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Icarus

POETRY

FLYING SOUTH

David Selzer By David Selzer2 Comments1 min read495 views

Ascending south east from Manchester, over

Eyam, the ‘plague village’, towards the Wash;

cruising over the Channel, observing

the shipping below me with wonder like some

latter day Bleriot; then Rotterdam’s docks

and the Rhine; sun glinting momentarily

like fireflies, and I am nonchalant

as Icarus, mindful as Daedalus,

noting place names freighted with histories;

past Munich, and the bared Austrian Alps,

then due south along the Balkan Mountains,

smoke drifting north from polluting fires,

roads following the contours, rivers the colour

of onyx; then the coast, and sea water

the westing sun has turned to mercury,

with Mycenae rightwards, leftwards Troy;

descending over the Dodecanese

to Cyprus – island of Aphrodite,

wine and olive trees, worked out copper mines,

abandoned churches – with its new money

and its old divisions.

 

 

 

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David Selzer By David Selzer
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POETRY

FROM THE RUINS

David Selzer By David Selzer1 Comment1 min read407 views

You are old enough now to remember this.

The overhead power line at the cottage

meant we could not fly the new kite there.

I knew a field five minutes away

with a ruined medieval chapel

and a view down the slope to a bay

where hundreds of souls drowned in a fabled storm.

But we told you of the space and the wind.

 

Your daddy showed you how to fly the kite

while your mummy, grandma and me went

to church! Vestiges of paint remained

though the weathers of centuries had scrubbed

the internal walls of most of the murals.

Through the arches of the chancel window,

we saw you flying your kite: serious,

already skilled by a good teacher.

 

You managed the controls, intuitively

aware of aero dynamics, like

some latter-day Daedalus, as the kite,

mass produced sky blue plastic from China,

bucked and soared in the prevailing westerly.

Rightly oblivious of history,

you were a five year old Benjamin Franklin

looking to steal heaven’s thunder and lightning.

 

 

 

 


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David Selzer By David Selzer
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POETRY

CONCRETE MYTHS

David Selzer By David Selzer0 Comments1 min read360 views

We have explained about Knossos in the car,
so she is keen to see the palace.
(We have not mentioned the Minotaur
or Daedalus and Icarus). She likes
the cats, the peacock and the cicadas
and appears not disappointed at all
by Arthur Evans’ concrete. Maybe
she knows the concerns of grown-ups are
more illusionary than substantial –
and a young woman, posing like Betty Boop
in high heels and sharp yellow dress
by an amphora, would prove her point.

Knossos is on the edge of Heraklion’s
southern suburbs. Just down the road from here
is a pristine Ottoman aqueduct
built across a narrow, river valley.
Swallows and swifts nest in the post holes.
The dingle is filled with bougainvillea,
jacaranda and pink oleander.
We walk up to a church, open and full
of silver – St Irini’s – and a playground.
She runs to the swings. There is no mention
in any of the guidebooks of the aqueduct
or the saint – never mind the nesting birds
or the valley abounding with flowers
or the safe place to play. Under
an ancient, encompassing olive tree
with labyrinthine branches, she flies high.

 

 

 

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