POETRY

WE PRISONERS

David Selzer By David Selzer3 Comments1 min read695 views

A lark starting from the heather; a lamb

amazed by a heron; a hare gutted

at a turn in the road; the familiar path

obscured by fern, bramble, convolvulus:

the gallery in my head is open

all hours – by turns, thriving and derelict.

The sparrow in my chest, where my heart lay,

now flings itself at broken panes, now stills.

At the end of the pier, where steamships docked,

black-headed gulls and anglers watch and wait.

The steel-faced laughing man will read our stars.

Under the planking, the jelly fish glide.

My heart is a fist clenched in darkness,

a sea-anemone in coral waters.

 

 

 

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David Selzer By David Selzer
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David Selzer

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3 Comments
  • Kevin Dyer
    July 1, 2009

    I love ‘We Prisoners’ especially. It seems daft to say to a poet why his poems ‘work’. Suffice it to say that this one does for me, surprisingly and deeply so. Thank you. Kevin Dyer.

    Reply
  • John Huddart
    July 2, 2014

    A wonderful collection of images. The title is superb, with its hint that the many subjects of the poem are the prisoners, as well as ourselves the prisoners of our experiences – our perceptions and our mortality. It works so many ways, like light through a crustal. Marvellous!

    Reply
  • John Huddart
    July 3, 2014

    John Huddart :
    A wonderful collection of images. The title is superb, with its hint that the many subjects of the poem are the prisoners, as well as ourselves the prisoners of our experiences – our perceptions and our mortality. It works so many ways, like light through a crystal. Marvellous!

    Reply