Sonnet 153, The Distances, Second Series (from The Songs Of The Erinnyes, Sonnets, Odes, and Elegies by Jay Noya, Brigantium Press)

Sonnet 153



Oh that I were the face and the rest of it in a puddle after the rain
I am that person way inside tinkering away tinkering away
And then comes the meticulous stealth of glancing round and about
Till the eye takes flight and crashes through the blue and grey
Of a September early evening sky weighed down with menace
The worrying blackens the heart and the swelling blackens the night
And the rain arrives to dance the wind’s riddle and follows its lead
Up the street and down the alleyway and behind the fenced backyard
And from the embrace of a man and a woman a screech smashes
To pieces the winged night and a ghoul pulls at her arm
And the street ends and is clocked and calendared by the lamppost
And a church steeple bends out of view into the opacity
That was yesterday whereas tonight it’s the unabating rain
And my raised fist waved in ridicule and hoity-toity defiance
(an insult to the Almighty at his most sublime and impervious)
So it’s castigation and brutality and the riot of illness and death
That I count on to split my veins and rupture my soul
But no it’s to be grace and the sublimity of an unknown tenderness
That invades and pierces through the sand that is my soul



© J.Noya 2010