Skip to content

Lesley Harrison ~ poetry etc

June 30, 2023

‘Kitchen Music’ launch, Scottish Poetry Library

Continue reading →
May 15, 2023

Online launch of ‘Kitchen Music’, Tue 30th May 7pm

Continue reading →
March 3, 2023

‘Whaling and the Gothic North’

Continue reading →
March 3, 2023

‘Kitchen Music’, published by Carcanet May 2023

Continue reading →
December 16, 2022

Carcanet Poetry

Continue reading →
October 11, 2022October 11, 2022

‘Kitchen Music’

Continue reading →
September 19, 2021

Michael Murphy Memorial Prize 2021

Continue reading →
August 5, 2021

The Fish Shed, Arbroath

Continue reading →
November 13, 2020

CETACEA

Continue reading →

Posts navigation

← Older posts
Newer posts →

Menu

  • Home
  • Publications
  • Contact

DISAPPEARANCE

DISAPPEARANCE     [extract]

I must have disturbed him when I came up the companion .… He was unapproachable, as a misfit should be.
– Donald Crowhurst, logbook of the Teighnmouth Electron. 29th January 1969.

 

[…]
How, singlehanding in a bad storm,
light-poor, deprived of sleep, beyond isolation

and fatigue as the boat took a beating
shedding green tons, letting the dark in

through shuddering deck boards;
working at waking, the tiller jammed hard

at his side while the boat leaned and leaned,
the second up front, watching the sea’s sliding surface

as it brimmed and fell while he nursed the boat across
great holes that closed and opened

beside them, the two of them watching for minutes
as the storm fretted and at last began

to fail, the boat butting forward, correcting its roll
in small calms, riding weightless

as the surface formed
itself and held, the wind sighing

in one vast outbreath,
and then he was alone again.

 

From Disappearance : North Sea Poems, publ. Shearsman, 2020.

[Photo from Bas Jan Ader: In Search of the Miraculous, by Door Jan Verwoert. MIT Press, 2006.]

  • RSS
  • Dribbble
  • LinkedIn
  • Instagram
  • Foursquare
  • Vimeo
Blog at WordPress.com.
  • Subscribe Subscribed
    • Lesley Harrison ~ poetry etc
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Lesley Harrison ~ poetry etc
    • Subscribe Subscribed
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...