David Selzer is a writer of poetry, prose fiction, screenplays and stage plays. He embraces digital platforms to share his work of more than fifty years… READ MORE


  • OTHER PEOPLE’S FLOWERS: DIANA SANDERS – POET & MUSICIAN

    David shows so much generosity in sharing other people’s work on his website. It’s an honour to join this community and be included in ‘Other People’s Flowers’.  In this age of the individual, this is a breath of fresh air.  The themes of my recent poems are aligned with this way of thinking – how the self is intrinsically connected to other people, the creatures who live on this planet and the landscape in general.  The moods and colours of the landscape are reflected in me and sometimes I wonder if the colour of a dress I may be wearing finds its way into the landscape.

    I live on a hill overlooking the Alwen valley with my husband Pete. The music of the land is all around – the streams, waterfalls, the river, the sound of trees in the wind.  Bird song is never far away, even in winter and the donkeys from the farm opposite are unrestrained in their braying. Chaffinches, goldfinches, siskins, blue tits, nuthatches, greater spotted woodpeckers, robins turn up at our door for breakfast, lunch, dinner and tea.   I think they eat better than we do. As well as the song birds there are the more subtle sounds of bats chattering in the roof, leaves unfurling, the sound of bees and hover flies.

    The love I feel for this wild place, on this earth, is unconditional.  The kind of love you feel for a partner, a parent or a child.  It is precious. When we harm the earth, we harm ourselves.  It is self-harm.   I quote Just  by Radiohead (1995). ‘You do it to yourself, you do and that’s what really hurts, is that you do it to yourself, just you. You and no one else’.

    The poems and music that I have included here are words that comment on how humans are harming this world but also how people are finding innovative ways to heal landscapes.  There is also a celebration of the beauty of this incredible world.  All the poems and the song are also on a specially created video  – which is available on my Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/100063451100133/videos/4070467436574443

    My first poem, 235 decibels is from ‘I Am Nature’, a recently released book of eco poetry written by Leaf Pettit, me, Patricia Sumner and Andrew Sumner.  This is available from https://www.veneficiapublications.com/product-page/i-am-nature  235 decibels was first published, though, by Abergavenny Small Press in June 2021 and looks at how submarine sonar effects the creatures in the ocean.

     

    235 decibels*

    hard to remember how it was
    when they improvised and tossed
    a tune for days on end
    when small one set his voice free
    when they all played catch bubbles O
                                                              O

       O
    O

    when a chorus of bass notes
    overtones    tail-slaps         clicks     rumbles
    filled the sea
    when wind sang the lighthouse

    there was a time when they could answer
    songs from beyond the krill place
    a time when their voices
    were loudest

    but now dark ones ____________________
    won’t stop ___________________screaming
    and lurk ___________________in the deep places
    stealing music and sleep _________________________

    sometimes muscles _______________remember old patterns_________________
    but they ______________can no longer tell _____________what they sing

    moon still licks it tongue ________________over their backs
    but there is no meaning in this water_________________

    * A Submarine sonar is 235 decibels.  The loudest rock concert is 130 decibels.

     

    The following lyrics were written for a song called The Seal recorded by The Amazing Clouds in 2019. The Amazing Clouds were Pete Regan, me, and Dom Oakes.  It was written after visiting Ramsey Island just off the coast of Pembrokeshire.  It was Autumn and the seals and their pups were in full voice.

    Seal

    I sit on polished rock
    and listen to the seals.
    Their song coils into my mind.
    I dive into water.
    I swim with the cormorant.
    I swim with the gannet.
    Bubbles are jewels on my skin.
    I am born for water.
    I am a shape-shifter.
    The setting sun blinds me,
    I’m lost on the stormy sea.
    Seal pushes me to shore,
    it’s there I leave my human skin.
    I am born for water,
    I am a shape-shifter.

     

    I am continuing the theme of water with The man who called back the fishes. This poem is also from I am Nature and is based on the work of Dr Tim Lamont and Dr Stephen Simon who are trying to regenerate coral reefs by planting new corals and then playing sounds of a healthy reef through underwater sound projectors.  This process has been found to encourage sea creatures back to the reef.

    The man who called back the fishes 

    He began at dawn, playing reef music
    whilst planting coral polyps in rock
    cervices under the rippled, sunlit surface.

    He purred for shoals of angel fish,
    grunted for male frill fin gobies —
    played the güiro for the spiny lobster.

    The volume rose in a steady crescendo
    through the day until it peaked at dusk.
    In his dreams he painted outlines of eels,

    filled in the colours of damsel fish
    and the others who lived here before
    the cyclones, before the bleaching.

    The music rode ocean currents,
    skirted islands, entered caves,
    followed rafts of driftwood.

    Ray by ray, fish by fish, urchins,
    triggerfish, shrimp, parrotfish,
    whitetip sharks, reef octopus,

    manta ray, barracuda, trumpetfish,
    yellowtail snappers, glassy sweepers
    and starfish came back for his music.

    They joined in with an eruption
    of pops, howls, chirps and grunts,
    whistles, snaps, bumps,

    buzzes, squeals, heart beats,
    teeth-gnashing, tail-slapping,
    gill-flapping and staccato clicks.

    He floated in this new oasis,
    turned off the music
    and listened.

     

    The next poem, Blossom Symphony is about the natural music in an orchard and how the cycles of the seasons spiral into the future.  I’ve used the pantoum form to enhance the feeling of repetition.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    Blossom Symphony

    Blossoms unfurl —
    a single phrase repeated
    over and over —
    orchards heartbeat.

    A single phrase repeated,
    embellished by bumble bees —
    orchards heart beat —
    leaf veins breathe.

    Embellished by bumble bees
    and nightjar churr —
    leaf veins breathe —
    voles chomp on June-drop litter.

    Nightjars churr —
    counter melodies from wasps.
    voles chomp on June-drop litter —
    hawk-moths purr.

    There are counter melody from wasps
    and woodpecker drumrolls,
    whilst hawk-moths purr
    along with mineral-water arpeggios.

    Woodpecker drumrolls
    whilst sky rests in roots.
    Mineral-water arpeggios
    swell embryo fruits.

    Sky rests in roots
    liquid sun rushes through branches —
    swells embryo fruits.
    Under trees they clink glasses.

    Liquid sun gushes through branches
    they listen to the bubble fizz
    under trees they clink glasses —
    share a cider kiss.

    They listen to the bubble fizz
    over and over —
    share a cider kiss
    as blossoms unfurl.

     


    My next poem was written in the North of Sweden just after midsummer.  There is nothing quite like walking up a mountain with no one else there, reaching the peak at midnight and it still being light.

    Midnight Circle

    Sleep is vacuum packed as we walk
    above sun-lit clouds into midnight.
    You haven’t shaved for five days;
    your face as raw and uncomplicated
    as glacial scoured rock.

    Our shadows                     stretch out
    behind us                          touching
    the lemming                      that sped
    between                            birch trees,
    the golden plover              who stood sentinel
    over her chicks                  and tracing our boots
    as we trod softly                on elk and Sami trails
    and finding you                 watching me
    swim naked                       in a mountain stream.

    Our shadows pause           trembling
    on the glittering river         where I found
    a rounded stone                which I roll

    like a precious egg in my hands.

     

    Lastly, I return to the Pembrokeshire Coast with a poem about the Smalls Lighthouse which is about 20 miles West of the Pembrokeshire coast in the Irish Sea.  It is a wild and remote place.  It is hard to imagine how the lighthouse keepers kept their sanity on these windswept and lonely rocks.  This also appears in I am Nature.

    https://www.veneficiapublications.com/product-page/i-am-nature 

     

    Guardian

    The Smalls Lighthouse

     

    Gannets skim the boat
    borrowing updrafts.

    He watches until birds disappear
    until the boat is a dot

    until engine noise is lost

    under the voice of waves
    under the creak of barnacles.

    He works alone

    repairing horn and light
    until sunset.

    Stretched out on rock –
    hair thick with sea salt

    he listens to night spirits –

    to ones who worked the light before
    to the wreck-chatter of the deep.

    Ripples of phosphorescence
    flame from his watery toes

     

    pulsing out to dark places.

     

     

     

    ©2025 Photographs, poems and text – Diana Sanders

     

    ©2025 Music – Pete Regan & Diana Sanders

     

     

     

     



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