hour,


When peals of “Howay the Lads!” and “Toon! Toon!”,


The tintinnabulation of fervour,


Ring around Leazes End and Gallowgate,


Sounding like distant clamour of voices


From beyond this mundane world, weaving through


Milling shoppers, the living dead who’re damned


To wander malls of the Eldon Centre,


And shooting, shouting through the open door


Of the pub, I’m a hundred miles and four


Generations away along the Longside.


Whoever is looking for me must see


I am the bastard in Claret and Blue.






Dave Alton

BALLAD OF THE LITTLE COUNT

I’d dance and skip and play

On my fiddle and guitar all day.

Across the vales and dales,

My peacock’s feathers I’d display.

And I’d never forget my roots,

The springs that ran through my boots.

In my mind and ears and eyes

And in my native skies.

For Poland was my cradle,

England is my nest.

And Durham is the quiet place

Where my weary bones shall rest.

I’d flit from Court to Court

And mingle with every sort.

From Kings and Queens to Pawns,

Whatever the morning spawned.

And the women I’d admire

Wherever I found the fire.

I chased their skirts and their smiles

For all my livelong miles.

For Poland was my cradle,

England is my nest.

And Durham is the quiet place

Where my weary bones shall rest.

Keith Armstrong

(From ‘Where My Weary Bones Shall Rest’ written for Durham County Council, with music by Andy Jackson and Benny Graham)

Joseph Boruwlaski ('the Little Count') (1739-1837), Travelling performer and memoirist

Boruwlaski was born into impoverished lower gentry in Poland. At 3 feet 3 inches tall and styled as 'Count Boruwlaski', he was exhibited around the salons and courts of Europe. He moved to Britain in 1782 where, for a charge, he would 'receive company', holding a breakfast to which the public could come and be entertained with music and exaggerated tales of his adventures. He was briefly taken up by Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire and George IV but high society tired of him and, after travelling the country, he retired to Durham. 

from 2006! - intro to 'radical north east'

 A RADICAL NORTH EAST ANTHOLOGY

ARMSTRONG’S VISION

‘Can Tyrants hinder people from singing at their work, or in their families? Sing and meet and meet and sing and your chains will drop off like burnt thread.’

(Thomas Spence)

‘The older lads in the pit had a habit of ballad singing. It was seldom that they knew a ballad right through but they used to sing snatches of ballads and songs at their work and these fastened themselves in my memory.’

(Joseph Skipsey)

‘Geordieland’, we are given to understand by the City Fathers, is undergoing a cultural rebirth. The banks of the Tyne are pampered with a gushing stream of Lottery money, the new Music Centre rubs shoulders with the new Gateshead Hilton. We ‘Geordies’ aren’t so thick after all. We don’t just jog like manic lemmings to South Shields each year in ‘The Great North Run’ but we’re wired for Beethoven and Damien Hirst as well.

Gone are the grubby pits and the dorty back lanes, this a new and dynamic place rising from the squalor of the cloth-cap and the doleful whippet.

The Geordie-joint is buzzin’, we’re even thinking of joining Europe now. So who needs History when you can Party?

And then we have the self-styled ‘Geordie Intelligentsia’, the true proclaimers  of ‘Geordie Genius’, who wallow in an analysis built actually on mythology and inflated regional pride.

So we have, by way of example, the genius Bunting hauled from obscurity by the romantic Pickards operating from their beloved Morden Tower Poetry HQ in a haze of Geordie dope and literati splendour. The stuff of legend! But how much of it is true and how many people know or care? Who really believes in their own bones and hearts the tale of the good St. Cuthbert?

Do they celebrate our glorious Christian heritage doon the Bigg Market of a Friday? Are the Lindisfarne Gospels Alan Hull’s best work?

Even our esteemed Novocastrian academics can’t put their finger on the derivation of the ‘Geordie’ but still we’re proud to be one aren’t we? The most likely roots of the term derive from Newcastle’s opposition to the Jacobite uprisings and the city’s loyal support for the monarch. So much for a progressive culture then!

The new Music Centre will allow the classical ‘Northern Sinfonia’ to share digs with the traditional ‘Folkworks’ outfit. You see there can be no contradictions in ‘Third Way Geordieism’, the cultural boat has come in and we’re all aboard and happy to enjoy ‘the buzz’ created for us by our Glorious Municipality and its entourage of quango-speakers and cultural money-grubbers. All aboard you poets, musicians, thespians, and public art workers! There are grants to be had and we need the loot to fund our coffeehouse lifestyles, we need the tingle of ‘Success’!

In proposing a different look at things through the prism of a Radical North East anthology,

I am seeking to argue that there is a heritage of dissidence in the region and that this needs to be kept alive if there is to be any real vitality and space for argument on the banks of Tyne, Wear, and Tees. To do this, we need to uncover what is truly challenging and subversive in our culture, what is not only local but of universal significance. My own sense of this goes back to the Border Ballads and on to 17th and 18th century Newcastle, to the times of Thomas Spence and Thomas Bewick and Swarley’s Club, where poetry and song spoke for the underclass and sedition was in the air, side by side with the beautiful craftsmanship of Bewick and his school.

We have others from the grass-roots like Joseph Skipsey and Jack Common who offer a more radical insight than the romance of Cookson or the school of ‘Larn Yersel Geordie’.

We need to see our regional pride in world terms to give it a balance with the culture of others. Whilst I would expect the anthology to have a strong focus on working-class and indigenous culture, a culture which the City Fathers would prefer to skate over, we need to to look at this in the context of race and gender, nationalism and multi-culturalism. We need to see how us ‘Geordies’ can celebrate the world.

So the vision is of a refreshed grass-roots culture built on the positive bricks of the past with a sense of a regional universe rejecting cultural imperialism and asserting cultural democracy.

Dialect is important but not hand in hand with feudalism. Folk-singers can be as inspired by the Chilean Victor Jara as much as by Derwentside’s Tommy Armstrong.

I support the Campaign for a North East Assembly but as a stepping to empowerment at a local level not as an extra arm of the Labour Party, which to my mind has become culturally sterile and opportunist in using culture to paper over the gaps in its own political ineptitude.

Not long ago the City Fathers were scarcely bothered about the Arts now they’re a gravy train for inward investment. We need to challenge this use of the Arts to promote Business and the relationship between the two. We need to return the Lottery money to the people.

We are suggesting that the way forward is through a conflict of ideas based on an historical perception of our regional identity. If a Radical North East anthology can contribute to such a debate then it will be worthwhile.

‘In Gateshead, we passed some little streets named after the poets, Chaucer and Spenser and Tennyson Streets ...... and I wondered if any poets were growing up in those streets. We could do with one from such streets; not one of our frigid sniggering rhymers, but a lad with such a flame in his heart and mouth that at last he could set the Tyne on fire.’

(J.BPriestley, English Journey, 1934)

‘Watch me go leaping in my youth

down Dog Leap Stairs,

down fire-scapes.

The Jingling Geordie

born in a Brewery,

drinking the money

I dug out of the ground.’

(Keith Armstrong)

  

                                                                                     KEITH ARMSTRONG

NIGHTJARS AND THEIR ALLIES

(for K.)

The nightjars and their allies

have their heads down in the woods today,

dreaming of wild nights,

a chance to sing on the flickering wing.

And you my dark-haired songstress

could writhe naked on a bed of their feathers

as I touch with my aching fingertips

the tips of your sprawling bliss

in all that lushness between the trembling trees.

For you are dusky,

silky-tailed and

white-winged;

you are my European Nightjar

churring as I make you

spring to life in shivers of moonlight.

White-throated and golden,

star-spotted and black-shouldered,

you straddle your strapping limbs around me,

wrap my leaping heart in charcoal ribbons,

fly me screaming in a flock of black birds

and drench me

with jars of night song.

KEITH ARMSTRONG

FAT MAN LODGED ON DOG LEAP STAIRS

He pounded the cobbles

of the Castle Garth,

bowling along

with his brain hanging over his neck

and his belly

looming over his huge pants.

His overeducated head

weighed a ton

and bore down

on an arse

fattened on home-made pies.

He was carrying a plan

for the working classes

but forgot his heart was too small,

dwarfed by his huge mouth

and an expensive ego.

He had a board meeting to go to,

the big fart,

and he sweated grants

as he blundered along

to the narrow alley.

He was far too broad of beam really

but he was late for everything,

including his funeral,

and thrust his plates of meat

onto the slippery steps.

History closed in on him,

the Black Gate,

the Keep,

as if to tell him

it wasn’t his,

as if to say

‘get out of my town’.

He squeezed himself onto this narrow stairway

and, like his poetry,

got stuck.

He couldn’t move

for his lack of lyricism.

The Fat Man

was firmly lodged

on Dog Leap Stairs

and the crows

began to gather

to swoop

and pick

the bloated power

from his face.

KEITH ARMSTRONG

Silence Does Most To Impress

Just what, exactly, is a life?
Mere accumulated years,
Or no more than a single day?
An hour of laughter and tears


Might well be sufficient, enough
To satisfy appetites
That are, mostly, easily sated.
Although some would prefer nights,


Most would choose to enjoy their days,
However many or few,
In sun rather than moonlight.
But, how to be sure what’s true.


Teachers proved so disappointing;
In the past they would have known
But, the curriculum stops them
Having answers of their own,


As ministers of state decree
Which lessons have to be learned,
Which improving books must be read,
Which libraries must be burned,


Using carbon capture, of course,
To prevent harming the earth.
Bankers were worse. They had no way
Of calculating the worth


Of a minute, or agreeing
A common conversion rate
By which financial exchanges,
With weighting, could calculate


The precise value of an hour.
Perhaps a soul lodged inside
A life might have intrinsic worth:
But, priests remained mystified,


Mumbling vague prayers and platitudes,
Quite unable to mention
Fabulous realms beyond theirs or
Anyone’s comprehension.


As for the physicists, they were,
It appeared, quite overjoyed.
The well of everything, they said,
Was nothing, a fecund void


In which time began to tick. Good!
There was a watch after all,
Though no watchmaker. Better ask
The sextons, those who install


Cold clay in measured pits of clay.
They aren’t fooled by fancy words,
Watching even marble crumble.
The worst for them are the turds


Dog walkers leave behind amongst
Sad sentiments set in stones,
Where they must carefully excavate
For the next skin-bag of bones.


So, on their recommendation,
Prostitutes are consulted,
They know the price of flesh at least,
If not its value. It’s said


By most, there’s no correlation
Between cash and the spending,
Or the time taken for either.
Yet, there’s pleasure in blending


Good whiskies, in grand-fathering,
In choosing a politics
Deliberately out of step,
In a bag of pick and mix


Selected just to stop the mouth
With sweetness, sickly sweetness,
Knowing each day there is less to say,
Silence does most to impress.



Dave Alton

Brief Encounter in the Centurion Bar

She’s no Celia Johnson and he’s not
Trevor Howard.
(Is it actually
Possible to be adulterous
While wearing a trilby?) 
And where’s the smoke?
Great sooty billows from grimy funnels,
A monochrome miasma making eyes
Of parting lovers, tearful with regret
And irritation, while spinning steel wheels
Screech for purchase on slick rails.
Of course,
There is only the efficient hum as
Electric locomotion whispers
Through the station almost unnoticed.
Now, liaisons end at the barriers;
Only one has a ticket.
Until then
They stare across unquaffed glasses, utterly
Oblivious to magnificence
Of ceramic clad walls, to the lagers
Going flat between them, to breaking news
Newcastle United might be signing
Trevor Celia and Howard Johnson
According to Sky Sports report glaring down
From the big screen by the modest mezzanine
Where a poet’s declaiming his peon
To the Centurion Bar’s glazed splendour
And the table with two halves abandoned.


                                                        


Dave Alton

Little Self

Little Self is insistent, determined to be heard, shouting from hilltop, echoing along the valley. Too often the church is concerned for its roof.


Little Self sees only its own reflection in mirrors, watching with suspicion, blind to all other possibilities. A bench in a garden at midnight does nothing to obscure constellations.


Little Self is never satisfied, not even with total victory, nor recognition and honours. Unexpected snowfall means the bird-table needs replenishing.


Little Self claims ownership of the house in which it lives, the land on which it stands, the world through which it moves. A moment’s love is the pearl beyond price.


Little Self is certain about God, wants to be certain about God, needs to be certain about God. A flat battery is a chance on a winter’s morning.


Little Self consults timetables, makes detailed plans, sets the alarm to be absolutely sure. A book is only the beginning as reading goes way beyond it.


Little Self is easily slighted, considers creation to be a conspiracy, insists malice is merely concealed when none is apparent. The singer needs music as well as the lyrics.


Little Self can be so comfortable, settled and warm behind drawn curtains, quietly thrilled by the storm raging outside. Commandments are enduring but the stones were soon broken.


Little Self is fearful, seeks safety in not doing, negates risk by denying its own possibilities. A single cell once sought out another.


Little Self may find no recognition, despite being sovereign, while seeking immortality. As the very beginning is a fecund absence so must the end be.


                                                                                                                                  


Dave Alton