Posts Tagged Ynys Mon
ABERFFRAW, YNYS MÔN
Posted by David Selzer in Poetry on January 25th, 2012
Sand dunes, sharp with pampas grass, muffle
Caernavon Bay, St. George’s Channel,
the Atlantic. The Ffraw’s estuary flows
narrow as an eel. The curlews call.
The non-conformist chapel is up for sale
and the visitors’ centre does funeral teas.
The highway bypasses the village,
though here, fourteen centuries ago,
was the urbane, Christian court of Cadfan, Prince
of Gwynedd. Nothing remains. The Vikings
razed the wooden palace. He was buried
some two miles away, the slate gravestone
inscribed in Latin not Welsh by his heir:
Catamanus rex, sapientissimus,
opinatissimus, omnium regnum –
Cadfan, wisest, most renowned of all kings.
A penchant for dissension kept the Celtic
empires shifting like sand. They founded London,
Paris and Vienna but Rome and its
civil service, under new management,
finally seduced and traduced them.
LOOKING FOR PUFFINS: SOUTH STACK REVISITED – A POEM FOR OUR DAUGHTER
Posted by David Selzer in Poetry on October 29th, 2011
South Stack, Ynys Môn, ©SCES 2009
Of course, by the time it’s my turn at the ’scope
the bugger’s turned its back. ‘It is a puffin,’
reassures the RSPB girl – and,
since she’s pretty and young, I believe
that what I see is not one of the teeming,
noisy, noisome, nesting guillemots,
razorbills or gulls. A hat trick: ageism,
sexism, anthropomorphism – plus
being churlish as a bear rather than
valiant as a lion. Intriguing opposites. Grrr!
We came here last when she was five or six.
Decades on, she stands with her lover
at a turn in the steps – both happy,
both blooming with her longed-for future,
and wrestling with the breeze for your camera.
Some gulls have eschewed the crowded cliffs
to nest in the lighthouse’s disused kitchen garden.
We lean on the wall like pig farmers.
There is a dead chick amongst the gooseberries.
A living one stands, yes, surprised, startled but resolute
though even here winds roar like lions or bears.
I hold my breath…1,2,3…for us all.
LOOKING FOR PUFFINS: SOUTH STACK REVISITED – POEM FOR OUR DAUGHTER
Posted by David Selzer in Poetry on December 20th, 2009
South Stack, Ynys Môn, ©SCES 2009
Of course, by the time it’s my turn at the ’scope
the bugger’s turned its back. ‘It is a puffin,’
reassures the RSPB girl – and,
since she’s pretty and young, I believe
that what I see is not one of the teeming,
noisy, noisome, nesting guillemots,
razorbills or gulls. A hat trick: ageism,
sexism, anthropomorphism – plus
being churlish as a bear rather than
valiant as a lion. Intriguing opposites. Grrr!
We came here last when she was five or six.
Decades on, she stands with her lover
at a turn in the steps – both happy,
both blooming with her longed-for future,
and wrestling with the breeze for your camera.
Some gulls have eschewed the crowded cliffs
to nest in the lighthouse’s disused kitchen garden.
We lean on the wall like pig farmers.
There is a dead chick amongst the gooseberries.
A living one stands, yes, surprised, startled but resolute
though even here winds roar like lions or bears.
I hold my breath…1,2,3…for us all.
BULKELEY HOTEL, BEAUMARIS, YNYS MÔN
Posted by David Selzer in Poetry on October 30th, 2009
At twilight from the hills across the Straits, a sudden
drift of smoke – then a fire’s deep orange eye blinked.
We talked of cruising the Nile; of moon rise and sun set,
of the narrow compass of the earth’s curve;
the river pilots’ open armed, hand-on-heart salaams;
and the stars rushing through the night.
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Later and sleepless in the early hours,
I kept watch at the bedroom window.
The hotel sign lit a faded Union flag,
threadbare at its outer edges.
The only hint of the far shore was
sporadic lights on the A55.
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But the stars were unequivocal. In a cloudless,
unpolluted sky, how they teemed!
I saw the constellations pass
and the random magnificence of things revealed.
Understandably, you preferred to sleep.
And journey safely through the dark.
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