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


  • WE PRISONERS

    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.

     

     

     


    3 responses to “WE PRISONERS”


    1. Kevin Dyer Avatar
      Kevin Dyer

      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.

    2. John Huddart Avatar
      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 crustal. Marvellous!

    3. John Huddart Avatar
      John Huddart

      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!

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