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Bratislava

POETRY

GRASSALKOVICH PARK, BRATISLAVA

David Selzer By David Selzer0 Comments1 min read315 views

Yesterday was New Year’s Eve and the fountain

was drained to prevent too much merriment.

So the bronze, nude young ladies disport themselves

in dry, cold air. The equestrian statue

of Maria Theresa, mother

of sixteen, and the last of the Holy

Roman Empresses appears unamused,

though whether by the municipality’s

actions or the girls’ appears unclear.

Last month’s heavy snow remains in small,

sheltered drifts behind occasional trees.

What was an Hungarian aristocrat’s

formal palace garden in the French style

has become – by dint of many wars

and a few revolutions – a public park,

where my granddaughter, descendant of Celts,

Jews and Vikings, a competitor, sprints

on the white, gravel paths.

 

 

 

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POETRY

THE RABBI AND THE EMPEROR

David Selzer By David Selzer1 Comment1 min read530 views

In the summer of 1913, the last

Habsburg Emperor made a state visit

to Pressburg – later, after The Treaty

of Versailles, renamed Bratislava.

One photograph shows his open carriage

stopped in front of the Pressburg Yeshiva,

whose students came from every part

of the Empire. Franz Josef leans forward

to speak to Rabbi Akiva Sofer,

whose great grandfather founded the school –

two dynasties talking briefly together.

 

During the rule of the Communist Party

most of the erstwhile Jewish quarter was razed

to build a four lane bridge across the Danube.

After independence a memorial

to Slovakia’s murdered Jews was placed

on the site of a shul. The word ‘Remember’,

in Hebrew and Slovak, is engraved

into the black marble plinth. Often

little stones are placed haphazardly

on the marble as is the Jewish custom

and tradition: pebbles of mourning,

of safekeeping of souls, of memory.

 

In the streets and the squares were unremarked

small stones – where the Rabbi was waiting,

where the carriage wheels turned.

 

 

 

 

 

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POETRY

A VIEW FROM THE CASTLE

David Selzer By David Selzer0 Comments1 min read332 views

It is not the winter-grey Danube flowing –

hundreds of feet below – fast to Budapest,

nor the suspension bridge – with its high rise

circular restaurant – commemorating

the failed uprising against the Nazis,

nor the outline of the Vienna Alps

fifty miles away, nor the wind turbines

covering the plain between, but the concrete

Soviet era apartment blocks

now painted white and some in pastel shades

that first catch the eye from this stronghold

on a rocky hill far above the town

on the second day of 2018.

This must be Europe’s centre: liberated,

Catholic, polyglot; in Magyar,

German, Slovak; Pozsonyi Vár,

Pressburger Schloss, Bratislavsky Hrad.

 

As we descend the narrow, cobbled street

that turns with the hill’s contours, gusts of wind

whirl into the air small strips of gold paper,

detritus of New Year’s Eve celebrations,

and a party of Australian tourists

comes round the corner their resolute guide’s

tartan umbrella flapping unsafely.

 

*

 

The runway faces east so the plane

must bank westwards to fly by Vienna,

Prague, London to land at Manchester.

On the right are the Little Carpathians

with vineyards on the slopes and at their heart

wildernesses of beasts and plants still intact –

left, below, river, castle, tower blocks

reduced to perfection.

 

 

 

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