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robin

POETRY VOICE OVERS

POETRY VOICE OVERS 1: ‘A SHORT HISTORY’

By David SelzerApril 22, 20260 Comments1 min read385 views

To mark the seventeenth anniversary of the launch of the website I have created a new category: POETRY VOICE OVERS. The first poem to be published on the site – almost seventeen years ago to the day – was ‘A SHORT HISTORY’, written more than forty years ago*. I am republishing it here with my voiceover.

A SHORT HISTORY

For a generation, like weather cocks,

their skeletons swung near the highway.

James Price and Thomas Brown had robbed the Mail.

Years turned. The Gowy flooded and the heath

flowered. Travellers noted the bones

hanging in chains by the Warrington road.

Justices ordered the gibbet removed,

the remains disposed of. In Price’s skull,

while Napoleon was crossing the Alps

or Telford building bridges or Hegel

defining Historical Necessity

or Goya painting Wellington’s portrait,

a robin made its nest.

Note: I would like to thank Sylvia Selzer for enabling me to create this new category.

*Re-published in 2013 in A JAR OF STICKLEBACKS.

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By David Selzer

A SHORT HISTORY

By David SelzerApril 25, 20192 Comments1 min read1.8K views

For a generation, like weather cocks,

their skeletons swung near the highway.

James Price and Thomas Brown had robbed the Mail.

Years turned. The Gowy flooded and the heath

flowered. Travellers noted the bones

hanging in chains by the Warrington road.

Justices ordered the gibbet removed,

the remains disposed of. In Price’s skull,

while Napoleon was crossing the Alps

or Telford building bridges or Hegel

defining Historical Necessity

or Goya painting Wellington’s portrait,

a robin made its nest.

Note: first published on the site April 2009.

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By David Selzer

A SHORT HISTORY

By David SelzerApril 28, 20174 Comments1 min read2K views

For a generation, like weather cocks,
their skeletons swung near the highway.
James Price and Thomas Brown had robbed the Mail.
Years turned. The Gowy flooded and the heath
flowered. Travellers noted the bones
hanging in chains by the Warrington road.
Justices ordered the gibbet removed,
the remains disposed of. In Price’s skull,
while Napoleon was crossing the Alps
or Telford building bridges or Hegel
defining Historical Necessity
or Goya painting Wellington’s portrait,
a robin made its nest.

Note: first published April 2009.

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By David Selzer

VIRTUALLY BIRDLESS IN ASSISI

By David SelzerJuly 30, 20130 Comments1 min read1.4K views

For Sarah: always a conservationist, latterly a twitcher.

i

In Umbria – the cuore verde of pristine, wooded hills,

Orvieto’s honey-pale wines,

the paintings of Perugino and Pisano,

the Tiber’s milky jade,

tartufo nero –

they stew thrush.

ii

At least once in our suburban garden,

house sparrow, green finch, ring-necked dove, wren,

jay, wood pigeon, robin, starling, swift, jackdaw, blue tit,

magpie, blackbird, sparrow hawk, chaffinch, swallow,

gold crest, bull finch, great tit, hen harrier, mistle thrush

have, variously, courted, mated, nested, birthed, ate, shat, killed,

bobbed, waddled, hopped, walked, pecked, fluttered, shrieked,

whistled, warbled, squawked and died.

iii

But, above all, sang – that esoteric music,

rich and varied as their plumage:

untutored, uncultivated, unstinting.

iv

Though only crows circle St. Francis’ basilica,

in Cheshire ostriches are farmed.

How accidents of diet, doctrine, sentiment and flag

determine extinction!

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By David Selzer

A SHORT HISTORY

By David SelzerApril 27, 20130 Comments1 min read1.5K views

For a generation, like weather cocks,
their skeletons swung near the highway.
James Price and Thomas Brown had robbed the Mail.
Years turned. The Gowy flooded and the heath
flowered. Travellers noted the bones
hanging in chains by the Warrington road.
Justices ordered the gibbet removed,
the remains disposed of. In Price’s skull,
while Napoleon was crossing the Alps
or Telford building bridges or Hegel
defining Historical Necessity
or Goya painting Wellington’s portrait,
a robin made its nest.

Note: The poem was first published by Chester Academic Press – http://Ashley Chantler (Ed), Life Lines: Poems from the Cheshire Prize for Literature 2004, 2005, ISBN 978-1-902275-51-2, £5.00. It was one of the first pieces to be published on the website in April 2009 and was subsequently published in ‘A Jar of Sticklebacks’ – http://www.armadillocentral.com/general/a-jar-of-sticklebacks-by-david-selzer

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By David Selzer

VIRTUALLY BIRDLESS IN ASSISI

By David SelzerJuly 23, 20093 Comments1 min read3.4K views

The Dodo, Ustad Mansur, Agra, 1610

For Sarah: always a conservationist, latterly a twitcher.

i

In Umbria – the cuore verde of pristine, wooded hills,

Orvieto’s honey-pale wines,

the paintings of Perugino and Pisano,

the Tiber’s milky jade,

tartufo nero –

they stew thrush.

ii

At least once in our suburban garden,

house sparrow, green finch, ring-necked dove, wren,

jay, wood pigeon, robin, starling, swift, jackdaw, blue tit,

magpie, blackbird, sparrowhawk, chaffinch, swallow,

gold crest, bull finch, great tit, hen harrier, mistle thrush

have, variously, courted, mated, nested, birthed, ate, shat, killed,

bobbed, waddled, hopped, walked, pecked, fluttered, shrieked,

whistled, warbled, squawked and died.

iii

But, above all, sang – that esoteric music,

rich and varied as their plumage:

untutored, uncultivated, unstinting.

iv

Though only crows circle St. Francis’ basilica,

in Cheshire ostriches are farmed.

How accidents of diet, doctrine, sentiment and flag

determine extinction!

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By David Selzer