Morning observations rarely register
as we wake and wander our way
through infant hours.
It takes a moment for
the mind to come alive while
the gravity of the day settles in.
We fail to notice little things,
considerably more substantial days ago,
perhaps once meaningful or spiritual,
now displaced as the second hand
of the wristwatch sweeps onward.
Afford yourself opportunity
to be distracted by butterflies, soon
a scent of lilacs, freesia, even the taste of
spring rain or requisite morning coffee.
In days so rent with common
occurrences, look beyond
what is there.
04/02/2024 j.g.l.
cloud songs
Mondays are just young fridays
This search for wholeness, an
unforgiving quest to find a
natural state in a world of
compromise, deceit, and fate.
My self, my view, my impulse
or intention too far beyond
what I am or have now.
Deep thoughts, a deeper longing
for an uncomfortable truth
mainly comprised of falsehoods.
What is behind this fragile shell?
What has it done to protect me?
04/29/2024 j.g.l.
by any other name
More obvious than DNA, presence
or personality: identity. Individually,
names are given out by someone else,
by family or memory. Titles awarded
before character is developed,
without our knowledge.
A voice we live with. Should you
call out, what will you hear? A name:
in the end, all we are left with. Goodbye.
What you remember and often forget.
Introduction requires random thought
of specific examples.
Fingerprint fact and interpretation, a
name, birth date, statistics, history always
living proof of every step taken, up until
now. Evidence you are all you believe in,
selfish presentation of self-image, under
circumstances that change along with us.
Do you represent what others might think?
How well do they know you? Would you
be any different under any other name?
Will that person remain the same as you
if it were true? Hello. Ask yourself.
It is a hard title to live up to.
© 2021 j.g. lewis
disarming actualities
As if this prose would disappear
like acid rain, last week’s paycheque,
or the Ford Pinto.
I will undoubtedly forget or move on
to a new concern, overlooking recurring
supermarket mass shootings, a fentanyl
crisis, or cautionary tales as society
remains as calm as it is corrupt.
We seem to reliably take advice from
televangelists with Brylcreem-slick
schemes or deleterious demagogues,
while ignoring the poet
who speaks ostensibly
not of spring,
but of the dread instead.
The patina of the words dull in
perpetuity and still they attempt to
sum up happenstance emotions
caught within disarming actualities.
They, poets or society itself, cannot
know any better when speaking
of so much worse.
04/30/2024 j.g.l.
April is Poetry Month
it happens every year
inside the words
A poem records the state of being
from one writer to the next. We
visualize, even empathize with the
subject and the stance. We try
to understand the observations.
Poetry transforms us.
Colours change with the days and
attitudes allowed inside the words
under the same sky. We relate
to the surroundings differently
as we comprehend each poem.
Will we see what is there?
08/28/2024 j.g.l.
I'm like a pencil;
sometimes sharp,
most days
well-rounded,
other times
dull or
occasionally
broken.
Still I write.
j.g. lewis
is a writer/photographer in Toronto.
An Impression
Perspective,
perception, space
between each line.
The subject
bare, a body
in its most poetic form.
Two-minute sketch,
a pose,
little time to see behind
the image.
Like any other person,
a life, nobody truly knows.
Exposed. Angles and
curves, skin, illustration,
details, expression,
impression
of all that is there, and
what is accounted for.
Here. Now.
Depiction of a moment,
reality marked
by seconds.
A figure captured
on paper. Briefly.
Deliberate, though
inconclusive, pencil stroke
softening, straightening,
shading, sorting out
what is on display.
Temporarily.
Art is not
what is there,
rather what you see.
Time defines authenticity.
Another page, a different pose.
Two minutes; all you know.
© 2017 j.g. lewis
Here Is Not Near
If I had known that, I would
also be alone;
alone inside my head, where thoughts
would circulate like the blood
inside my body
between my ribs. Also
between my lips,
where words would no longer flow.
There were now only my eyes
with nowhere
to look, no more beauty to absorb
because inside my head, so many things
crowd the memories
I had attempted to build.
And I think; I think that:
I am still here.
Anger sits, between my ribs.
I am still here
watching my blood switching from
red to blue, as if it is a habit. Automatically
I scream hopelessly from the outside.
Hopeless on the inside. Help me.
I want to get out from here
desperate on the outside.
Those who surround me, strangers,
do not see.
They turn a deaf ear, since it is
but my loneliness following me everywhere.
Maybe a year, maybe even longer,
I am still here. My anger, I keep it,
there is no exit from the outside.
Here is not near.
A smile had, once, looked at me,
believed in me.
Happiness cut through me, finally.
A hand offered support, and this option
I loved, as only I could.
Whoever can say, who was aware,
that so much could be built upon a smile
and so much could be taken away.
© 2013 j.g. lewis
Anything Anymore
Silence amidst the screams, vacancy, space between darkness and dreams
beyond paisley skies, red velvet mistakes, and muddled remnants of
happenstance and half-lived Tuesdays.
Neverland tenements where landlords fail to repair cracked windows,
broken pipes, and the noxiously rhythmical drip, drip, drip of the sink.
You don’t care anymore.
Deadbolt locks designed to keep your self safe from yourself, or
your type. It gets harder to have faith when held sway by misfortune and
the troubles you create.
Awake, if hardly asleep. Ridiculous notions, infractions on lustful wishes
meant to placate the mind during desperate times or validate your existence
as a lover, has-been; one or the other.
Somewhere in this middle-of-the-night existence, 4:23 slips away, as
only 4:24 can. Time less subjective than one can imagine. Down the hall
the television knows only one volume.
Unfettered anger thrives in this sort of dive, trash bins overflow with
long-forgotten get-rich-quick schemes, recycled promises, and the pursuit
of happiness. Or something like it.
Consumption remains a tireless game, complete with ill-conceived products
and yesterday’s shame. Tomorrow (really today) won’t promise anything anymore.
Less to discover outside any door.
Black noise in a white noise sort of way. Continual reminders of not being alone in
this awkwardness. You hear the echo of booty-call passion in the bedroom above.
It doesn’t mean anything. It never is love.
Sunrise, even sunset, less reason to see. It keeps you awake for another day. Time
even less subjective than it was an hour ago. Close the door on a short night, look
for another reflection in the mirror.
Underneath the pizza crusts and bad fast-food choices, empty calories and
abandoned wine bottles, a Bible sits in a box you never look in. You can’t deal with
the guilt. Or the lies.
©2017 j.g. lewis
No Rush For Time
Convenient refuge from the torrential deluge,
unexpected, a Tiki bar; he without an umbrella,
she without an excuse. First date, foreign film,
fix-up by a friend. Free of folly
or awkward moments associated
with ideas you don’t own.
Dusty rubber plants, bamboo walls
and red vinyl booths. Rum drinks
in fake pineapple tumblers from the Sixties,
Doobie Brothers from the Seventies
playing on the jukebox,
and enough shared stories of the decades since
to inspire second date.
They both read Franzen, cursed Netflix,
watched public television, and loved Matisse.
He talked about art and
how he always wished he could paint,
she spoke of Chilhuly like she knew about fragility.
Air conditioned comfort
a contrast to downtown’s August humidity.
No tension. No rush for time.
She liked his affable face, attentiveness,
and manners. He liked how
she seemed genuinely interested
and the way she jiggled
when she laughed, all tits and ribs.
They stopped talking about common friends
and then only referenced themselves, as if
they each recognized each other’s loneliness.
No tension. No checking the time.
Another couple of rounds of exotic drinks,
then a slow walk up the puddled street.
She linked her arm into his, like
it belonged there.
A half-block from his subway station,
a few steps from her apartment, decisions
under a streetlamp. An embrace in the rain,
the thin cotton blouse clung to her bony frame,
until it was removed.
It poured right through the night,
the scent of the city alive with promise,
or something other than crowds and concrete.
No tension. No need to check the clock.
She fell asleep watching traffic lights from below
paint murals across her ceiling, and finding
new comfort in an old bed.
His mind, miles away, ran through reasons
why something felt right
when nothing else had.
He had no excuse. She had few questions.
Slipping out for morning coffee,
he returned with the Sunday paper.
© 2017 j.g. lewis
All Kinds Of Why
Within the solemnness of night
I’ve watched
vacant face without a trace,
of thought.
Stillness.
Solitude without distance.
Eyes flicker, and only then
I wonder how you dream and
where you go. Alone,
the unconscious mind
takes you away, where
you want to be.
I know,
I’ve been there too.
To all, to yourself, each night
a gift recounting
and caring about people or places.
Circumstances beyond
all control,
conditions only
you know.
Timeline a blur,
yesterday becomes today, as
months and days recovered.
So many years travelled
in the blink of an eye,
all sorts of when,
all kinds of why.
How can it be only memory
when you are
the only one who will see?
What about me?
I hold moments
in my heart,
only a soul
could tell them apart
from a reality
once planned,
never realized.
Is it ever as it seems?
Do I appear
in your dreams?
@ 2017 j.g. lewis
