Archive for October, 2010
LA CLEF DES CHAMPS
Posted by David Selzer in Poetry on October 27th, 2010
'La Clef Des Champs,' René Magritte, 1936
When the landscape breaks, shards of painted trees,
clouds, turf cascade in crystal slabs onto
the carpet – and the landscape is there still
on the next pane. Over the brow of the rise
are the world’s kingdoms: deserts silenced
by polished bone; uneasy rooms where
sepia furniture flowers; canvas; wood;
the gallery’s wall solid as money -
asservir le bourgeoisie through draughtmanship.
The artist’s mother was pulled from the Sambre,
a suicide – the night-dress shrouding
her face. When the world breaks…breaks…there is death
only or servitude.
THE WAR ON TERROR
Posted by David Selzer in Poetry on October 27th, 2010
2001
Riding the F Train that August –
from Queens to Manhattan, Jamaica
Estates to Times Square – were all
of the hues and tongues and tribes and faiths.
Dead at our door, on our return,
wings stretched as if in flight,
lay a hen harrier, a female.
You chose to bury it gently
in the warm September earth.
Five thousand miles away, we watched
the towers fall. Later, building Babel
replaced the grace of humanity.
So many of the peoples of the earth
had gathered there. In the plaza’s fountain,
a bronze globe had turned perpetually. All
went to dust in a whirligig of fire.
2003
Atlantic waves broke on the empty sand.
Undeterred by us, a beetle crossed the dunes.
Almost due south was Casablanca.
…in all the towns in all the world…
We followed the war by satellite. Graven
effigies fell. Truths unfurled like smoke, like spume.
In the estuary – where ships from Tyre
and Ostia Antica had hoved to –
at low tide, small crabs emerged, waving.
…in all the gin joints in all the towns…
Wretches, saved, like you and me!
ON THE NATURE OF THINGS
Posted by David Selzer in Poetry on October 27th, 2010
From the terrace at Polesden Lacey, it was
the guttural calls caught our attention -
then sheep flowing fast over rising ground
like a pale yellow banner in the wind,
then the shepherd himself, then his dogs
flattening themselves at his command.
By the time we reached the valley bottom,
the beasts were penned – lambs from ewes,
the latter funnelled for the shearers.
The bleating drowned the whirring of the clippers.
From the high bridge over the Tweed at Kelso,
we watched a fisherman upstream cast
from a skiff – his companion sculling gently
to keep steady in the current – when,
suddenly, between us and the men,
who, of course, were facing the wrong way,
two salmon leapt from the river six feet
or more and, turning, re-entered the depths
silently. Oblivious, on those costly
waters, the ghillie rowed, his master fished.
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