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Mammon

POETRY

A RIGHT CHARIVARI!

David Selzer By David Selzer1 Comment1 min read1.5K views

All seemed particularly dystopian

as I walked out one morning down the high street,

towards MacDonald’s and KFC,

Café Nero, Costa and Starbucks,

boarded-up shops and charity shops,

and two young men selling the Big Issue.

Maybe it was the noise: the traffic’s grind,

an elderly busker’s cacophonous chords,

the fire engine howling – outside the KFC!

I approached the forming crowd, and overheard,

from customers smelling of smoke, rumours:

that one of the Kentucky Colonel’s

deep fat fryers had exploded into flame,

but the fire had been well doused, and no one harmed –

and I thought of the secret seasoning

of the incinerated chicken pieces.

The bell of the parish church opposite

began the slow toll for a funeral –

like some ironical, adagio

serenade to Mammon.

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David Selzer By David Selzer
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POETRY

MEMENTO VIVERE

David Selzer By David Selzer2 Comments1 min read1.6K views

i.m. Ian Jones

 

There is no right age to die – or way to mourn.

As I thought of him, the small bush I could see

from the desk I wrote at – a plant whose name

we had forgotten, lost – was burgeoning:

its leaves greening, swelling, as spring, despite

that day’s north westerly, took hold. In time –

which he no longer had or had in

profligate abundance – an array

of delicate pink and white flowers would bloom.

 

I thought of his talents, his unassuming

skills – mammon’s measurements – and what makes us

human:  his smile, chuckle, patience, gentle

irony, and his kindness. That chance

perennial would be a remembrance.

 

It flowered with an abundance of petals

in early summer. Within weeks the flowers

began to die, singly, and then in bunches.

The leaves withered and fell. He would have grinned

hugely at such bathos.

 

 

 

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David Selzer By David Selzer
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POETRY

JUBILEE

David Selzer By David Selzer2 Comments2 min read2K views

‘Then shalt thou cause the trumpet of the jubile to sound…and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family.’ Leviticus 25:9 & 25.10

 

Much of the chapters and footnotes of England’s,

though not Britain’s, history are scribed here

in stone and iron – Roman Walls, Norman weir,

marshalling yards – the rest is on paper,

of course, and from hearsay. It is said,

for example, for Victoria’s Jubilee,

in our street, lilac trees were planted.

Some have survived changes of taste or neglect.

 

This city, where I have lived most of my life

by chance then choosing, is shaped by the Dee,

that brought wine and the Black Death from Acquitaine,

powered the long defunct tobacco mills and still

draws occasional salmon from the oceans.

I imagine them waiting in the deep currents,

fattening on sand eels, squid, shrimp, herring,

and then the long, fasting haul from west

of Ireland, homing for their breeding grounds.

A cormorant perches on the salmon steps.

The last of the fishermen is long dead.

 

Like the calls and wings of Black-headed Gulls,

blown by April storms, the names and titles

of princes echo from the neutral sky

and sound through the deferential streets.

No doubt, there will be the splendid nonsense –

the cathedral’s ring of  bells will peel

and the Lord God Almighty will be urged

repeatedly to ‘save the Queen’. So,

let the ram’s horn blow like a trumpet

through Mammon’s and God’s obsequious temples –

and ‘…proclaim liberty throughout all the land…’

 

Almost which ever road you take westward,

in the distance, are the Welsh hills. The Legions

exiled the Celts from here – Saxons et al,

with legal threats and occasional killings,

kept them out except for trade and prayer

but forbade their songs. Now, waiting, we

are everywhere. Let the ram’s horn sound.

 

 

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