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POETRY

A TANDOORI TALE

David Selzer By David Selzer0 Comments1 min read327 views

‘A tale is but half told when only one person tells it.’
THE SAGA OF GRETTIR

 

Under the almost crepuscular lighting

in the British Library’s Gallery

endowed by Sir John Ritblat (London

property developer, Tory donor,

philanthropist) among the treasures displayed –

including ‘Beowulf’, the Magna Carta,

Gutenberg’s Bible, Da Vinci’s notebook,

Handel’s ‘Messiah’, the Beatles’ lyrics –

are three pairs of Jane Austen’s spectacles

and a first edition of ‘Paradise Lost’.

 

Close to Bloomsbury’s traffic-congested heart,

about half a mile from the Library,

is Woburn Walk, a short, pedestrianised,

cobbled, late Georgian shopping street,

designed with first and second floor lodgings –

named after Woburn Abbey, the country seat

of the first landlord, the Duke of Bedford.

The poet, William Butler Yeats, has been

blue-plaqued at what is  now Number 5.

 

Number 16 is a small, well established,

family run, Bangladeshi restaurant

with British staples – like papadoms,

prawn vindaloo, chicken tikka masala.

Tonight the two tables by the window

have been pushed together. The seven diners

are Icelanders – enjoying the curries,

and speaking the language of the forty five

sagas, like the one about the outlaw

poet. I wonder what Willie Yeats

and his pals, Tom Eliot and Ezra Pound –

and Milton and Austen for that matter –

would have made of all or any of this,

not least a mongrel bard like me.

 

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POETRY

LAMENT FOR THE FOURTH ESTATE

David Selzer By David Selzer5 Comments1 min read692 views

Once Parliament was in recess – both Houses

of Hypocrisy on their long summer hols –

in the basement of an office block near

King’s Cross (where you catch the Hogwarts Express)

one Saturday morning in July,

three journalists, watched by two technicians

from GCHQ, spent three hours to save

the Government’s face, and The Guardian’s,

by destroying hard drives with drills and grinders,

circuit boards whose data – from the exiled

whistleblower Edward Snowden – was

replicated throughout the Americas.

Ah, far, far  better farce than inaction,

and capitulation than loss of

influence! How the Red Tops rejoiced!

 

Only the Manchester Guardian – founded

after Peterloo, and to promote

repeal of the so-called Corn Laws – condemned

the Suez Canal fiasco, that last

hurrah of gunboat diplomacy.

That editor would have hidden the hard drives

somewhere in the British Library’s stacks,

just round the corner on the Euston Road,

and sent the hapless lads from Cheltenham

to Platform  9¾.

 

 

 

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POETRY

HARRY POTTER AND THE NORTHERN LINE

David Selzer By David Selzer4 Comments1 min read727 views

The timetabled rumble of the Northern Line

between King’s Cross and Euston stations

moves beneath the British Library’s

‘Harry Potter: A History of Magic’.

Aficionados like my granddaughter

are oblivious, focused on the wonder

of ancient texts and modern images,

the alchemy of ink, pigments, alphabets

transformed into art. Between trains there is

the clip-clopping of Centaur’s hooves.

 

We walk to King’s Cross to see Platform

9¾. People are queuing

to take selfies beneath the sign attached

to the wall next to The Harry Potter shop.

As famous in her lifetime as Dickens

in his, J.K. Rowling is a diligent,

erudite genius, creator of

a universal, compassionate brand.

 

In the deepest, darkest Library stack

my two volumes sleep, the second – even

slimmer than the first – dedicated

to my granddaughter. Every fifteen minutes

or so the pages stir. They can hear

the steady beat of Hippogriff wings.

 

 

 

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