David Selzer

A SHORT HISTORY

By David Selzer April 25, 2019 In Poetry 2 bones, chains

For a generation, like weather cocks,

their skeletons swung near the highway.

James Price and Thomas Brown had robbed the Mail.

Years turned. The Gowy flooded and the heath

flowered. Travellers noted the bones

hanging in chains by the Warrington road.

Justices ordered the gibbet removed,

the remains disposed of. In Price’s skull,

while Napoleon was crossing the Alps

or Telford building bridges or Hegel

defining Historical Necessity

or Goya painting Wellington’s portrait,

a robin made its nest.

EZRA POUND IN VENICE

By David Selzer April 25, 2019 In Poetry 1 Allen Ginsburg, anti-semitism

‘But the worst mistake I made was that stupid suburban prejudice of anti-semitism.’ Ezra Pound

Sitting in a traghetto, Olga Rudge

from Ohio and Ezra Pound from

Idaho – together fifty years,

from concert violinist to poet’s helpmate,

poet maker to fascist propagandist,

he, typically, with stick, wide brimmed hat,

floppy collar, she, wearing woollen gloves,

left hand clutching a large, canvas bag, right hand

a carefully folded scarf, dressed, like any

elderly woman, for a chilly day –

WISHES

By David Selzer April 25, 2019 In Poetry 3 bird feeder, Blackcap

For Evelyn b. 13.1.10

Born to good music by strong women,

Ella’s ‘isle of joy’, Nina’s ’it’s a new dawn’ –

how you nestle in your parents’ untrammelled

love, how you suck with unrelenting hunger!

Born into a world of rubble, with children

buried alive, a world of chicanery

and hatreds – you have entered a difficult,

place, little Evie, somewhere remarkable,

full of tears and amazing kindnesses!

Born into a world of snow,

FAR ABOVE RUBIES

By David Selzer April 25, 2019 In Poetry 0 barque, battlements

The silence woke her. Beyond the locked door

by now her maids should be chattering

in that harsh tongue. She went to the window.

Even the gulls on the battlements were mute.

And no guards on the ramparts, nobody

in the bailey. The straits were the colour

of the emerald at her neck – her father’s

wedding gift. A barque moved edgily

through the sands. Its pennants spoke of home.

The island’s coast was clear in the sun.

She imagined the light summer wind

stirring its fecund,

OH YES THERE IS!

By David Selzer April 25, 2019 In Poetry 0 Abanazar, Aladdin

You are Princess Ayesha, the principal girl,

in the youth group’s pantomime at St Barnabas,

West Street, Crewe. Disguised as a boy, you are searching

for Aladdin – your true, lost love – in the canvas

forest and the bazaar, among the painted caves

and the amphora. Heavily Max Factored, dressed

in torn shirt and ripped shorts – having crossed the desert,

outwitted each one of the forty thieves, bested

Abanazar, bamboozled the Genie and charmed

Widow Twankey to be downstage centre –

A POLITICAL EDUCATION

By David Selzer March 28, 2019 In Poetry 0 Germans, London homelessness post Second World War

The hostel women came one summer evening

after tea. The noise brought Judith and me

from hiding-from-the-Germans, our game

in the bushy borders of the gardens

in our block of flats off Finchley Road.

A crowd of women, with some small children –

a few men were outside on the pavement –

were at the back of the building where we were

forbidden to go and the bins were kept.

A row of aspen saplings, planted

alongside the back fence,

All Posts By David Selzer

David Selzer

A SHORT HISTORY

EZRA POUND IN VENICE

WISHES

FAR ABOVE RUBIES

OH YES THERE IS!

A POLITICAL EDUCATION

David Selzer

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