December rain sneaks into a sleep that may
or might not have been. Gentle, with enough of a breath
to be noticed, yet crafty enough to remain unknown.
Window open slightly, the world from
the other side of the curtains
seeps into your space. If sleep is sleep, or has it been?
Wide-eyed now, hands reaching upwards, grasping at clouds
and the residue that comes with the season. Emotions,
struggling with premonitions of silence, you attempt
to fashion thoughts into dreams
of what you want or where you’ve seen
or what you wish, or what might have been.
It’s not bright, not this time of day. There can’t be a moon,
not one you can see anyway.
Clouds and thoughts, and your restless ways
fighting the fever for hours and for days.
You might seem so strong and still, right now, who can say.
Lucent thought, lenient waves, comfort you enough to stay
tangled in the life you knew
in this sleep, just not all the way through.
Who you are, or what you want
the raindrops fall, the memories taunt.

Night is only a time for precious remembrances. No one can hear
what you think, perhaps no one can know. Not even you.
A life imagined. You can’t turn it off, or
turn it down, or see your way to shut out the view.
The only one is you. Trying to speak the words
you need to feel, you come up silent against
the rain’s steady peel. It’s takes over, it always does.
December rain. It’s not the same. The chill
cannot be the temperature, you are wrapped in the blankets,
pillows pushed aside in a heap, as they are when you sleep.
A rest that is not now, for if it were 
would you hear your heartbeat, or remember
all that you dream? Or is it ever as it seems.
The steady rhythm never forgets, patterns of the past
come back slowly. It’s wet, its cold, the memory is old
but it is right there. Remember.
Of course you do, of course you have,
you cannot spend all those waking hours in
wonder, and not have it come rushing back.
When you’re ready for mercy,
December rain seems to know.
It crashes against the silence and the mystery it holds.
© 2015 j.g. lewis

I bought a new parka; I hadn’t for some time,
really only once in my adult life and years ago at that.
I had many parkas before, as a child.
You had to, around here.

There is no fashion in a parka. Parkas are boring.
It is all practical. Not like a ski jacket,
or an overcoat, or whatever was fashionable
at the time.

My Dad had a parka, I remember that,
blue with a hood, and deep pockets.
He may have had more than one,
but the one I remember was blue. And warm

Fathers seem to never grow cold.
They watch hockey games and shovel snow,
the parka protection from the elements,
as your feet freeze and cheeks grow white.

Fathers, like parkas, are sensible.
Consistent. They stand against the cold
providing protection and warmth.
I wear a parka.
© 2011 j.g. lewis

Coming out of the bottle, come on like a disease
A little slow at first, I’ve not lost my thirst,
but I’m past my misery
It’s taken distance, taken space, taken time I can’t replace
I take a few steps back, from this frozen track, and I finally see my face
I’m here now, where I thought I needed to be
But the need was not as great as the need to be me

Days of skyscraping buildings, nights on barren streets
you rarely see kindness, feel a warm breath,
there’s no mercy and too much greed
It’s taken away my confidence, my will, and all my strength indeed
There is no friendship here, when all’s said and done, not even one in need
Time to leave; I’m not sure I’ll be free
I can go anywhere and not know anybody

I needed to be where I could be more than a stranger
I needed to feel so much more than the danger
I needed to hear another point of view
I’ve heard what I need; now I think I need to hear you

Give me a drink, give me a couple of days
Give me a bus ticket back
and the time to find my way
The things you never wanted, things you never said
Keep on rolling around
in the back of my head

The nights move cautiously onward, swallow up the day
Taste a dose of bitterness, in the comfort of others
unlikely subjects along the way
I’ve taken advice from common tarot card readers
Sidewalk mystics and a string of bottom feeders
They say now is the time, but never in this place
I should save all my effort, save all my face

Move on, I won’t stay
Move where, I can’t say
Maybe there’s a place
some sort of middle ground
Maybe I’m lost
Maybe I can’t be found

I can’t stay any longer than a couple of days
if I can find my way back
You know I’ve come a long way
Maybe there’s a process or maybe there’s a place
Maybe there is a way
not to show my disgrace

© 2015 j.g. lewis

It’s all about the music.

No, it’s more than that; it’s all about the magic.

Delicately you pull the glistening black disc from the inner sleeve. You’re more careful at this moment than you will ever be, for this object has rarely touched human hands and you will only use your fingertips. This record, pure virgin vinyl, is about to feel the needle scraping the life from its grooves. It’s not painful, far from it.

Once placed on the turntable, you gently and precisely lift the tone arm where it belongs, press the button, and watch as the cartridge is slowly descends on its target. Your anticipation is heightened as you hear the initial rumble of the needle in the bare-naked groove, a prelude to what is about to happen next.

Then it does, and touch or sight doesn’t matter. It’s all about the ears as music, joyful music, wafts from the speakers.

Pure audio, aural, pleasure.

It’s what a turntable does — beyond it’s function of transporting recorded sound to reality — that makes the magic happen, and it was designed that way.

In the late 1800s, Thomas Edison developed the original concept of etching sound into a wax cylinder for playback. The original prototypes functioned without electricity and demanded listening exceptionally close to the cone, but over the decades the technology advanced. Size, style and weight of the format varied through the years, yet the premise and the process has changed little. The object, the goal, and the purpose of a turntable is to spin magic.

Just ask somebody how they felt when they first played a Beatles record, or placed Dark Side of the Moon on their family hi-fi for the first time.

Yeah, it’s magic.

I grew up in a home where music was encouraged, listened to, and enjoyed. My Mom was a fan of big band, the music of her youth, and of crooners and the popular stuff of the day. She bought me LPs as a youngster, and treated my siblings and I with albums by The Monkees, and Herman’s Hermits. It began a lifetime love of music.

As I grew up (and I still am) and started accumulating spending money, I begin to buy into real rock and roll; my taste, generally, shaped by the radio or recommendations of others.

Listening to music, making use of the turntable, was a part of homework, reading, or just hanging out with friends. Life revolved around the turntable. Certain songs are associated with definitive moments in my life; it is the nature of music, as we pick and chose our own soundtrack. I have albums that directly correlate to years, moments, and periods of my life. Nothing can bring back a memory like a certain song. Nothing. I own thousands of records, and more memories than that.

Indeed, magic.

I’m not going to write about the cause and effect of music on the mindset, a topic covered more eloquently by others (I will even suggest reading David Byrne’s How Music Works as the definitive book on music appreciation and absorption), but I will propose that the turntable provides the most concentrated method of fully consuming recorded music. Even in the digital age.

Like millions of music lovers, I was attracted to the introduction of the compact disc in the 80s. Like crows drawn to shiny objects, I gave in to the latest technology. There had been whispers about the format for years, and when it hit the marketplace we, after prices of the players dropped to affordable levels, bought into the promise of unparalleled sound quality.

Extended playtime was the biggest benefit of the CD, there was no need to get up and flip sides at the halfway point, and there was generally more music in the relatively small package.

The turntable fell out of favour, and we (as a society of consumers) stopped buying LP records and began replacing much-loved albums in the latest format, along with the new offerings by the latest artists. As we bought up the rather expensive discs, the audio equipment became more affordable, portable, and more and more people bought into the format. Year over year, sales of vinyl dropped, and quickly. Like the 8-traack tape, records were expected to fall off the map.

Even serious collectors of music (and yes, I am one) could not help but love the portability as the CD fit into blasters, compact personal players, and even the automobile. I never stopped listening to my old records, but more and more began to appreciate the ease of popping a CD into the player.

There were downfalls to the new format however, and it had more to do with packaging than product. The covers of the discs were no longer 12-inch square samples of some of the most advanced pop art and photography on the planet. Liner notes became things of the past. Yes, some discs included booklets with lyrics printed in a type size usually reserved for fine print on legal contracts or ingredient lists on processed food, and some discs even included stickers, but nothing like the posters and stickers provided in the aforementioned Dark Side of the Moon.

A large part of the value of a vinyl record was the sleeve. I could, and did, literally, sit for hours reading about who played what instrument, ponder the poetic lyrics, or just stared at glorious photographs while sitting and listening to the latest album by a favorite artist.

To listen, to truly experience music on a turntable, requires you be in one specific place. Enjoyment is found in being stationary. There is not, nor has there ever been, portability when it comes to a turntable; not like a cassette, or 8-track, CD, MP3, or any other type of digital download. Even the portable record players of the ‘60s and ‘70s — the carry-on sized units with Lucite handles and tweed speaker covers — were not really portable (in the sense we now know) and required a definite stillness.

When you sit, when you are still, there is a more focused attempt at listening. It was not passive listening, as we have come to do as we drive, as we multi-task, and make our way to work, or sunburn at the beach.

The stillness required of a turntable provided time to relax and just breathe in the music. It’s important to find the time to sit and relax, and ultimately, the turntable did that.

Now, I’m not dissing digital, not completely. My MacBook is stuffed with music that discs and downloads have allowed me to take anywhere.

And, as far as sound goes, I still prefer listening to classical, or jazz, on the CD format. I think, especially with the more gentle passages, you are given a superior listening experience. But when it comes to rock and roll, nothing (I repeat; nothing) sounds better than vinyl (except, maybe, live).

Rock and roll has always been a little bit dirty, a little scuffed up, maybe a little distorted, and a heck of a lot wilder. Somehow the scratches, the snap, crackle, and pop of a vinyl record (especially at higher volume) adds to the total experience.

It’s rough and real, and it rocks.

I write this as I listen to Patty Smith’s Easter, a previously-loved album I picked up a few weekends ago for $10 at one of this city’s great independent record stores. I paid a few dollars less for the record when it was new in 1978, but what’s a few bucks when magic is involved?

© 2015 j.g. lewis

“You can’t touch music — it exists only at the moment it is apprehended — and yet it can profoundly alter how we view the world and our place in it. Music can get us through difficult patches in our lives by changing not only how we feel about ourselves, but also how we feel about everything outside ourselves. It’s powerful stuff.”
                                                                                                                                                                             – David Byrne

In any language, a scream is a scream,
a cry is a cry, and a tear
a tear.
At a sidewalk café or concert hall,
laughter should be laughter, and music
should be heard. In a civilized nation,
life should be lived without fear,
and with the freedom
to enjoy simple pleasures,
to give, and to love, as we do.

Think not of them, idealistically, but
of you and of me. Life, and our
civil lives,
now compressed to fight or flight.
In any language, on any night,
thoughts remain
bursting with pain, the
shadow of terrorism rising
again. In every country, our hearts
have been crushed.

Restless night, clouded by sorrow and
the news. The images, and views,
the questions,
the why, and why there. Again,
why? Knowing, without question,
it could be anywhere. The streets are
not safe, not tonight, in any country.
Where is here. You cannot see, or
comprehend inhumanity. Not on
that scale, or of that type.

In every language, evil lurks, unexpectedly
displaying its brutal cowardice. We cannot
be shocked,
for it happens, on so many levels,
in so many countries, to many people
on too many streets. Blood is blood.
Knives at home, elsewhere guns
or worse. We see it. We know it.
Yet, on a global scale, our minds
are numb.

Hatred begets violence, justice benign
against those who chose to
use themselves
as weapons of destruction. We
are not safe, not there, not here.
These damaged souls believe
in what they believe; wholly
and without question.
If there is no understanding,
there is only resistance.

Prayers, or a hymn, cannot be offered to
unbelievers, for they will not, or chose not,
to listen.
Guided by spirits, their Gods, and dictators
who know nothing but this atrocious devotion
to another type of mankind. Historically
and now, they cannot know love
or recognize the value of
a human life. For they
cannot be human.

Grieving, raging, and still, beneath our
confusion, above our cries for revenge
or retribution,
lies a love, unpronounced but unfolding.
A heartbeat, sympathies and empathy
to the powerless struggles,
in every language. We, as a civilization,
in any nation, must stand
united in our sense of humanity,
and do so with a fortified will.

We must continue believing in love,
and hope, charity, and trust,
and peace.
Right now, however, there is so little
to those words. We must have faith,
in what we believe, in every heart,
in every body. Difficult to imagine,
but we must. To deny
this resurgence of compassion
is to give in to all this terror stands for.

© 2015 j.g. lewis