She first held my hand
five delicate fingers, swallowed up
in my palm. Fingers grasping
                            at my fingers.
Tiny.
No indication of such a big life.
                           There was comfort
                            Reassurance.
                            A small hand, I thought I could
                            hold it forever.
              Tighter
              to keep it there.
              Stop it from growing

The hand has grown, still delicate
                           there
                           in my palm.
Now that of a woman
like no other
a part of me.
Like
no other woman.

                 She is full with 
                 room to grow
                                    to emerge.
                            She is what I have, and
                            the one who is
                                             always there.
As I have tried to be.

A strength more than physical
difficult
to comprehend.
A gentle patience, a
small hand,
wisdom larger than
life itself.

                            I want to hold her hand
                            a while longer
                                                  to reassure
                             I have done something right
                                                          in this world.
When there
I have no questions.
None of myself, as a human being
                                     or otherwise.
                           I host
                           too many doubts
                           which have withered
                           my ability
                           to see.

In her I see what I am and
what I could be.
If nothing else,
the one good thing
I can be
and will always be
to her.

©2015 j.g. lewis

I could warm milk on the stovetop, but that
would only leave a mess. Sometimes you don’t do
what you need to do, because it leaves

a mess. The day still stings, long gone now. It’s shadows
of commerce and confusion invariably run up
against ever-present fears. My heart is restless, doubting

all intelligence my head provides. My body rises,
on its own will, against tepid protest, returning
slowly to an empty kitchen. Six minutes

past three. It feels later. The clock denies. Laughter outside,
from wayward teenagers, scurries through the window.
I wonder how, in the past, I could sequester myself

from day-to-day cruelties. I wonder why I no longer
could, or was allowed to. Or why I let myself
express everything I felt or what I didn’t. The soul

recycles its madness, the night still the night, taking
on the tensions of a thunderstorm that will
never come. My body is weary, all of me is

weak. I am tired. Yet my fingers move, like this is
automatic, like this is what they should be doing. My
mind is all over the place, but my fingers are here. Words

appear, recounting, repeating, earnest thoughts of fears
splattered across the page. Sometimes you have to do
what you need to do. Even, if it leaves a mess.

©2014 j.g. lewis

yesterday 
        today
was
tomorrow

I had many things to do

                              things I had put off
consciously or 
unconsciously       it mattered not
       I was determined to get them
done
one         (or all of them)
by
one
done      today

when it was tomorrow

it seemed easier
it seemed manageable
it seemed as if there would

be time
when today
was tomorrow

yet as tomorrow came,
       as it always does
       as yesterday lost hold of
the hours and
                            its way
and tomorrow just happened
anyway

it seemed                                                 as if

time had passed me by
as if a day;
today or any day
slipped off the calendar
falling like a rose petal or
disgraced politician
into the basket of days misspent
or wasted

days which promised more
but delivered less

tomorrows do that
they never quite live up to
today

and all too often
become a yesterday

©2014 j.g. lewis

Errors and misfortunes freely
broadcast across unregulated
airspace
for all to see. And devour.

No space, no time for indignation.
No place for pride, nor gentlemen
worthy
of such ambition.

Nothing remains safe or sacred
in the mesh of sound bites and
sensationalism.
Nothing is permanent.

Except for the scars. Nothing is
everything and then
not at all.
It is all about the power.

All concepts requiring brave
thought overshadowed by a
corrupt few
recklessly tending to so many.

Politics, like commerce, once an
honorable vocation. Now a lowly
blood sport.
We continue watching, transfixed.

Withered victims writhe upon society’s
sidewalks of faith and hope.
Promises
promised. Promises passed over.

Collateral damage in everyone’s
war. A domestic crisis where
nothing
is everything it once was.

©2014 j.g. lewis

more constant
than science
more precise
than algebra
more valuable
than cash . . .
why can’t our lives be guided by poetry?

POETRY
a more consistent thought lately.
I’m reading more, I’m writing more,
I’m believing more. Lately.
It is poetry month.
April.

Why now, I don’t know, and why just one month?
Why not every month?
It matters not; but it does.
Here, as well, people are sharing their work, their words,
and people are talking about their favorite
poetry.

I am not sure if most people talk
poetry
enough.

Doesn’t it have to rhyme?
Not all of the time . . .
 not for everyone.

If not a poem, then
a poet
is mainly misunderstood.
But how? The language is so direct,
it cuts out the crap, rarely are there ums and awes,
and
any hesitation is purposeful.
Poets do not stumble on words. Poets respect words, poets
breathe words.
Words are currency, for a poet. Why not for everybody?

POETRY
celebrates language, any language . . .
I must admit envy as, recently,
very recently,
two people, here on this screen, shared a poem
(in fact, a poem about poetry) across the ocean,
in the language in which it was intended.
la poesía
Okay, it wasn’t envy. It was jealousy: pure and simple.
For I have always enjoyed Neruda,
(I keep a small volume on my office desk to remind myself, in the middle of
the day, when I’m infected by the banal corporate culture [an oxymoron?]
I open the pages to remind myself how words are to be used, correctly).
I enjoy Neruda, in the only language I know.
I read translations.
I wonder,
what is lost in translation?

How much more wonderful are his words
in his native tongue?
Perhaps I should learn Español?
Or maybe I can be satisfied in knowing
two people
I don’t really know,
(and they really know not each other)
took a few sentences,
to share, both a language
and a poem.

LA POESÍA
Separated by an ocean, and time zones,
and communicating not with lips, but through a screen,
two people shared something in common.
A poem.
That is how powerful poetry
is
can be
and should be.
It should bring people together.
Lovers, warriors, politicians and their prey
might better understand themselves and each other
if they thought more in poetry, than in whatever else
they might be thinking.

This is not a poem.
This is simply
random scrabble,
disjointed musings,
caffeine-free morning thoughts,
nothing more really,
than a long-winded statement
of why
I like poetry
(in April, or any month)
and maybe why
you do 
too.

@2014 j.g. lewis

Originally published on Rebelle Society, September 2014    www.rebellesociety.com
Above photograph features EPITHALAMIUM by Pablo Neruda