In Plain View (from The Songs Of The Erinnyes, Sonnets, Odes, and Elegies by Jay Noya, Brigantium Press)

1

It’s always another time and it’s gone
Because you weren’t expecting it because it couldn’t be
But it was already the other time
It was already gone and you glared back
And there might’ve been anger in your eyes
As there was certain to be anger in your heart
It goes round and round inside your head
A testimony to what you wondered
A testimony to everything you shan’t ever have and own
A testimony to everything you shan’t experience and see
It goes round and round inside your skull
And it’s okay if you hazard a guess
As to whether or not it’ll be there still when you’re dead
And your skull is fleshless and its eyeballs are gone
And the brain has liquefied and trickled out of it
What will be going round and round it then?
This is no simpleton’s plea put forth in vain
It’s no plea addressed and shouted in the dark
At nothing and no one and for no good reason
Other than one’s had too much to drink
Other than one’s lost the way to a woman’s heart
And because one’s lost the way to the rest of her

2

I did what I did in plain view
And what witnesses there were
Saw what they saw because they couldn’t look away
They wouldn’t turn away
It cost them nothing to linger and watch the show
That’s how it was that I came to be there
Doing and saying what I was doing and saying
In plain view for one and sundry to watch and describe afterwards
All the while I was convinced that it’s always
Another time and it’s over and erased for good
Erased and never to be seen
But others watched what I did
It was apparently resented and some shouted
And threatened me and insisted I couldn’t say
And do what I was saying and doing
That it was immoral and certainly uncivil
That it was madness to see what other couldn’t see
That it was a repudiation of reason and truth
To persist on saying what others can’t or won’t say
And will or won’t there be a day of reckoning
It’s a dance that takes hours and takes decades
It’s a lubricated plea strapped and knotted
About Saint Augustine’s head
And the mob clamors for the lynching
Knowing that it’s inevitable
Knowing that it’s been inevitable since Wednesday last


© J.Noya 2006