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


  • YOUNG VOICES CONCERT, MANCHESTER, JANUARY 2020

    The Arena has become an aviary.

    As we walk along the narrow corridor

    into the auditorium, the sound

    of eight and half thousand young voices

    all chattering simultaneously

    with wonder overwhelms us like a blast

    of tropical heat, like a wall of bird song.

     

    The music starts, the house lights go down.

    In unison, as they begin to sing

    ‘Ode to Joy’, each one of the thousands

    of song birds switches on a white, bright beam,

    which shimmers and waves, glides and twinkles.

     

    When the floods and spots permit we can see her,

    with the plastic binoculars bought

    from a vendor, clearly, among her classmates,

    on the far side of the Arena.

    Even through lenses she seems a long way off

    in all that air – which once more goes black.

    The myriad of small beams glows, flickers.

     

     

     


    3 responses to “YOUNG VOICES CONCERT, MANCHESTER, JANUARY 2020”


    1. Alan Horne Avatar
      Alan Horne

      This is lovely, David, and perhaps particularly affecting, certainly for a local, because of the unspoken background of the bombing.

    2. Sarah Selzer Avatar
      Sarah Selzer

      Beautiful pictures painted of a scene that we knew we wouldn’t be experiencing again but only because the opportunity might not present itself – and not because a global pandemic would take hold! Another era… as a footnote I write this comment on my phone with predictive text choosing “go slow democracy” for my typed “global pandemic”. Spooky!!

    3. Jeff Teasdale Avatar

      Aah…..that wonderful moment when our children or grandchildren ‘go on-stage’, either by themselves (our son in the school’s production of Grease – wearing MY old leather jacket!) or in a group,(our granddaughters in the Youth Band), is very special, and captured here, David, beautifully. We see only them, as all the others are seen by theirs.. Again, very evocative….

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