POETRY

POETRY

WEATHERS

David Selzer By David Selzer1 Comment1 min read4K views

A south westerly is blowing loose curtains

of rain across the bay like drifts of mist.

The horizon has been long gone, and with it

the silhouettes of fossil fuel platforms

in the Irish Sea off the North Wales coast.

 

By late afternoon the weather has changed

with the tides. Sun lights the disused works

on the far headland, and the vicissitudes

of Amlwch’s fortunes – copper mines then shipyards.

 

Large, low clouds pass slowly, elegantly –

like fluffy, misshapen dirigibles.

At dusk, on the easterly horizon,

the platforms’ orange lights gleam. As night falls

the sky clears of cloud, and there is only

blackness, and the untold stars in their pristine,

unlettered disarray.

 

 

 

 

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David Selzer By David Selzer
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POETRY

THE ISLAND OF ATLAS

David Selzer By David Selzer1 Comment1 min read4.6K views

Given that Plato was keen to imprison

poets of whatever stripe because of their

disinclination to tell the truth,

how chuzpah of him to write in detail

about The Island of Atlas aka

Atlantis – its topography, its people,

its constitution, its politics, all

compared unfavourably with Athens,

of course – as if he had evidence

that the island, inundated, he claimed,

as a result of human frailty, had

actually existed in that ocean

that bears the name of his invention,

west of the Pillars of Heracles.

 

Perhaps he was thinking of other places

whose alleged dystopia was punished

by flooding – though north not west of the Straits

of Gibraltar: like Kêr-Is off the coast

of Brittany, lost by a wayward king

or his wayward daughter – or Cantref Gwaelod

drowned under the waters of Cardigan Bay

by a carousing, drunken prince forgetting

to keep the island’s flood gates shut fast.

Or maybe they were tales told by poets

keen to tell the truth about power.

 

 

 

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David Selzer By David Selzer
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POETRY

SATANS

David Selzer By David Selzer3 Comments1 min read5.1K views

Is there some primate imperative, some

genetic human want, need, reverence for

so-called strong leaders, those masters of

othering, destroyers of order,

adepts in venality and stupidity,

casual slaughterers of innocence?

 

Israel attacks Iran on a pretext from the

loan library of Pretexts – more or less

the same pretext Alexander the Great

borrowed when he burned Persepolis,

(city of the Persians). Iran borrows

from the library of Virility

and attacks Israel – the same library the Crusaders used

when they captured Jerusalem and slaughtered

Jews and Muslims, men, women, and children.

 

And the world’s self-appointed Policeman –

in hock to Christian Evangelists

and Fossil Fuel Companies and the concept

of Full Spectrum Dominance – plays his trump card,

a TV series entitled THE END

OF DAYS, with seven full length episodes:

‘Iraq’, ‘Libya’, ‘Somalia’, ‘Sudan’,

‘Lebanon’, ‘Syria’, ‘Iran’; the seven

countries of the apocalypse; repeat.

 

Opportunists and fanatics, rich boys

and malignant narcissists, greedy shits

and unhinged rhetoricians, sadists

and chaps with things to prove are, it seems,

like the poor, always to be with us

to the very end of history.

 

 

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David Selzer By David Selzer
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POETRY

THOUGH NOW THERE ARE ANGELS

David Selzer By David Selzer1 Comment1 min read4K views

Long ago, before angels learned how to fly,

there were no churches here or palaces,

no embankments or emporia, only

islands of marram grass and common reeds

across the vast and brackish lagoon

in the shallow waters of the gulf.

 

After angels grew wings, the people arrived,

each clan choosing its piece of an island.

They watched the mainland for invaders –

and, in winter, the sea for high tides.

They cut the reeds and grasses, flattened

the earth, and drove in timber pilings –

oak, alder, pine – to make foundations.

And, in time, emporia were built,

embankments laid, palaces commissioned,

and scores of churches consecrated.

Their navy patrolled the gulf. They invented

a siren to warn the people of high tides.

 

Though now there are angels throughout the city –

flying, standing, kneeling, in glass, on canvas,

larger than life, in gorgeous raiments

and sumptuous colours – winter’s tides

are higher than ever, covering

embankments, inundating emporia,

palaces, churches as if they were nothing.

 

 

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David Selzer By David Selzer
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POETRY

THE LONGBOAT AND THE EGRET

David Selzer By David Selzer1 Comment1 min read3.9K views

A low promontory of ragged rock divides

the narrow bay into two inlets.

In one, this early evening, at ebb tide

a little egret begins to wade and hunt.

In the other a dark blue longboat is launched

for the crew’s daily training session –

a unisex motley of mature persons.

The coxswain steers beyond the ancient rocks,

while the rowers pull for the horizon.

The blades of the oars are painted white.

 

The little egret steps, steps, and pierces.

A small flock of curlews flies overhead,

settles out of sight at the water’s edge

among the sounds of terns and oyster catchers.

The light begins to change, the sea darken.

There is still the white of the egret, and the oars

briefly raised, glistening.

 

 

 

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David Selzer By David Selzer
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POETRY

SONG THRUSH

David Selzer By David Selzer2 Comments1 min read3.6K views

As if suddenly there were no other sound,

as if the pleasure boats’ diesel engines,

and the odd raucous call from mallard or gull,

and the laughing chatter of humankind

were, like the weir, merely distant murmurings,

on the opposite bank of the river

more than fifty yards away, where snails abound

in the damp dark beneath the foliage,

a thrush begins its song. It cuts notes like

diamonds, a crystal aria, subduing

the air itself, on this summer solstice.

Exiled from denatured fields and hedgerows,

almost forgotten minstrel, rare diva

now, how we have missed you!

 

 

 

 

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David Selzer By David Selzer
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