Writer of Poetry, Screen Plays, Stage Plays & Fiction

Tag Archives Dante

THE LAST OF BRITAIN

By David Selzer December 29, 2017January 25, 2018 In Poetry 2 Beatrice, Dante

The when, where, why of the last of Britain

is not easy to pinpoint exactly.

Perhaps it was Dudley Moore, the comic actor

and skilful musician, drunk, approaching

Princess Margaret at some exclusive do

and slurring, “Good evening, your royal highness.

I suppose a blow job is out of the question?”

Or the woman herself choosing not to be buried

with her peers, but cremated in Slough.

Possibly it was the Queen and her consort,

By David Selzer February 24, 2017 In Poetry 3 'A History of Western Philosophy', 'De Consolatione Philosophiae'

‘Senator Boethius is the last of the Romans whom Cato or Tully could have acknowledged as their countryman.’

Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire, Edward Gibbon

Dante and Beatrice saw Boethius –

the sixth century consul, chamberlain,

intellectual and family man –

in Paradise: one of the twelve shining lights

in the sun’s heavenly firmament,

along with Solomon and Aquinas.

Imprisoned in a tower for alleged treason

and under sentence of execution,