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


  • ALL SOULS

    Through a windy night, busy with fireworks,
    we walk to Hoole community centre –
    a Victorian elementary school –
    for a friend’s fiftieth. There are songs
    of love and heartache and hope. I watch the moon
    white-faced move from pane to pane. My mother
    and her two sisters were schooled here when the limes
    in the yard were straight and slender. (My aunts
    were destined for spinsterhood – one via
    a married lover from Lockerbie –
    my mother widowhood, her Jewish husband
    buried in Ibadan). I imagine them
    silent at their slates or skipping home
    reciting loudly through the cobbled streets.
    My dreams are always of departures.

     

     

     


    3 responses to “ALL SOULS”


    1. John Huddart Avatar
      John Huddart

      At last a celebration of Halloween that avoids the current trivialisation. The title is an excellent starting point for the biographical detail, a moving meditation on the importance of one’s beginnings and how important it is to hold on to one’s sense of them to remain human. How that moon’s pale face is integral to the closeness of the memories.

    2. Hugh Powell Avatar
      Hugh Powell

      The slender limes are also a great detail, mirroring the youth of the three sisters, and their characters in memory.

    3. Tricia Durdey Avatar
      Tricia Durdey

      I like this very much. There is a whole world, condensed so beautifully – clear, like a painting.

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