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POETRY

A DEFINITIVE HISTORY OF VENICE

David Selzer By David Selzer1 Comment1 min read1.8K views

LA SERENISSIMA

 

…stucco white as cuttlefish. In shadows,

a lion’s mouth utters advantage or blame.

The whitewashed stench of the prison inspires

the palace. An improbable city:

a wedding of sky, water, stone, lagoon –

colours luminously true to art, art

celebrating business, gold transformed to

lead, marble, canvas, paint. The lake dwellers’

ambition: exploitation and caprice…

 

 

 

 

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POETRY

DEDHAM VALE REVISITED

David Selzer By David Selzer2 Comments1 min read2.3K views
Dedham Vale, John Constable, 1802

 

 

Dedham Vale, John Constable, 1828

 

 

September touches the Vale like a sigh,

a mellow, fruitful suspiration

edging from green to lemon, agitating

gently the skieyest leaves. The Stour

meanders to a sea of clouds vanishing

over an unimaginable Europe.

Dedham Church, a testament to wool,

focuses an especial scene: Saxon names,

corn marigolds, skylarks and enclosures.

 

After Napoleon, Peterloo and his wife’s

slow death, another canvas shows the same

landscape. New buildings exploit the river

and the church tower is luminous yet

vulnerable, not focal, to a whorl

of cumulus billowing from beyond

the horizon over dark, distressed elms.

Crouched under the overgrown bank of a lane,

the last you see of the painting, with her tent

and her cooking pot, a tramp woman

nurses a child under the tumbling sky.[1]


[1] The poem was first published in the Anglo-Welsh Review, has previously been published on this site and is one of the most visited.

 

 

 

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POETRY

LA CLEF DES CHAMPS

David Selzer By David Selzer1 Comment1 min read1.7K views

'La Clef Des Champs,' René Magritte, 1936




When the landscape breaks, shards of painted trees,

clouds, turf cascade in crystal slabs onto

the carpet – and the landscape is there still

on the next pane. Over the brow of the rise

are the world’s kingdoms: deserts silenced

by polished bone; uneasy rooms where

sepia furniture flowers; canvas; wood;

the gallery’s wall solid as money –

asservir le bourgeoisie through draughtmanship.

The artist’s mother was pulled from the Sambre,

a suicide – the night-dress shrouding

her face. When the world breaks…breaks…there is death

only or servitude.

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