Archive for May, 2011
A WEDDING
Posted by David Selzer in Poetry on May 25th, 2011
From the spoil heaps of the redundant gold mines,
when the wind blows, the dirt blows always
over Soweto. In a flapping marquee
at the end of a street, the wedding took place.
Aperitif nibbles became gritty,
paper cloths grimy, the cutlery
silhouetted in grit. There were many
speeches – long before guests ate the freshly
slaughtered lamb and even longer before
the singing and dancing. The hired canvas drummed
with hope, humour, courage, enterprise, joy.
WHICH PASSETH UNDERSTANDING
Posted by David Selzer in Poetry on May 25th, 2011
With wind soughing in the churchyard yews,
lichen marking the gravestones of labourer
and landowner, Saxon foundations,
mediaeval tower, sunlight fitful
through worthy Victorian stained glass,
a brass plaque for ‘those who gave their lives’,
the wheezy organ, the orotund Order
for the Burial of the Dead, ‘I am the
resurrection and the life…’ the vicar’s
gentle eulogy of the deceased,
one is almost tempted to wish God
were in his heaven where ‘we shall all
be changed…in the twinkling of an eye’
but common sense prevails.
SOMETHING OF SUMMER
Posted by David Selzer in Poetry on May 25th, 2011
While, at the last outpost of its empire,
a blackbird sounds reveille and, next door,
red admirals repose in buddleia,
something of summer, caught in the early air
and gathered, a lightness, perfumed, bold,
is touching narrow, walled-in gardens
where, high over houses epochs old,
wood pigeons flute in maples and a thrush,
lost in the snows of a pear tree, cuts notes
like glass. Neglected blossom lights
along the chipped and blackened bricks, a rush
of scent from satiny blooms, while clovered
lawns are striving for grass.
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