Poetry – Page 3 – David Selzer

PAINTING PARADISE

By David Selzer August 29, 2019 In Poetry 3 acer, architect

If I were a painter – and I would have

so many memorable titles – I would paint

your garden in all its rooms and seasons:

across the high back wall spring’s coral pink

clematis; summer’s sword-leaved, red-flamed

crocosmia by the aquamarine

gazebo; the white, weathered table and chairs

and the acer on the dark-brick terrace;

plants inherited, self-seeded, handed on

in stewardship – a world compendium.

You are the architect, builder, labourer –

and only begetter: ‘Sylvia Among

Her Sonnets Without Words’

ORGANISED CRIMES

By David Selzer August 29, 2019 In Poetry 3 BBC, black market sugar

I watched the TV parade of affluent

(and mostly public school) chancers, liars,

fantasists, hypocrites, law-breakers

vie to top each other’s warmed-up clichés

and self-serving platitudes. The social

and economic future dystopia most

seemed to desire would, they assured us,

bring out the British best in all of us,

just like the Blitz. I thought of bomb-razed

building lots in major cities still empty,

and a tale a cabby told me years ago,

taxiing me from the railway station.

ALL THIS IS BUT A DREAM

By David Selzer August 29, 2019 In Poetry 3 'Romeo & Juliet', Bamburgh Castle

For Barbara and John Huddart

On this calm summer evening the North Sea falls

unheard on the wide sands below the castle

in whose inner ward the play is set – and we

(an eclectic collection of friends)

have brought folding chairs, prosecco, pop,

and fish suppers from Seahouses nearby

along this coast of raiders and saints.

‘My bounty is as boundless as the sea,

My love as deep; the more I give to thee,

ACROSS THE ESTUARY

By David Selzer August 29, 2019 In Poetry 1 Amritsar Massacre, dee estuary

The beds of varicoloured reeds, fields almost,

stretch north and south along this bank for miles,

and westwards, nearly to Wales, across the wide,

silted river. Unseen marsh creatures scarcely

disturb the grasses. Egrets and herons

fly in and out of hidden lagoons.

Before silt, from here, the Dublin packet sailed –

with G.F. Handel and Jonathan Swift.

On the opposite shore are the ruins

of Flint Castle where Richard was dethroned –

‘…night-owls shriek where mounting larks should sing.’

OUT OF THE EARTH

By David Selzer August 29, 2019 In Poetry 0 Alexandra Park, Orpheus

The park’s diagonal avenue of limes

is in leaf. A warm southwesterly

billows through the foliage like falling surf,

like the tumultuous rushing of flames.

I watch you walk away under the trees,

and disappear into the green shade.

On the path directly opposite,

across an uncluttered expanse of grass,

you reappear some moments later,

undeterred by a surge of carefree cyclists

taking short cuts, or self-absorbed dog walkers.

You vanish beyond the wind-swept tennis courts.

SAME OLD, SAME OLD

By David Selzer July 20, 2019 In Poetry 6 'coffin' ships. Boston, Bidston Observatory

Impelled by Wall Street and the Pentagon,

and the vanity of Presidents,

the astronauts had seemed to sail beyond

experience – but we TV millions watched

live ‘Old Glory’ stiffen above us;

heard Nixon speak; saw Aldrin at attention.

Meanwhile, oblivious, the Vietcong

were waiting patiently in their tunnels.

***

The day of the moon landing we walked up

Bidston Hill to the Observatory,

where my great grandfather – who had captained

coffin ships to Boston –

DAY BREAKING

By David Selzer July 20, 2019 In Poetry 2 dawn, daybreak

Sleepless I opened the slats of the bathroom’s

white Venetian blind expecting darkness

but the eastern sky over our neighbours’ roofs

was already pale, and the Morning Star glowed

gilded, and I suddenly remembered

being in the yard of an old coaching inn,

standing by a sandstone horse trough still used

for hunts, its water frozen so deeply

I could only crack the surface with my fist.

Behind the inn farmland – ploughed, hoar frosted,

horse trampled – stretched unfenced over a rise.

ORGANISED CRIMES

By David Selzer July 20, 2019 In Poetry 0 BBC, black market

I watched the TV parade of affluent

(and mostly public school) chancers, liars,

fantasists, hypocrites, law-breakers

vie to top each other’s warmed-up clichés

and self-serving platitudes. The social

and economic future dystopia most

seemed to desire would, they assured us,

bring out the British best in all of us,

just like the Blitz. I thought of bomb-razed

building lots in major cities still empty,

and a tale a cabby told me years ago,

taxiing me from the railway station.

WALKING HOME

By David Selzer July 20, 2019 In Poetry 0 Chiawelo, Gleneagles shopping mall

We talked of those we had worked with that day,

and those with whom we would work again.

We passed, as always, so many walking,

as we left Chiawelo in Soweto.

We were returning to New Redruth,

where the Cornish tin miners were exiled

to grow the gold reefs and shine the diamonds.

We joined the steady rush hour traffic

on the N12 South. Passing the Gleneagles

shopping mall, I saw, on the hard shoulder

of the opposite carriageway, a man,

WATCHING THE STORM

By David Selzer July 20, 2019 In Poetry 0 Anne Tyler, August '62

From Llandwyn Beach we watch – safely, distantly –

rain clouds, across the bay and the beginnings

of the Irish Sea, obscure the coast

and then the three mountain peaks, one by one,

of the Ll?n Peninsula. We hear thunder

trundle on the high ground and rumble

in the valleys, and see lightning fork,

furnace yellow, in the ash grey clouds.

Watching a storm at such a calm remove

is like two scholars in faux panama hats

watching the past,

You are viewing Poetry

PAINTING PARADISE

ORGANISED CRIMES

ALL THIS IS BUT A DREAM

ACROSS THE ESTUARY

OUT OF THE EARTH

SAME OLD, SAME OLD

DAY BREAKING

ORGANISED CRIMES

WALKING HOME

WATCHING THE STORM

David Selzer

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ON THE 70TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE NATO ALLIANCE

MARTIN MERE WETLAND, LANCASHIRE

2019

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2019

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