Mythos & Marginalia

2015 – 2025: a decade of days


a daily breath

  • global warning

    © 2021 j.g. lewis

  • 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.

  • differently

    We have faith.

    We have doubts,
    commensurate 
    with
    unknown fears and
    undetermined factors.

    That which you feel
    I see as well,
    differently.

    We pretend
    we belong.

    In many ways
    we share the same grief.

    We are afraid of 
    all the wrong things.
    We doubt
    our faith.

    Everything is temporary,
    even our fears.

  • Lives forged by experience, altered
    by those who encounter
    the same things at the same time.
    Friendships mark our years, hold us
    accountable to our humanity.
    We discover most friends
    mainly by accident. Circumstance
    or circumspect, intimacy implied by
    mere presence, accepted as we walk,
    as we talk, as we see
    the same things at the same time.
    We come to trust,
    offer what little we know, barter
    our wisdom with that which may be
    only an illusion of understanding.
    An exchange in kind, shared
    timidly at first. We are vulnerable,
    to the same things, at the same time.
    Kindred, courageous souls;
    they too must confide, you try
    to be worthy. With neither pride,
    nor modesty, we place value on that
    which lies before us.
    Lives shift, locations change, yet
    displaced by age, distance, or devotion,
    a certain mercy keeps close
    those whom exchange,
    without further thought,
    the same things at the same time.
    We rediscover, even much later,
    how friendship marks our time.

  • knowing

    I thought of you. 
    Often I do. Nothing specific,
    not always. No particular time
    or place. No clear dimensions. 
    Sometimes. Wide awake. 
    Even with night on my eyelids. 
    When you are not there,
    I can still think. 
    I am moved 
    by gravity or grace. 
    It could be a mood, perhaps 
    a song, the scent 
    of remembrance.
    I know it as I know you.
    Daydreaming or otherwise.