Once a field, now a park,
once a sapling. Now a tree we only notice
when we want to.
Through years and decades; centuries
this city has grown around it, sucking up
its precious oxygen.
Burly limbs stretch out to shelter
in rains, shade from a sun growing
hotter each day .
Through years, decades, and centuries.
We notice only when
we want to.
© 2020 j.g. lewis
Summer doesn’t speak;
it whispers a conscious melody
to high-heeled fashionistas with open toes,
sunburnt brats with runny noses, and
old men who know
evening air is sweeter
when dusk has had its way. Humidity.
Sweat of the glass,
Tanqueray and tonic
will take away the pain,
Mosquito bites, lonely nights
sitting on an ever- creaky veranda,
Dinah Washington crackles from the speaker.
Suddenly you appear. . .
Any other day
flowers stand taller, like
the younger women strolling by,
getting younger by the day.
Watch them
and wipe
the perspiration from your brow;
the once-crisp handkerchief has
soaked up many nights of lustful thoughts.
Old men just grow older,
the meaning comes with age. Humility.
Summer lasts as long
as a savings account wastefully spent.
Then you are gone. . .
Over time
most of the flowers will perish
well before first frost,
mostly from neglect. Naturally.
We will all grow tired
of looking at them,
or forget the beauty.
Our minds go to other places.
Yet summer, in its capricious wisdom,
will breathe again
to those of us who will listen.
To young women
and older men.
© 2018 j.g. lewis
* selected lyrics from ‘Invitation’.
Written by Bronislaw Kaper/Paul Francis Webster,
the jazz standard was memorably recorded
by Dinah Washington in 1962. Has desire ever
been captured more sensually in a musical state?
Time-treasured romanticism
of a soft summer rain;
stories told
again and again.
Gentle pitter-patter
against window glass
like a teenaged lover. An invitation
to step outside
when no one knows
where will we go.
Through the city, we walk on water
across the cement. Mind the puddles.
Soaked to the skin,
our spirits not dampened.
Rain breaks the heat and
maybe even the humidity.
Whether it has,
weather it is,
for a time we forget where we are.
We remember
decades later.
On a night like this
with a rain like that.
© 2021 j.g. lewis
The angel at the table glares back across the clutter. Dirty dishes,
candy bar wrappers and tuna tins. Self-rolled cigarette smolders
on a side plate, the ashes of those before spilling over. Ignored.
Kitchen bulb, harsh and bare, casts bearded shadows across
the squalor. Joni Mitchell crackles from the speakers — a record
once played for a daughter — offering only the slightest comfort
needed on a day like today. A day where she
could use a friend as much as a fix. Depression familiar
to women who’ve lost a child, a fortune fit for no one.
A decade has passed, but not the pain.
The philandering husband who chose to grieve in other ways,
salt in a wound that never heals.
Self-medicating.
First doctor prescribed, then vintage imbibed. Now whatever
is there, whatever it takes, whatever she can find. She can
ill afford to be picky. The dollar-store diet, fortified by
middle-of-the-night gas station cravings, her pallid skin and
coarse complexion more becoming of an anorexic,
or crack whore.
Years of low-wages, welfare, and tricks turned in-between.
Home is now a third-floor walk-up furnished with a bed, table,
two chairs, a suitcase, and an old stereo. Nothing much.
Not even a photograph.
Inconsequential items pawned off, lost, or left behind.
Addictions, afflictions, and poverty can prune away all that
does not matter, and all that does not belong. Stagnant air
seasoned by sour milk and cigarettes, and bed sheets soiled
by the sweat of men who visit. It should never have been.
The angel has watched it all unfold.
Of course she cries, but only to herself.
Who else will weep?
A random ambulance screams into the night, flashing lights
animate the roomful of nothing. Street-level shouts from
a crowd of drunks, the white noise of her dark days. Searching
for a vein between the scabs and bruises, lesions that mark
a dead-end journey, finding space at the elbow’s crease
next to the ripening furuncle. She ties off and with hinky hand
stabs the needle into a tiny patch of waiting flesh.
A fervent rush consumes her entire being. Staring back at
the angel’s emerald eyes, her vision goes from transparent
to translucent, and then, not at all.
The angel wistfully watches,
a scene played out countless times before, shakes her head,
rises to her feet and shuts the battered door.
© 2016 j.g. lewis
after all has been said
there remains far more to know
space
filled with
merely breath
a void
vacancy requires attention
it can hurt
it can heal
there is nothing more to say
silence
is a battle
it can become comfort
a path forward
will move in either direction
what guides you
what haunts you
shimmering light or silken shadows
do you hear the unspoken
forgiveness
do you care to know details
after all has been said
© 2019 j.g. lewis