Tag Archives

constellations

POETRY

FROM A BALCONY

David Selzer By David Selzer3 Comments1 min read515 views

A flock of goosanders fishes in the Straits,

as ubiquitous oyster catchers whistle

on the shore. In the early evening

the air about our balcony throngs

with birds – swallows whispering, swifts screeching,

two ring-necked doves cooing in the clematis,

and a small flock of sparrows chattering

below – as the last sun shades the mountains

opposite. By night three fishermen

make their profaning way along the pier

with swaying torches. The seeming darkness

above the peaks is thronged with unnamed stars

we cannot see, and their imagined,

and fabled harmonies.

 

 

Pages:

Share

David Selzer By David Selzer
3 Comments
POETRY

THE GRAIN LOFT

David Selzer By David Selzer0 Comments1 min read411 views

There are gaps between the Velux windows

and the blinds – intentional, of course,

to let in shafts of sunlight. At night

the sodium street lights make arrow shapes

on the bedroom’s walls. Raindrops the flood tide brings

slide like orangey, silvery glitter balls –

almost the colour of the wheat grains

that would have been piled on tarpaulins to dry

on the oak floorboards of this converted loft.

 

Thinking the street lights daylight herring gulls

halloo all night from chimney tops and gables.

Through the bathroom skylight constellations

glitter over the unpolluted mountains.

In this erstwhile granary a poet

and his muse are sleeping  – like Larkin’s

effigies who ‘would not think to lie so long’

or Thomas’s ‘two old kippers in a box’ –

as gulls call and stars turn.

 

 

 

Pages:

Share

David Selzer By David Selzer
0 Comments
POETRY

AFTER DINNER

David Selzer By David Selzer0 Comments1 min read388 views

We had finished the baked camembert

and begun to talk of the future

when we heard a dog fox bark up on the Downs

and went quickly into the garden.

The moon was full, large and low. The imagined,

fabricated constellations glimmered

in the polluted air. The fox was silent

or gone softly over the flints and the chalk

and all we had was the memory

of that wild sound across the long years

of settlement – like the echo of a star.

 

 

 

Pages:

Share

David Selzer By David Selzer
0 Comments
POETRY

SAFELY THROUGH THE DARK

David Selzer By David Selzer1 Comment1 min read479 views

At twilight from the hills across the Straits, a sudden

drift of smoke – then a fire’s deep orange eye blinked.

We talked of cruising the Nile; of moon rise and sun set,

of the narrow compass of the earth’s curve;

the river pilots’ open armed, hand-on-heart salaams;

and the stars rushing through the night.

 

Later and sleepless in the early hours,

I kept watch at the bedroom window.

The hotel sign lit a faded Union flag,

threadbare at its outer edges.

The only hint of the far shore was

sporadic lights on the A55.

 

But the stars were unequivocal. In a cloudless,

unpolluted sky, how they teemed!

I saw the constellations pass

and the random magnificence of things revealed.

Understandably, you preferred to sleep.

And journey safely through the dark.

 

 

Note: The poem was originally published on the site in October 2009, under the title, BULKELEY HOTEL, BEAUMARIS, YNYS MÔN –  https://davidselzer.com/2009/10/

 

 

 

Pages:

Share

David Selzer By David Selzer
1 Comment
POETRY

BULKELEY HOTEL, BEAUMARIS, YNYS MÔN

David Selzer By David Selzer2 Comments1 min read938 views

At twilight from the hills across the Straits, a sudden

drift of smoke – then a fire’s deep orange eye blinked.

We talked of cruising the Nile; of moon rise and sun set,

of the narrow compass of the earth’s curve;

the river pilots’ open armed, hand-on-heart salaams;

and the stars rushing through the night.

 

Later and sleepless in the early hours,

I kept watch at the bedroom window.

The hotel sign lit a faded Union flag,

threadbare at its outer edges.

The only hint of the far shore was

sporadic lights on the A55.

 

But the stars were unequivocal. In a cloudless,

unpolluted sky, how they teemed!

I saw the constellations pass

and the random magnificence of things revealed.

Understandably, you preferred to sleep.

And journey safely through the dark.

Pages:

Share

David Selzer By David Selzer
2 Comments

Recent Posts