Mythos & Marginalia

2015 – 2025: a decade of days

j.g.lewis

  • so much more

      So much more than flesh and tissue, 
    the human heart, of intricate design, responsible naturally 
    for each second time allows. A complicated array of vessels 
    and ventricles of immodest proportion, 
    its importance need not be reinforced. A vital organ. 
    A muscle; strong, steady. Purposeful. With the lungs 
    it functions, beneath ribs woven 
    to shield us from life’s catastrophes. If we should say 
    the heart is more important than the brain, we would 
    then again, have to think of how it functions, 
    or when it faults. 
       Humans are complicated, from the start. 
       Do we lead with our head, or follow the heart? 
    Secure in its biological habitat.    Protected.    And we, 
    as we grow, endeavor to understand emotions, and feelings, 
    and complications, as blood rushes through our veins, 
    as we learn to live, or love, in pain. 
          Heartbeat.      Heart break.      Heart ache. 
    Trusting less in the function, less of the body, 
    we build walls, a facade, to hide behind. 
    Having lost before, or even since then,
    we protect our self. 
        So much more than function or folly, 
    a human’s heart; the complicated array of flesh and veins, 
    of sordid pasts and rumpled pain. Strength we can find, 
    a purpose of which to remind. 
    If the heart is more important than the brain, 
    we shall learn to try, and will love again.

    © 2018 j.g. lewis

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  • we try to express

    Some words arrive 
    too quickly, and you struggle 
    to keep up, to write them down. 
    Or remember; thoughts you 
    can’t hold back, these thoughts 
    you cannot take away.
    Not all pencils need erasers.
    Not all mistakes can be erased.
    Still we write, and still we try
    to express, to love, to believe 
    and communicate.

    02/13/2020 j.g. lewis

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  • acceptance

    Never underestimate 
    the power of a six-buck bouquet, a
    shared newspaper or gift of a pencil. 
    Simplicity. Given, without expectation.
    Demand comes to all-too-easy in days 
    that move with unintended velocity 
    and mixed emotions.
    To put a price on kindness is
    to devalue a gesture or sentiment.
    Everything comes with a cost, perhaps
    even at a cost. You should not ponder 
    it’s worth, or yours. Words, at times, 
    are not easy. Acceptance can be difficult.

    Remember to say thank you, 
    as you give or are given. Gifts 
    do not need to be boastful. Gratitude 
    need not be uncomfortable, 
    it should, however, be memorable. 
    We often forget kind words, flowers 
    after they have wilted. Tossed away.
    Small blessings are not short lived,
    there to remind us more of 
    who we are, Not what we have. 
    To receive is to give. 
    Acceptance is realization of truth, 
    or trust. Or thought. Remain thankful.

    © 2020 j.g. lewis

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  • no warmth no welcome

    Eyes wide open 

    in the dark, blood rushing, pounding heart. Still I cannot see. 

    Can you believe, will you find relief 

    walking down once-familiar streets? 

    Before light to the darkness of the dream, or the dawn, 

    or the dread,

    now only streetlights. I wake. I walk, I wonder.

    Halogen hum overhead, the only sound, above scorched earth 

    or snow-covered ground.

    Only one reason for being here, everything else

    is gone.

    Let me sleep. 

    Let dreams whisper. I’ve got thoughts, which must come out,

    I shouldn’t need to shout. I cannot listen.

    Below a moonlight serenade, the homeless search

    for shelter and sustenance, while new lover’s trade 

    secrets

    behind the door. Promises not shared before. 

    Not with each other.

    I wander. These were once streets, bursting with kindness. 

    The sidewalks, now, little more than foreign, there is no welcome here.

    Not in the way it was, as I left it.

    Do you take 

    what is there, take the care, or do you wait to lay your heart 

    before the soul who once listened to all you know, 

    and found comfort. In my voice there was enough, 

    yet now it is torn with edges 

    rough. 

    What was still is. Or is it? There is value in a thought.

    A struggle with contempt

    of dreams I might have spent, but not wisely.

    There is no warmth. I will go back from where I came,

    my presence will remain.

    © 2016 j.g. lewis

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  • what you had

    mid-winter depression a state of mind
    comes with the cold

                   everything happens as it always has

           you felt it less
       when you were younger

              thinking less of who you are
        or what you had
                      and more of what comes next

         it is surreal
                      a time of the year
                      when you don’t want to believe
                      what you were led to doubt

                      days-old snow and salt stains
       suspended 
                      as if nothing is happening

                    remains of the days
       sediment of continual mistakes

    the sentiment of our leftover pain

                with mean-spirited weather
                    and the threat of more

                                         there is no warmth

    © 2021 j.g. lewis

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