The Fylde

POETRY

CROSBY BEACH, MERSEYSIDE, 2030

By David SelzerJanuary 27, 20227 Comments2 min read1.7K views

For John Plummer

After lengthy negotiations between

Sefton Metropolitan Borough Council

and Another Place Ltd, the cast iron

statues that comprise the installation,

‘Another Place’, will be removed from the beach.

A third of the statues is completely

submerged. At a high water a third more

disappear, and those, nearest what remains

of the sand dunes, show only their heads.

The hundred figures, all cast from a mould

of the naked body of the artist,

Sir Antony Gormley, will be erected

along the perimeter of a nearby

golf course the Council acquired under

the Global Warming Mitigation Act.

The barnacles, which adhere to the statues,

will in time, it is anticipated, drop off.

A spokesperson for the artist explained

that the protracted negotiations focussed

on which direction the statues would face.

A compromise was reached whereby some would face

south towards Liverpool’s two cathedrals

high up at either end of Hope Street;

some north towards Southport’s hinterland

and the flooded fields of the Fylde’s coastal plain;

and some still westwards towards what used to be

the ambiguous promise of the oceans.

Before the installation of the art work

the beach was seldom visited – unsafe

for swimming, a rudimentary car park

beside the Coastguard Station, no toilets.

The occasional dog-walker might note

the profusion of razor clams, or specks

of coal, scattered among the seaweed, from seams

at Point of Ayr on the distant Welsh coast.

The influx of visitors required

a tarmacked car park and proper toilets –

both frequently inundated now.

The Coastguard Station is on twenty foot piles.

Crosby Beach is seven miles or so

from the centre of Liverpool, most of which

was razed in the May Blitz of ’41.

Much of the rubble was dumped on the beach,

cordoned off from the public throughout the war.

The detritus is so wind-swept and now sea-swept

that it resembles pebbles spring tides have cast –

except for the tell-tale clay of a brick,

a fragment of cut stone.

Note: ANOTHER PLACE – Sylvia Selzer: https://www.sylviaselzer.com/2014/08/17/another-place/

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By David Selzer

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POETRY

EXTERMINATE THE BRUTES

By David SelzerMay 21, 20154 Comments2 min read1.6K views

For Alex Cox

‘I am strongly in favour of using poison gas against uncivilised tribes.’ Winston Churchill

As usual, he dresses for town
in anticipation of the King’s summons –
which never comes. After breakfast, he reads
The Times and the Daily Telegraph, notes
Ghandi’s lenient sentence of six years
in prison without hard labour – then,
reflecting on unrest throughout the Empire,
puts on his smock and his homburg and strolls,
cigar lit, the short walk to his studio.
He pours a small portion of Johnny Walker –
the bottle kept always with a clean glass
on the bench he sits on to paint – and adds
a measure of Vichy water. He is working
on a painting of his son reclining
in a deck chair on a terrace in Leghorn.
After the third glass he dreams as usual.

He captures Peter the Painter personally
at the Siege of Sidney Street. Gallipoli
is a famous victory. He leads
his country in war and is returned to power
by an ever so grateful nation. He wakes
and paints in the features of his wayward
son named for his own wayward father.

After the fourth he dreams again. He persuades
the King, at last, to order the razing
of Liverpool as punishment for
the seamen’s strike and the policemen’s strike.
At first light on a soft summer dawn
the dreadnought battleship HMS
Nemesis drops its anchors opposite
Wallasey Town Hall and trains its 15 inch
guns firstly on the Three Graces. He wakes
suddenly as he always does knowing
that, viewing the devastation from the
Avro Bison flying north above
the ruins of West Derby Road, he would see
the few Celts who survived fleeing to where
they had no place, the Lancashire hinterland –
west to the lush, orderly market gardens
of The Fylde and east to the cotton towns,
bustling, regimented. He has a fifth,
lights a cigar and strolls back for lunch.