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Best Poems Written by James Smyth

Below are the all-time best James Smyth poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

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Comfort

I've had dark nights of the soul. Oh yes. 
Thousands. 
I have searched and waited and waited and searched 
But. 
Only a muffled pang
They teach me nothing
Other than; 

There is a Deficit of Comfort. 

Maybe for all.
Maybe not. 
The entwined limb pushed away; the too hot blanket cast aside... 
Merely a demonstration of the temporary satiation regarding
That same paucity

That same Deficit of Comfort

I lay right there...yes. 
Right. There. On that strange, dank precipice, and wondered ... 
Still those dark nights had no truth to impart other than that they were wasted, lonesome hours 

So why, then? 

Alas, I know not 
But am now sure that the purpose of this travail is Yes! to surely seek, but also to be comforted.

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On the Death of My Sister

The early morning phone call.
Then the vague sifting through emotions. 
Numbness deepens - like the coastal shelf - and soon enough, there'll be grief, regrets...
Platitudes. You're in the other room, the better place.
But, in truth,
you've made the inevitable crossing we all must make and everyone - every one - before us has made, little sister. 

We are like pilots of ourselves.

Now, that which I can't create, buy, fashion or steal is the only thing I can wish
( what a curious idea. Such an ineffectual word ) 
for you. 

Peace.
That's the one.
Peace.

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Crumlin, of a Sunday

The rain. Unrelenting.
Cats and dogs. 
The dreary architecture of the souless
 grey-brown urban landscape 
worthy of the matchstick man fella
But. Hopeful.
The smokers hunched by the bookies,
 beside the battlecruiser. Handy. 
A cosy camaraderie with a common denominator
No judgement; but wonder or at least inquisitiveness
I envy them; I'm not of their clan
They are the self determined grassroots,
 as politicians like to say 
A certain folksy wisdom prevails
Later; the grim realities unveil
But. Enough!
Have the craic, lads
Have the craic!

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I Yearn

I Yearn

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A Palimpsest

A Palimpsest

I'm slowly becoming a ghost
Speaking softly and never getting to finish a thought
Fading into shadows and doubt
And memories recalled as non stories

It wasnt always like this
I was the one with the most
Time, Circumstance, loss and defeat have taken toll and the bell rings for the end of another round

A Palimpsest. Written on parchment thin as the skin around an old man's eyes
That's my corrupted compendium, the tragic game show I host
I'm slowly becoming a ghost

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Blank Black Books

Sometimes, it descends like a warm night breeze
A blanket. At once comforting and disturbing...
The sense knocks. A vague, uneasy membrane just outside of feeling
Too many years, too far along
Too much water under so many bridges
The house changes, transmogrified from cosy fustiness into something altogether sadder
It carries weight, occupies space, colours the green screen
Perhaps we are all just blank black books waiting for an author

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Novel

The faintest rumble in the East
Droplets; barely noticeable
Did you hear that?
Must have imagined it
Anyway, not intrusive enough to spoil our most important of conversations...
The Economy is thriving, the housing market is back to boom levels!
How disconnected
How terribly disconnected

Then, the distant Thunderclap
Did you hear that?
What? I dont think I heard anything
Oh wait! I see it now...
But it's far, far away
Cant affect us!

Then, the skies over Lombardy and the unfriendly states darken
Now, we see the sweated, furrowed brows...
The rain falling. 
Slight. Distant, but in sight
Intrusive now!
But we know these places! Centres of Haute Couture...nothing bad could ever happen there!
Hold on...
It moves closer?
How...?
Now its amongst us. Growing, feeding, an exponential maw of unending hunger
An appetite that wont be sated
Its upon us now
Its upon all of us now...

History doesnt stop.
We are living it
All is to transmogrify,
All will be new, and strange
An unthinkable unutterably terrible change...

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In the Castle

Brilliantly Blue Sky with Wispy Wondering Nebulous Cumulus Clouds
A bench. The scarred magpie 
Emblematic
The dull thud of realisation
Easily mistaken for a heartbeat
And our conversation;
Itself a Venn diagram of times very non linearity
Our elliptical orbit spun me dizzyingly to it's furthest reaches and back again
Events of a million years ago fondly remembered 
But for you and I
Only yesterday

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The Mask Has Slipped

I'm disillusioned of this modern world
This quantum, promise-palter singularity most days leaves me hollow like empty Technology 

Picture an old colour tv- tubeless workless-
abandoned on an urban bombsite; that's me

Deep unsettled forebodings haunt my sleep, itself a fitful deal 

On better days, I see the plan
But most days the pit looms larger than an internal universe of anxious raving racing outward expansion

It's possible I've aged enough - just enough, mind - to have become the prick the younger me kicked against. 
Not likely though. The evidence overwhelms. 
This time-ripping exponentiality denies all of my feeble tries at the explanatory

Let's see, shall we?
The ineptitude of THAT maternal platitude both exacerbates and contradicts the corollary
You see? That's the point now.
The Mask has slipped
And has anyone even noticed? 
Let's see. 
Let us see.
To whom do we make this silent plea?

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Seven Things

Seven Things I Have Not Done

As if Time was a series of outlines to be filled with colour
Each hue a different life value
Who comes up with these things?

Specious Norms and Social Media Seductively Sings of
Seven Things...
I'd never thought;

Was too busy staring over the rim of the abyss
Which, of course, was staring back
Laughing at the things I lack

Always. With the staring.
It stared before I breathed my first and will stare at the place where I was 
After I have breathed my last...
And Fact Fluidity... 

But. 
Enough of this grim melancholy
Let me see... 
Seven Things I Have Not Done
I cannot even think of one.