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AT THE ELEVENTH HOUR

By David SelzerNovember 25, 20140 Comments1 min read371 views

The Armistice was agreed at 5.10 –
in Foch’s personal railway carriage
– among the cigar and brandy fumes.
The Chancellories of Europe knew
thirty minutes later. Big Ben was rung
for the first time in four years and gas lamps
lit in Paris. There was dancing and streamers.

Foch insisted the truce would not take effect
until 11.00 – ostensibly
so the news could be keyed and carried to
each trench and dugout on the Western Front.

Thousands of soldiers were killed that morning.
The last to die – at 10.59 –
was Private Henry Günther from Baltimore,
advancing with comrades in ignorance
through the wild woodland of the Argonne.
The division’s history records: ‘Almost
as he fell, the gunfire died away
and an appalling silence prevailed’.

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By David Selzer

A DEFINITIVE HISTORY OF VENICE

By David SelzerDecember 15, 20123 Comments1 min read660 views

DECLINE AND FALL

Once, there were no panhandlers in La

Serenissima. Now there are four beggars –

men from Dalmatia, the old colonies,

and a Roma woman with no past.

Near the Rialto, two alternate

on the same pitch: heads sunk, hands out, their stories

in English on cardboard. The third plays

an accordion near the Accademia,

his history on plywood at his feet.

Only the woman, dark-eyed, distressed, who sits

anonymous, huddled, swaddled against the

long wall of the Ospedale Civile,

looks charity the tourist in the eye. She

takes the last vaporetto for Torcello

– and disembarks somewhere in the dark lagoon:

but returns always as if she were any

other traveller on the chopped and dancing

water, under the pellucid sky, in the

serenity of the light.

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By David Selzer