David Selzer

MANY A SUMMER

By David Selzer August 27, 2020 In Poetry 3 'The more I see you as years go by', 'Tithonus' by Alfred Tennyson

As usual Uncle Tacko is trundling

his Flea Circus to the end of the pier,

and the Island Princess is embarking

for a trip up the Straits and around

Ynys Seiriol with its nesting puffins,

its elderberry woodland purpling.

And the dogged chambers of my heart, open

and close, open, close, like an harmonium.

All the familiar sounds – the Flea Circus crowd,

the paddlers in the pool, the revellers

on the hotel lawn next door –

DRIVING INTO THE DARK

By David Selzer August 27, 2020 In Poetry 5 American Civil War, Arkansas

For Annabel Honor-Lissi

In those stark dreams when sleep shades into waking,

dreams that haunt the light like a taste in the mouth,

or a name half-remembered, half-forgotten,

I am always travelling – this dawn

along the black tops and the turnpikes,

from the Texas Panhandle north east

to Casco Bay, Maine. Ahead is the thought

of moments, or a non-stop two day drive:

from the sun-belt’s stubborn, garish pandemic;

via the fame of Dallas,

THE CLARINET

By David Selzer August 27, 2020 In Poetry 2 Artie Shaw, Benny Goodman

I listened to Artie Shaw and Benny Goodman.

I liked the keys’ silver superstructure,

and the ebony stick with its subtle bell,

and its tones – mellow, lustrous, shrill, caressing.

So, to and from school, I chose to pass

a second-hand shop with a clarinet

on display in its eclectic window.

I saved for a year. ‘No,’ said the man. Next day

it was gone from the display forever.

My daughter took up the instrument

unprompted. Her daughter has followed.

THE BANDED DEMOISELLE

By David Selzer August 27, 2020 In Poetry 2 agapanthus, banded demoiselle

If Ezekiel’s watchman, or, rather, God’s

had been on the job there would have been

some sort of heads-up – a cornet perhaps

if not a fanfare – that the Parish Church clock,

put in place in 1867,

would be chiming again, hours and quarters,

this summer morning. But it just happens –

almost surreptitiously, like some

member of the chorus in an opera

sneaking on late from the wings. And late it is

by a few minutes – as before it was fast.

CIRCUS

By David Selzer August 27, 2020 In Poetry 2 changelings, circus

Days after we had travelled east of Eden

we invented clowning and slapstick,

juggling and tumbling, magic and music,

and idleness to ease our banishment

from Paradise. So, for ninety minutes,

in this rare and aerial space of changelings

and kaleidoscopes, we watch acrobats

and clowns, conjurors and knife throwers turn back

the epochs as if pages in a book.

Like a sudden rush of snare drums, a brief

and heavy shower accompanies

the finale –

THE LAST TASMANIAN TIGER….

By David Selzer July 23, 2020 In Poetry 10 Last Tasmanian Tiger, Palawi

…though striped in part was not, in fact, a tiger,

or feline in any way, but related

to the kangaroo, so a marsupial,

with a head and muzzle a bit like a bear’s,

and the dimensions of an Alsatian dog.

Somebody named him Benjamin – a joke

probably: the last of Jacob’s sons,

and Israel’s progenitor. Some footage

survives, in black and white, of the animal

in his small, bleak cage in Hobart Zoo.

The newsreel’s pompous and slightly smarmy

voice-over,

All Posts By David Selzer

David Selzer

MANY A SUMMER

DRIVING INTO THE DARK

THE CLARINET

THE BANDED DEMOISELLE

CIRCUS

THE LAST TASMANIAN TIGER….

David Selzer

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DRIVING INTO THE DARK

DRIVING INTO THE DARK

WHAT THE HEART REMEMBERS

CIRCUS

THE CLARINET