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


  • BLOOD MONTH

    This is where summer ends – with a harvest moon
    rising like a burning disk. Clouds pass
    like smoke and shadowy leaves fall like tears.
    We will reverse the clocks – and the dread
    of darkness comes, the long melancholy,
    the dark bile of desolate marshes, of fogs
    and a pale sun setting.

     

     

     


    3 responses to “BLOOD MONTH”


    1. Howard Gardener Avatar

      Very sombre, David. I think that this poem is in need of ‘The Singing Selzers’ from the next one . . .

    2. Alan Horne Avatar
      Alan Horne

      I liked this, David, partly because it worked well (for me) when read aloud. Although the images of darkness reminded me of Kathleen Jamie’s chapter ‘Darkness and Light’ in her prose book FINDINGS, where she argues for a positive re-evaluation of the dark, as something enfolding, perhaps maternal. The poem has a real shift of feeling around “we will reverse the clocks” – very powerful.

    3. John Huddart Avatar
      John Huddart

      I agree with Alan about the key importance of reversing the clocks – because the poem pitches into its most powerful and impressive part, straight afterwards. It may be gloomy winter, but it fires the imagination.

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