The Curve Of The Sky With Its Portents And Light (from The Songs Of The Erinnyes, Sonnets, Odes, and Elegies by Jay Noya, Brigantium Press)

The Curve Of The Sky With Its Portents And Light


You know you do know but you don’t because you can’t
It’s comes as a taunt just as much as it comes as a warning
You’ve come to reckon as much and expect it and find it
Because you can’t know it in the way you sense other things
But its presence cannot be denied or thwarted or blurred and erased
You can’t pretend it isn’t an urge as well as a predisposition
For it is that it is a predisposition and it’s the grayness of melancholy
It’s a type of bilge swishing at the bottom of your heart
And it is other things you can’t feel or shall ever notice
But you’re who you are trapped in your head
You're trapped under the taut skin stretched over your fingers
You're trapped in the length of your legs and layers and layers of memories
It is you that person drifting in a midmorning reverie
Standing anonymous standing under massive steel cables
It's a bridge you're sailing on across the East River
And from its deck you raise your gaze heavenward
And you feel what you can’t see and the will struggles against it
Your sole weapon is your eye
And you pity the effort you’ve brought to bear on it
And your fists tighten and your teeth grate
And you resist the curve of the sky with its portents and light
Because now it is you and you alone breathing and seeing
And you won't ask yourself what's left because there's nothing else
It is you resisting the images the sky has lit up
And that in seconds have darkened behind your eyes



© J. Noya 2008