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comrades

A PUBLIC MAN

David Selzer By David Selzer1 Comment1 min read356 views

i.m. David Robinson

 

At the celebration of his life –

in an erstwhile garrison church now

educational centre – there was music,

applause, laughter, sadness, his cardboard coffin

with red roses and his panama hat.

And it was as if he were there – as he was,

for sure, in the gathered memories

of the many present and the many,

in absentia, who had written.

The order of service commanded

‘All Sing The Red Flag’, and printed the words –

and most did, not just the comrades like us

who savoured and relished his serious joke.

 

Gathered outside in the soft May light,

greeting friends and colleagues then watching

as the cortège took its gradual leave, we

found ourselves applauding in that public place.

 

There are some you cannot believe are dead.

You would be unsurprised if they turned up

one day and continued a conversation

they had begun a week before, a decade.

So as I walk the Millennium Greenway –

part of the old Cheshire Lines railway

recycled (pun intended) – I can imagine

his cycling towards me, stopping, listening,

laughing richly at ironies then tell me,

with charm and gravitas, what I need to know.

 

 

 

Note: The poem was originally published in May 2015.

 

 

 

A PUBLIC MAN

David Selzer By David Selzer1 Comment1 min read343 views

i.m. David Robinson

At the celebration of his life –
in an erstwhile garrison church now
educational centre – there was music,
applause, laughter, sadness, his cardboard coffin
with red roses and his panama hat.
And it was as if he were there – as he was,
for sure, in the gathered memories
of the many present and the many,
in absentia, who had written.
The order of service commanded
‘All Sing The Red Flag’, and printed the words –
and most did, not just the comrades like us
who savoured and relished his serious joke.

Gathered outside in the soft May light,
greeting friends and colleagues then watching
as the cortège took its gradual leave, we
found ourselves applauding in that public place.

There are some you cannot believe are dead.
You would be unsurprised if they turned up
one day and continued a conversation
they had begun a week before, a decade.
So as I walk the Millennium Greenway –
part of the old Cheshire Lines railway
recycled (pun intended) – I can imagine
his cycling towards me, stopping, listening,
laughing richly at ironies then tell me,
with charm and gravitas, what I need to know.

 

 

 

ROBBEN ISLAND


His cell, of course; breaking stones in the yard;

his endurance; his spirit; and his comrades’;

some warders and prisoners living there still,

in harmony, in freedom…

 

and these images:

 

the birds, teeming – African Penguins,

Crowned Cormorants, Cattle Egrets, Sacred Ibis;

 

part of the concrete wall of a cell block

made into a door on rails – ingenious, pointless;

 

Cape Town  and Table Mountain gilded in the soft,

southern sun – a mere seven miles away…

 

 

 

Note: ‘Robben Island’ will be one of the next two stories to be posted in early January on:

SYLVIA SELZER PHOTOGRAPHER/STORYTELLER.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

VIRTUTIS FORTUNA COMES

David Selzer By David Selzer0 Comments1 min read359 views
Stepping Stones, Kettlewell © Sylvia Selzer 2007

 

Lasting longer than the Thirty Years War,

than half our biblical shelf life, this marriage

has grown like coral – drops of the slain

Medusa’s blood – become, like Corallium

Nobile, a charm against fits, poison,

sorcery, whirlwind, lightning, fire, shipwreck!

From Norway’s fjords to the Cape Verde isles,

the Niger’s delta to the Orinoco’s,

reefs build, decline: the slow massing of

defunct algae, discarded oyster shells, lost

sailors’ bones; the unmarked ebb and flow

of topless towers, clayey tenements.

So, let’s celebrate chance, charity, courage –

Fortune’s inexorable comrades.

 

 

 

VIRTUTIS FORTUNA COMES

Stepping Stones, Kettlewell © SCES 2007


Lasting longer than the Thirty Years War,

than half our biblical shelf life, this marriage

has grown like coral – drops of the slain

Medusa’s blood – become, like Corallium

Nobile, a charm against fits, poison,

sorcery, whirlwind, lightning, fire, shipwreck!


From Norway’s fjords to the Cape Verde isles,

the Niger’s delta to the Orinoco’s,

reefs build, decline: the slow massing of

defunct algae, discarded oyster shells, lost

sailors’ bones; the unmarked ebb and flow

of topless towers, clayey tenements.


So, let’s celebrate chance, charity, courage –

Fortune’s inexorable comrades.