Paul Smyth

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Like that I

Watch the little finger twirl the thread,
tighten the thread, 
the give with a hammock sling and swing
and slowly, methodically move along to seal the join,
go on to encircle.
At the centre it is taut.
You have seen on the honey - suckle.
1 have seen it.
So how can I be caught?

Like spits of rain, her snores.
Knick. Knick. Knick.
She takes up the whole bed.
Why does she call out
in that endless second within the dream? What is it?
Fear? of the loss of?
Why does she weave such intricacies that web?
The need of the food of excitement?
She will be wife to no man
mistress of all,
mistress of no man, wife to one?

Why do dreams call out?

Like that II

Better to be in a car on the railway track
stuck
where no road has come from
ahead a field where no road goes.

Better to be put Peer Gynt's Button Moulder
into the pot at the cross-roads and melted down.

Better than lose love, given, not cherished
What luck lost.
What desert land now shifts
blind stormed, shapeless,
and there ist neither canvas nor skien of silk
will protect without it.