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mosque

BRITISH VALUES

By David SelzerJanuary 30, 20162 Comments1 min read1.4K views

Within furlongs of the refinery,
the car show rooms and the retail park
are Viking colonies – for fish and farm
in the rich, marshy land on the south bank
of the estuary, where the river’s
current made a wide, shallow pool before
the mammoths and the sabre-toothed tigers left.
Some of the hamlets are part of the town –
others are down haphazard hedgerow lanes.
Upstream the sugar ships docked, the slavers sailed.
In the town, on the railings of the nascent
mosque erstwhile Wesleyan chapel, beneath
high rise flats, a pig’s head is skewered
a couple of streets from the nearest food bank.
Under the wide arcades of the retail park
women in burqas stroll.

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By David Selzer

THE ROOFS OF MARRAKECH

By David SelzerJanuary 26, 20143 Comments1 min read1.6K views

Were storks here before the Berbers descended

from the hills, creating the ochre city

on the plain and sailing to Iberia –

or did the birds come to build their immense,

intricate nests because there were towers?

Flocks of satellite dishes point eastwards.

Beyond the Atlas Mountains, snow covered

deeply now, are the Sahara Desert

and the immemorial routes south to the green

and desperate countries of West Africa.

In the nearest mosque, the muezzin

(a youthful, mellifluous tenor)

sings the afternoon prayer – so close it sounds

as if he were beside us. A stork, nesting

on the minaret, opens it wings – its beak

like a prow – and rises surely into

the indifferent sky.

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By David Selzer