Poem
David Harsent
PENELOPE
PENELOPE
PENELOPE
Not that she was fooled by his disguise:she’d have known him by his scars for sure,
by the way he cast his eye over the dead
and dying suitors. What was there to say?
Twenty years of waking dreams . . . now here he stood
in the light from the dying fire,
a greybeard dappled with gore. ‘Welcome,’ she said,
in a voice she barely knew, he barely recognised.
Her loom cast latticed shadows on the ceiling;
the grave-cloth she’d worked to destroy
hung on the frame like something flayed.
Shapes in the weave darkened to ash
and lifted off, black birds of night
low on the skyline and disappearing fast.
© 2007, David Harsent
From: Poetry Review, 97:3
Publisher: Poetry Review,
From: Poetry Review, 97:3
Publisher: Poetry Review,
David Harsent
(United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, 1942)
David Harsent won the 2005 Forward Prize for Legion, which was also shortlisted for the Whitbread Prize and the TS Eliot Award; he has also been the recipient of the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Award, an Eric Gregory Award, two Arts Council bursaries and a Society of Authors Fellowship.
David Harsent’s work is both varied, and like that of all important writers, instantly recognisable. He is also co...
David Harsent’s work is both varied, and like that of all important writers, instantly recognisable. He is also co...
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Poems of David Harsent
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PENELOPE
Not that she was fooled by his disguise:she’d have known him by his scars for sure,
by the way he cast his eye over the dead
and dying suitors. What was there to say?
Twenty years of waking dreams . . . now here he stood
in the light from the dying fire,
a greybeard dappled with gore. ‘Welcome,’ she said,
in a voice she barely knew, he barely recognised.
Her loom cast latticed shadows on the ceiling;
the grave-cloth she’d worked to destroy
hung on the frame like something flayed.
Shapes in the weave darkened to ash
and lifted off, black birds of night
low on the skyline and disappearing fast.
From: Poetry Review, 97:3
PENELOPE
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