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

wallace's right arm

On 23rd August 1305, William Wallace was executed. At that time, the punishment for the crime of treason was that the convicted traitor was dragged to the place of execution, hanged by the neck (but not until he was dead), and disembowelled (or drawn) while still alive. His entrails were burned before his eyes, he was decapitated and his body was divided into four parts (or quartered). Accordingly, this was Wallace's fate. His head was impaled on a spike and displayed at London Bridge, his right arm on the bridge at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, his left arm at Berwick, his right leg at Perth, and the left leg at Aberdeen. Edward may have believed that with Wallace's capture and execution, he had at last broken the spirit of the Scots. He was wrong. By executing Wallace so barbarically, Edward had martyred a popular Scots military leader and fired the Scottish people's determination to be free.

WALLACE’S RIGHT ARM

Wave goodbye ye oafs of culture,

let your rootless dreams drift away.

History has come to drown you in blood

and wash up your empty schemes.

Yon tottering Palaces of Culture

are seized by the rampaging sea.

They are sailing back to the Equator

to burn in a jungle of fear.

Three hundred million years me lads,

unseen from these high-rise days:

an ice-sheet  thick as an ocean,

all those hours just melted down.

Into rich seams of coal,

tropical plants were fossilised;

the sandbanks grew into sandstone

and the mudflats into shale.

And the right arm of William Wallace

shakes with wrath in this firework night.

It is waving goodbye to your history,

it is saying hello to Baghdad.

All the brains of your Labour Party

are stashed in a carrier bag.

Down Bottle Bank in the darkness,

you can hear Wallace scream in a dog.

And will you hang, draw, and quarter my home street?

Will you drop bombs on the music hall?

You have taken the bones from our loves

and taken the piss from the Tyne.

So give me your arm Good Sir Braveheart,

I’ll take it a walk through the park

and I’ll use it to strike down a student

with an empty shell of a soul.

And I’d give my right arm to make ships,

my left to stoke dreams alive.

And I will dance on in the brilliance of life

until oppression is blown away.

KEITH ARMSTRONG

MORE FROM THE 'POETRY NORTH EAST' ARCHIVE

BORN OUT OF RESIGNATION


Slime nosed and grubby
Children
Spill across the dust of
Demolition
Into crumbling backyards
Where stems of sunlight
Turn fragments of masonry
Into tigers' eyes and
Moonstones.
And, above the strident excitement
Of the 'treasure hunters',
The carillon of the Civic Centre
Drifts folk tunes across
The wasteland
To a knot of men
Squatting outside the Shieldfield Arms
Burying the slow trade of time
In Sunday newspapers.
Sensitivity reduced
By a resilience
Born out of resignation,
A man coaxes mucus
From his throat,
Directs it at the
Hard element of rubble -
An exclamation mark of
Stoicism
That betrays no loss of
Conscience.




Goff Esther




EARSDON SHEEP


At Earsdon sheep can pick their way
Over the wet green needles of their dumpling hill
With dainty grace, deft as Arab eyes at market.
Each tuft's a small bazaar, but their hunting is joyless.
Black nostrils pucker up in winter's greed,
Mean lips rip up quick bargains and snap shut.
They spill across the Earsdon hill, these sheep
Like a caravan gone wrong.
Under the filigree glories of Northumberland's lid,
I half expect, half hope to see
A pink pendentive mosque, with a minaret pointing
Like an emperor's fist held up in clemency.
And, while this blowzy northern sun slumps in debauch,
I hear a muezzin baying for obeisance
Over the bowed heads of these Earsdon sheep.
Useless to say you know
A square black Saxon church squats on this hill
Agelessly strong, agelessly chill, visions destroying.
Thick slabs of slate and tubloads of lead nails
Fasten it to the hill like a doom.
Yet, at its heart is the shape of a lamb
And some of the old caravanners' names
Are kept in a book there.


Not long from now, scrubbed children will choir there
Telling of unwashed shepherds, carolling of sheep,
Shaking dull copper bells, whistling up Magi
Below a mellow light that's sucked from under Arab feet.
They will stand in stilled huddles before
Sackfuls of dusty straw
Strewn with careful abandon to simulate pastoral life.
They will lay their piping icons at the foot
Of a flimy structure purposely wrought rough
To house the wraith of poverty seasonally dragged out
Which is for us humility, for Arabs wealth.






Norman Green

The New Zealand Connection - 2 Poems by Jenny Argante

Jenny Argante’s latest collection is Working in the Cracks Between (Oceanbooks, 2012.) She is a published writer and professional editor who created and taught on the Waiariki Institute of Technology’s online Diploma in Creative Writing for seven years. She is now engaged with preparing Poetivity: How to Read and Write Poetry for publication later this year. 

Grounded

To measure the sun's height

you don't need to be

a bird, a probe, or

winged Icarus failing to scope

red-hot perplexity,

fallen to zero

Do as the wise men do

who nightly study stars,

the moon's cold certainties

emerging, pale, red-eyed,

to calculate sun's distance

where it strides:

meaning determined

with both feet on the ground.

simplicity

the cut face of the quarry

the sharp upswell of hill

the Norfolk pines that stamp the pass

across the bordering rill

the palimpsest of unleaved trees

as ghostly as a dream

beside the road the railway track

beside the track a stream

beside the stream a barricade

of boulders, rock and scree

beyond unseen, beneath unknown

experienced in me

beside the rock, the ripening range

that draws the upward eye

high snow, low cloud and a pale moon

against a leaden sky

JOE WILSON

Joe Wilson was probably the most prolific of all the Geordie songwriters of his time. Many of his works were published in his book of Songs and Drolleries.

Keep Your Feet Still Geordie Hinnie

Oh, keep your feet still Geordie, hinnie 
Let's be happy through the neet
For we may not be so happy through the day. 
Just give iz that bit comfort 
Keep your feet still Geordie lad 
And divvent drive me bonnie dreams away.   

Why, wor Geordie and Bob Johnson, man
They both lay in one bed 
In a little boardin' hoose doon by the shore. 
Afore he'd been an hour asleep 
A kick from Geordie's fyuet 
Made Bob waken up to roar instead of snore. 

Keep your feet...  

Noo, I dreamt there was a dancing held 
And Mary Broon was there 
And I dreamt we tripped it lightly roond the floor 
I held hor heaving breast to me 
Whilst waltzing roond the room 
And that's mair than I dared ever dee before. 

So keep your feet...  

Noo, you knaa the lad she goes with? 
Why, they call him Jimmy Green' 
And I dreamt he tried to spoil us in wor fun 
I dreamt I nailed him heavy 
Man, I blacked the big fyul's eyes 
And if I'd slept I divvent knaa what I'd ha' dyun. 

So keep your feet...  

Noo, I dreamt Jim Green had left the toon 
He'd left his lass to me 
And the hoose why it was fornished with the best 
And I was waalkin doon the aisle
With Mary by me side 
When your clumsy feet completely spoiled the rest.

So keep your feet...  

the jingling geordie!

A QUIET PINT (IN A TYNESIDE PUB)

There was a time when this bar was busy

Even at two on a Tuesday afternoon,

Tongues bloating with beer, talk nicotine stained

And perhaps rather louder than needs be.

Racing on the telly, of course, sound down,

No one watching apparently, except

A snort and the careless, but accurate,

Toss of a scrunched slip into an ashtray.

In the backroom, just passed the pungent bogs,

Over pints of scotch and shared roll ups, young

Republicans plotted revolution

Or their latest schism into factions

Over whose turn it was to get the next round.

At that very table in the corner,

Fancy that still here after all these years,

Sat the bloke, brown ale and schooner, reading

Marcus Aurelius or Epictetus,

In Latin. Always wore a tweed sports jacket,

Pockets torn from being the side saddles

Of his second hand library, and that

Ridiculous comb-over, but not from

Vanity, more disdain. He never smoked.

Then the Tuesday he wasn’t there, nor the next

And never again. For many a week

His chair stayed empty, no one would sit there

No matter how busy the bar, until

The lassie who, nearly paralytic,

Flopped down into it one Friday evening

And slept the night away across the table.

A few days later council workmen came

And daubed double yellow lines all along

By the kerb just outside. From then, it seems,

The sun never again managed to shine

Directly through the Victorian stained glass

That is still, nonetheless, quite a feature

Of the upper casement of the front window. 

                                                  Dave Alton

Fathers’ Day

Curlews have a little recognised competence

For rendering themselves invisible

All the while soaring to warble

From the full height of the sky. While

Along the old earth laid wagonway,

Where mountain bikes now pass

Where once laden kibbles of coal

Trundled on behind labouring locos,

Through cuttings between Japanese knotweed,

Cow parsley and unscented wild roses

I pursue my constitutional, lost

In thought in familiar surroundings.

Those roses I recently heeled in were

Deep yellow, Hybrid Teas, pungent,

Almost ostentatious as memory

Needs be, not to be forgotten,

With this being the very first Father’s Day

I could not send a card.

                                          Dave Alton

STREETS OF TYNE

I kicked out in Half Moon Yard,

bucked a rotten system.

Fell out with fools in All Hallows Lane

and grew up feeling loved.

She dragged my hand down Rabbit Banks Road,

there seemed nowhere else to take it.

We mucked about in Plummer Chare,

soaked up the painful rain.

I wanted to control my life,

shout songs on Amen Corner.

I’d carry bags of modern ballads,

hawk pamphlets on Dog Bank.

Wild girls who blazed through Pipewell Gate

taught my veins to thrill.

I caught her heart on Pandon Bank,

my eyes filled up with fear.

Wanted to carve out a poem,

inspire the Garth Heads dreamers.

A lad grew up to dance along 

the length of Pilgrim Street.

I take my wild hopes now to chance

the slope of Dog Leap Stairs.

Follow the pulse of my Tyneside days,

burn passion down The Side. 

KEITH ARMSTRONG   

'A beautifully crafted  piece.'

Darren Carlaw,

Editor,

Stepaway Magazine

GREY’S MONUMENT

Grey –

this man and his brain’s conception,

clasped in stone.

Disdainful figure

raised

on a firm dry finger;

proud-stiff

above a time-bent avenue of dwindling lights.

The Earl’s pale forehead is cool and cloudy;

unblinking,

he views us all (as we view him)

in the same old, cold, way –

through the wrong end of a battered telescope,

through the dusty lens of history.

Strip away the tinsel

And this city’s heart is stone.

Keith Armstrong

MR FOOTER’S

FOOTLOOSE WANDERERS VERSES

  

THEIR BACK FOUR

Their back four have kick-off nerves,

Their back four haven’t played for awhile;

Their back four have no tank reserves -

Too many nights spent on the tiles.

Their back four must keep it tight,

Their back four must hold their patch;

They’ll get stuck in and battle all right,

They’ll curse and swear all through the match.

Their back four look tired and lazy

Their back four must watch for threats

Like CY AWOMM-BA he went crazy

The ball hit him and went in their net.

Their back four are not pursuing

An eager forward who’s well offside;

Their back four have gum for chewing,

A stack their sponsors have supplied.

Their back four are big and tall,

Their back four are tough as bricks;

Their back four have nerves of steel,

Their back four know all the tricks

For all of them they fear that fumble,

But MICK Mc GOVERN knows his stuff;

He fakes a push, he stays down, grumbles,

So long as the ref doesn’t call his bluff.

Their back four have wives and girlfriends,

And big AL CHAPMAN likes it hot

That now he has to make amends

With Baines’ girl he does a swap.

Then RONNIE BAINES is much aggrieved,

His number’s up, given the boot;

And from the cut-up pitch he leaves

Now the spare has his fling our substitute.

G.F. Phillips

PABLO LORENZO:  THE FRONTMAN

‘Pab is the man – he’s fab.’

PABLO LORENZO he loves to turn solo,

He thinks the play revolves around him;

I don’t have to mention he loves the attention,

It’s a centre forward’s old thing.

He’s the one they most cheer when he’s called to appear

For the number 9 shirt claims respect,

And to lead from the front and be a great hunk,

It’s everything the fans expect.

And him they will flatter, buy the one shirt that matters

And the kudos he’ll get from it,

For he loves all this fuss and he can’t get enough

And his goals are all riding on it.

And then on occasions comes the art of persuasion

In close season, whenever he can;

He’s the number one pet for an ad man’s choice set

For this booked in Adonis man’s man.

So whatever he’s selling he’s utter compelling,

Which he sells from his head to his toes,

Like he takes a big swig of a sugar-free fib

From a health drink his fans buy in droves;

And he’ll open his armpits the bad smell he sprays it,

And the tin he must leave on parade.

So his earning potential is something quite special

Meaning twice that he’s got it made.

But no one will quibble so long as his dribbles

Are most un-mistakenly sound;

But the training regime is not just the team

For it’s all built round him so they’ve found.

Now he’s the Messiah you cannot get higher;

But then when he’s gone to ground

There’s a chance there’s a sniff there’s no but or if

His trajectory must go at least goal-bound.

But under his charge things are often enlarged

Much more than reality;

And though he works wonders there’s many a blunder

That’s forgotten with the ecstasy.

G. F. Phillips

 JOHNNY SPRY:  GOALKEEPER FOR FOOTLOOSE WANDERERS

Johnny Spry’s between the sticks, his second name’s The Lynx,

He’ll prowl around the six-yard box then stares out like The Sphinx.

He’s great at making hefty kicks the ball he belts quite far

And when there’s nothing doing he’ll swing along the bar

Until he’s out to grab the ball that’s spinning through the air,

The way he leaps and soars is more than high jumpers would dare.

Oh, Johnny Spry! Oh, Johnny Spry!  He mustn’t let the ball pass by.

He loves to roll in all the mud; he loves to do it on the sly;

And how his fingertips they stretch beating a ballet dancer’s

While everyone agrees that his knee blocking’s the answer.

He may have clumsy legs; his bald head hard as plaster –

Whatever else he may be there’s no one brave or dafter.

He’s last to hear his players cheer, the first to take the flak

When things go wrong he’s put upon what’s said it gets passed back.

So out of spite, try as he might, he’ll do what they hate most,

That easy ball slips from his grasp to push it round the post.

Yet everyone has need of him, they’re shouting one and all,

But then he’ll keep them waiting as he juggles with the ball.

So when his wall is lining up, the free kick’s taking ages,

He’d like to count the kicker’s time and dock it off his wages.

But, hey, he does no better as his kick goes into touch;

Though it frees him from those corners where he’s crowded in so much,

He’s our big stopper our big he - he needs a rest does he -

And when the trainer sprays his foot he’ll plan his scrumptious tea.

Oh, Johnny Spry!  Oh, Johnny Spry!  There’s no one here who now denies

He looks the part; he does excel.  But soon the ending of his spell

When he retires or quits the game they’ll put him in the Hall of Fame

Along with others plied in wax who died and stashed away their tax,

The first in town who has been set for keeping balls out of a net

For here he’s treated like a God a saviour from the firing squad.

(from Mr Footer’s Footloose Wanderers Verses)

G.F. Phillips

OLAF FINNEGAN:  THE MAN FOR BOTH FLANKS

This winger is schizoid, but only in name,

He’s Olaf and Finnegan, half Celt and half Dane;

He’s blonde and his blue-eyed and he knows about rain.

And he’s nimble and speedy, he goes like the wind

And he’s known to most fans as The Flying Finn.

He’s a man on a mission when the ball comes to him,

And then

                It’s RUN and CROSS, RUN and CROSS

                When he can:  if he can.

How he loves open spaces and all that fresh air,

And that’s how he stands out, on his own, the fans stare

For his foot’s on the ball; he’ll hold his head in the air.

Now he’ll cheer all the hacks on the Daily Depress

When he takes on the full back, he’s out to impress

And leaves the man sitting on his bottom, at rest,

And the mud on his shorts is a mark of the test.

And now he has started he can’t seem to end

For he’s giving a lesson in how not to defend

As he takes on that full back and does it again.

And then

                 It’s RUN and CROSS, RUN and CROSS,

                 When he can:  if he can.

Now he’s on the back pages, it brings fans to the ground,

He’s mighty superior; his position’s safe and sound;

He’s young and he’s restless, but there’s things he can do

For the girls dig his looks and they dig for gold too.

So it’s all a bit hectic; Olaf’s contract is up,

And that’s why this agent will spice it all up;

For he’ll do a good job and the girls bring him luck -

So he says - and now Olaf’s wanted on both flanks and set

Where they’re shooting his looks in some new fangled specs -

How he loves all the extras; he’s an extra himself;

And they’ll pay him each word he spouts from his mouth.

And at Christmas he’s booked in for Babes in the Wood

When he’ll step on the stage in his strip, he’ll look good;

He’ll go round (I’m sure, in a faultless display),

As if trees were the players who stood in his way

And he’ll do it for real when it comes to match day.

And then

                It’s RUN and CROSS, RUN and CROSS.

               Or he’ll do it on his own.

And here is the clue – when he jinks to the left,

He’s gone past their sweeper; his path has been swept;

There’s a good chance The Flying Finn will have the ball kept

A little while longer at his big happy feet,

It’s all one way traffic; it’s his one way street.

And two players behind him were both easy meat.

And the men at the front they have all gone tongue-tied

He won’t give them the ball; well, it’s no big surprise

Till he’s tripped it’s a free kick and also his demise.

And now in conclusion he must pass the ball

But not the one desperate who’s shouting who calls;

Now he’s back on the left flank and free of disgrace

For the free kick he took was him saving face.

(from Mr Footer’s Footloose Wanderers Verses)

 

G.F. Phillips