David Selzer

1085 posts

POETRY

WHICH PASSETH UNDERSTANDING

David Selzer By David Selzer0 Comments1 min read1.7K views

With wind soughing in the churchyard yews,

lichen marking the gravestones of labourer

and landowner, Saxon foundations,

mediaeval tower, sunlight fitful

through worthy Victorian stained glass,

a brass plaque for ‘those who gave their lives’,

the wheezy organ, the orotund Order

for the Burial of the Dead, ‘I am the

resurrection and the life…’ the vicar’s

gentle eulogy of the deceased,

one is almost tempted to wish God

were in his heaven where ‘we shall all

be changed…in the twinkling of an eye’

but common sense prevails.

 

 

 

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POETRY

SOMETHING OF SUMMER

David Selzer By David Selzer5 Comments1 min read2.2K views

While, at the last outpost of its empire,

a blackbird sounds reveille and, next door,

red admirals repose in buddleia,

something of summer, caught in the early air

and gathered, a lightness, perfumed, bold,

is touching narrow, walled-in gardens

where, high over houses epochs old,

wood pigeons flute in maples and a thrush,

lost in the snows of a pear tree, cuts notes

like glass. Neglected blossom lights

along the chipped and blackened bricks, a rush

of scent from satiny blooms, while clovered

lawns are striving for grass.

 

 

Note: The poem has subsequently been published at

http://thirdsundaybc.com/2012/05/20/vol-1-no-5/

 

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David Selzer By David Selzer
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POETRY

EZRA POUND IN VENICE

David Selzer By David Selzer3 Comments1 min read2.5K views



‘But the worst mistake I made was that stupid suburban prejudice of anti-semitism.’ Ezra Pound


Sitting in a traghetto, Olga Rudge

from Ohio and Ezra Pound from

Idaho – together fifty years,

from concert violinist to poet’s helpmate,

poet maker to fascist propagandist,

he, typically, with stick, wide brimmed hat,

floppy collar, she, wearing woollen gloves,

left hand clutching a large, canvas bag, right hand

a carefully folded scarf, dressed, like any

elderly woman, for a chilly day –

look away separately into the distance.



Five years before Pound’s death, Allen Ginsberg,

from New Jersey, on a sort of Grand Tour,

kissed him on the cheek and forgave him,

on behalf of the Jews, for his ‘mistake’.

‘Do you accept my blessing?’ asked Allen.

‘I do’, said Ezra. What closure! What chutzpah!

Held in a cage in Pisa, lit day and night,

jeered at as a traitor and a coward

by GIs who had battled from the south,

he wrote: ‘What thou lovest well remains,

the rest is dross’.

 

 

 

 

 

Note: The poem has subsequently been published at

http://thirdsundaybc.com/2012/03/18/vol-1-no-3/

 

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David Selzer By David Selzer
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POETRY

‘EAST END GIRL, DANCING THE LAMBETH WALK’: BILL BRANDT

David Selzer By David Selzer0 Comments1 min read2K views

 

'East End Girl, Dancing The Lambeth Walk' Photo by Bill Brandt




He’s set it up, of course. Or, rather, framed it.

There’d be no feigning this young woman’s delight

in being ‘free and easy’ and doing

‘as you darn well pleasy’. She’s got her best blouse on,

with shoulder puffs, her sister’s shoes, which fit her now,

black ankle socks and shoulder length, unpermed hair

freshly washed – and waved, probably with Kirby grips.

Doin’ the walk, she lifts the hem of her skirt,

revealing her slip – and smiles coquettishly.


Beside her is a line, a queue almost of

female acolytes. (The only boy looks away).

They’re pre-pubescent, excited, nervous at what they see:

grown up clothes, shapely legs, unimaginable bust,

a sensuousness that, unwilled, will be theirs.


Down the street of terraced houses, symmetrical

as barracks, a woman strides, her back turned

on this miracle: a girl who knows

she will never grow old – ‘Any ev’ning,

any day…Doin’ the Lambeth Walk.’ Oi!

 

 

Note: the piece was first published on the site in April 2009.

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David Selzer By David Selzer
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POETRY

THE HEART’S TESTIMONY

David Selzer By David Selzer0 Comments1 min read1.5K views

I am a gumshoe tailing mortality,

a shammus staking out history,

death’s sleuth. The past has bequeathed itself,

its deceiving legacy of meanings.

Here is the evidence, thronging the cramped,

provincial streets – the line of a wall,

family remembrance, an ancient name.

Before terraces and villas, before

canal and railway, under pavements

and metalled roads, beneath fields is lost heathland,

a forsaken brook. There are only stones

and ghosts and the heart’s testimony – childhood,

ambition, emptiness.

 

 

 

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POETRY

FAR ABOVE RUBIES

David Selzer By David Selzer2 Comments1 min read1.9K views

The silence woke her. Beyond the locked door

by now her maids should be chattering

in that harsh tongue. She went to the window.

Even the gulls on the battlements were mute.

And no guards on the ramparts, nobody

in the bailey. The straits were the colour

of the emerald at her neck – her father’s

wedding gift. A barque moved edgily

through the sands. Its pennants spoke of home.

The island’s coast was clear in the sun.

She imagined the light summer wind

stirring its fecund, strategic fields.

Her door was unlocked, opened and flung wide.

The Prince held a red cloth. “Cover your eyes.”

As she tied the cloth in place, he said,

“Who can find a virtuous woman?”

He put his hand in the small of her back,

steering her from her chamber into his,

impelling her to the window. She felt

the gentle air from the valley, inhaled

the woods and the river. He pulled the cloth

hard from her head.  Eyes shocked wide in death,

her lover hung from a gibbet. She watched

the body move this way, that way; listened

to the rope creak; turned to her husband.

“Until I die, I shall count the years

I will have loved him as a benison.”

 

 

Note: The poem has subsequently been published at

http://thirdsundaybc.com/2012/04/15/vol-1-no-4/

 

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