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

1

A knife to your womb is what I say
A bomb strapped around your neck is what I say
A charred tree and a burning sky is what I say
A boiling sea and a day that won’t end is what I say
Deserted streets in a bombed and burning city
Cadavers piled up by the roadside in the outskirts
Neither wind nor day and night are likely after this
I’ve removed your eyes with a knife and removed your tongue you say
I’ve stolen upon you in the night and raped
And murdered your daughters and shot your husband
And slit your throat and burnt you all in a pile you say
There won’t be another day like this
The calendar is finished and it won’t matter what time stood for
Neither you nor will be around to shout and protest
And argue and point fingers in accusation
The only justice we’ll be familiar with then
Shall the uncertainty of the ground
And the remoteness of the air

2

A knife to your womb is what I say
A bomb strapped around your neck is what I say
A charred tree and a burning sky is what I say
A boiling sea and a day that won’t end is what I say
You won’t recognize me emerging from an apartment building
And I won’t see you because you shan’t be alive to accuse me
The maggots would have feasted on you and disguised you
The maggots would have removed you
From among anything that stirs in the sunlight
From among anything that feels the chill of dawn
From among strangers at the street corner going home
Going to an apartment on Ninth Avenue and a television set
And what I saw once when I was away in a nameless nowhere
Won’t keep me from my dinner and my bed


3

A gun to the back of your neck is what I say
I won’t fret in the morning when I get out of bed
I’ll drink coffee and smoke and read the newspaper
I’ll listen to the radio and just after eight go off to work
And I won’t mind what the weather is like
I’ll hum and notice a woman crossing Eighth Avenue
And a taxi stopping for three men in identical overcoats
And I’ll take the subway to the east side of town
And at the other end this life I know to be mine
I’ll feel a stirring and something of a recollection
Will force itself upon me that I’ll guess it’s you gone
You as a thread you as a noise you as a quivering shadow
But it won’t be you it’ll be a phantasm of what you once were
A paltry space well away from roads and streets
And the voices of people and the din of traffic
It’ll be you just the same erased by a knife
Erased by the hand wielding a knife and afterwards a fire
It’ll be you erased by an unmarked burial place


© J. Noya 2006

Like A Prodigal Son To Fire Returned (from The Songs Of The Erinnyes, Sonnets, Odes, and Elegies by Jay Noya, Brigantium Press)

Like a prodigal son to fire returned
Le retour de l’enfant prodigue
The homebound prodigal dispirited
Rain in his wake
Rain in his eyes
Rain in his bones
It wasn’t a road which had brought him to the river
He’d lost his way and slept through a cold night
And awoke beneath a ridge and beyond it was the river
He talked to himself for solace
He said I’ve been walking for years
And he wept not really grasping (not that he needed to)
His predicament just then watching the river
Through a wall of pines up on a promontory
His lips quivered and he wept watching the river
And his heart ached for what couldn’t be



© J. Noya 2006

And Yet Death Comes To This Place (from The Songs Of The Erinnyes, Sonnets, Odes, and Elegies by Jay Noya, Brigantium Press)

And yet death comes to this place
A not fabled or tamed death
A railway yard death miles and time worn
Anonymous from station to station
Platform to platform without end
Without known or seen or rumored profit
Leave-taking without words and gestures
Leave-taking without a face to go by
And recollect years later
And fasten one’s anguish and remorse to
This is a wordless place where death brings
The carrion birds over
And I’ve told them plenty
I’ve confessed and owned up to my vagrant ways
I said that you’ll find me one day
Wandering passing through
This other place I’ve got a postcard of
It won’t always be a nameless place
It won’t always be like this
Walking to the edge of things
Walking to the edge of ideas in a place like this
Where death cajoles the carrion birds to land


© J. Noya 2006