Smug

The kettle is on the boil
The grate is alive and crackling
It is a raw winter morning
But only to the boys playing cricket in the yard.


Their voices reassure me
Give me something to think and forget
I can immerse myself in my oblivion
The window panes are thick between me and the world.


It is not a Boyg that can be seen or heard
It might be puny, it might be a giant
You never know
when it started to suck upon you.


I touched his hem first
when I met her
But it was only a fleeting sense
I could not even grasp it
and it had flown away.


As the days went by
and my love grew stronger
I began to have
my rest broken.
I knew now the devil I had nursed
My own creation, yet whom I canst not disown
The painful struggle commenced
To love her or to slay him.


To search for a reason is futile now
I do not want to know the damage
I only want
to fight him lustily unto death.

The victory shall be mine
For it is not I alone who fight
I have her by my side.
I am no gallant champion
of my lady
if I do not heed her exhortation.


It is not only in her words
not only in her eyes
But even in the proud arch of her neck
It is the mien with which she carries herself
that quickens my heart
and yet strikes home
when I think of the fallacies my life has bore.


She marches with me to the field
and yet it is I who must raise the arms
But the heaviest of arms
turn into a feather in my hands
when I know that there is someone who
is willing to uphold my banner.