Archive for November, 2010
UNDER NOVEMBER SKIES
Posted by David Selzer in Poetry on November 28th, 2010
The rain has stopped. We can hear only the wind
and a swollen stream – hidden beneath
the high moor’s golden fern – rush through a culvert
under the road, which glistens, after the shower,
in an unexpected shaft of sunlight.
Rain clouds are blackening the mountains
to the west but northwards, beyond bracken
and gorse that stretches seemingly to land’s edge,
through a gap in the hills, we can see the sea,
a sunny blue, and a white ship sailing east –
too far away to recognise her flags.
Chance has brought us here as winter comes. Love
stays us against the dark.
A NEIGHBOURHOOD OF STRANGERS
Posted by David Selzer in Poetry on November 28th, 2010
Buzzards splayed their wingtips against the sun.
A Phantom entered the glacial valley,
its fuselage burning – the pilot
and crewman still at the controls, their choice made.
In school, it was story time – magical
oak woods, changelings secreted. The children
heard a rushing like oceans. Their teacher
saw the fire approach and two young men,
with a hundred years of technology,
burst upon the huddled village’s
common land… Children dreamt of foreign men
gone to dust in a golden fire for a
neighbourhood of strangers.
PRO PATRIA MORI
Posted by David Selzer in Poetry on November 28th, 2010
As fire storms travel, we are twenty miles
from the marshalling yards at Crewe, some twelve
and a half from a tracking station near
Wardle, sixish from British Nuclear
Fuels at Capenhurst and slightly more than
four from an unspecified RAF
electronic complex in Sealand – which
all must have their numbers on at least
one ICBM in a silo
east of the Urals and/or west of
the Appalachians. And so, though there may be
nuclear winter in Hoole, we shall not
see it in our lifetime.
‘A WINDY DAY’ & ‘A CALM MORNING’
Posted by David Selzer in Poetry on November 28th, 2010
A WINDY DAY, J.M.W.TURNER Tabley, the seat of Sir J.F. Leicester
They bought up land, made marriages, dispossessed
tenants and built their fortune on rents.
These commissions mark their zenith. Since then,
the estate has been sold off acre by
acre, piece by piece – one Turner remains,
the other hangs in another museum.
Some things are unchanged: in the distance,
the house’s palladian exterior
in local sandstone, the round turreted
folly on the small island in the lake – an ancient
Cheshire mere. Gone are the fishing boats
tacking on the choppy water or anchored
in the pink stillness just after dawn.
Whatever fishes thrive are largely
unmolested and aircraft rise from Ringway
five miles or so to the north. But England
continues: – consuming, class ridden.
A CALM MORNING, J.M.W.TURNER
IN THE COMPASS OF A PALE
Posted by David Selzer in Poetry on November 28th, 2010
With branch, stalk, thorns, by a dry summer’s
overgrowth obscured, in one unkempt border,
a rose – traditional, heart red – bloomed.
Over tall weeds and grasses, tangled, brittle,
I leant to pluck it, found it blown, blooded,
a bouquet of wormy petals – left it
blighted, inviolate. Where the black gate
hinged to the wall banking our garden,
coffin-sized, skeletal leaves gathered,
whispering, stones, stones. Come winter, frost fissured
bricks and luxurious, pitchy earth sprinkled.
In spring, grasses sprouted in the crevice;
fleshy leaves hissed, breath, breath.
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