De "Elsewhere"

... the terrible notion of living life to the full,
the slow advancement of days, all comfortless, all lost
to pleasure, the pain of that, the rack
of memory, slow music, lights coming on at dusk,
all lost, windows wide to the night-air, childrens' voices lost
to the sound of surd, to the seas' clean sweep,
myself, pitched up, you might think, from anywhere, addled, lost

as if I'd come to from a night-long dream of risk
that stationed me on this beach, as if to sleep
were to dream of the place I must wake to, dream
only of that, the tideline rubble, the pull of the waves, the scar
salt leaves on stone, the long, bright line
where the rest of the world falls away ...

David Harsent, Night, Faber & Faber, 2011

A view of the house from the back of the garden

In darkness. In rain. Yourself at the very point
where what's yours bleeds off through the pallings
to terra incognita, and the night's blood-hunt
starts up in the brush: the notion of something smiling
as it slinks in now for the rush and sudden shunt.

A woman is laying a table; the cloth
billows as it settles; a wine-glass catches the light.
A basket for bread, spoons and bowls for broth
as you know, just as you know how slight
a hold you have on this: a lit window, the faint
odour of iodine in the rainfall's push and pull.

Now she looks out, but you're invisible
as you planned, though maybe it's a failing
to stand at one remove, to watch, to want
everything stalled and held on an indrawn breath.

The house, the woman, the window, the lamplight falling
short of everything except bare earth -
can you see how it seems, can you tell
why you happen to be just here, where the garden path
runs of to black, still watching
as she turns away, sharply, as if in fright,
while the downpour thickens and her shadow on the wall,
trembling, is given over to the night?

Surely it's that moment from the myth
in which you look back and everything goes to hell.

David Harsent, Night, Faber & Faber, 2011

Morning

She threw back the shutters and spread
the bedsheets of the window-sill.

It was broad day. A bird stared back at her.
'I'm alone, I'm alive...' She stood in front of the mirror.

'This too is a window. If I jump,
I'll fall into my own arms.'

David Harsent, In Secret: Versions of Yannis Ritsos, Enitharmon, 2012

XVII

In your dream we are separated by war
and after untold business somehow make our way
to the café where they keep that bright Sancerre.

It has taken half a lifetime. You in a windows eat
writing a letter, me at the window unable to make out
who it's for. You smile and sip your wine: Pouilly Fumé.

I have fifty blacks to hand which are really black
with a bit of this, if you look, and a bit of that.
I am saving the darkest dark for such a day.

David Harsent, Marriage, Faber & Faber, 2002.

Terms

The place put you at risk.
Stone buildings and a few bleak clumps of birch
ranged out along the low escarpments.
The house was still your territory though.
For a while I thought you'd be content
idling amid your grimcrack jewellery,
your ancient skills,
believing everything I said.

David Harsent, do livro After Dark in Selected Poems:1969-2005, Faber & Faber.