David Selzer

CONTAGION

By David Selzer May 28, 2020 In Poetry 0 Atlantic Slave Trade, Black Death

‘O happy posterity, who will not experience such abysmal woe, and will look upon our testimony as a fable.’ Francesco Petrarch

Somewhere near the estuary of the Don,

with its mudflats and meanders, north

of the Sea of Azov, and somewhere

near the Volga Delta, with its pelicans

and flamingos, north of the Caspian,

on the steppe lands are black rats and fleas

and yersinia pestis. The rats

like human warmth, and the fleas can leap.

THE TOP OF THE RISE

By David Selzer May 28, 2020 In Poetry 1 'Wild Geese', con trails

For John Chapman

I can see for miles across the wolds, low hills

receding. The top of the rise is a field

of stubble that was rape. I imagine

last year’s sweet scented, false meadow of sharp

yellow and green. On the field’s far side

a flock of wild geese is grazing the stalks.

The cloudless, cerulean sky, empty

of con trails, seems closer, domed, as if curved

like our planet. In an ancient copse,

below the rise,

GUESTS OF LIFE

By David Selzer May 28, 2020 In Poetry 3 Ancient Romans, Anne Frank

‘We are the guests of life.’ Martin Heidegger

‘In ancient Greek the word for ‘guest’ is the same as the word for ‘foreigner’: xenos. And if you were to ask me to define our tragic condition, it’s that the word ‘xenophobia’ survives, and is commonly used, everyone understands it; but the word ‘xenophilia’ has disappeared…’ George Steiner

For Cicero books were the ‘soul of the house’.

The Ancient Romans knew a thing or two

about staying safe in uncivil times.

Nevertheless on his way to sail abroad

the lawyer,

THE SICK MAN OF EUROPE

By David Selzer May 28, 2020 In Poetry 1 BAME, Covid 19

For John Plummer

‘History is a people’s memory.’ Malcolm X

It is VE Day. Though those who still survive –

the eye witnesses – tell angrily of waste

not sacrifice, what should have been a day

of the dead, and the maimed, and the displaced

worldwide is here one of tea parties, sing-songs –

while the toll mounts as if it were the first day

of the Somme. They lied then. They are lying now –

WAITING AT THE GATE

By David Selzer May 28, 2020 In Poetry 0 'I'm leaning on the lamp post at the corner of the street In case a certain little lady comes by Oh me! Oh my!', George Formby

On the notice board of the Methodist Church –

on the opposite side of the street

from where I sit at my desk typing this –

is a poster. It is a colour photograph.

In the foreground is a wooden five bar gate.

Once I am certain there are no prisoners,

like me, at their exercise – voluntary

exiles walking their dogs in the middle

of the road avoiding others in lycra –

I go over for a closer look.

THE TEARS OF CHRIST

By David Selzer April 23, 2020 In Poetry 3 Bay of Naples, Campania

‘He beheld the city, and wept over it.’ Luke 19.41

We went up Mount Vesuvius by bus,

and stood on the rim of the crater

watching gases emerge from fissures.

We bought two bottles – a red and a white –

of the local wine, Lachryma Christi,

for a fellow atheist from the gift shop.

As we walked back down the fertile slopes – the sea

before us, hazy, tranquil – we heard

a cuckoo. All of Campania seemed stilled –

All Posts By David Selzer

CONTAGION

THE TOP OF THE RISE

GUESTS OF LIFE

THE SICK MAN OF EUROPE

WAITING AT THE GATE

THE TEARS OF CHRIST

David Selzer

Categories

Recent Comments

THE TOP OF THE RISE

GUESTS OF LIFE

THE SICK MAN OF EUROPE

GUESTS OF LIFE

GUESTS OF LIFE