Why don’t you meet me in Paris? Half a globe away,
another lifetime. They write songs about the city,
in April. I have never been. In any season.
Spring has yet to find its way here,
so Paris awaits.
Rendezvous. City of lights, city for lovers.
Should we not taste all Paris could be? Could we
not see nights from a tiny apartment,
streets below filled with people like us.
Experience I do not yet know, but I desire
to feel the city against your skin.

I have been told one night in Paris
is like a year in any other place. Language
I do not understand, but the art speaks to me.
Culture not found anywhere but Paris.
History unto itself.
Art knows no boundaries, no geographic space,
yet Paris, as I have been led to believe, is
the capital city.
Hemingway wrote of Paris, Fitzgerald as well.
Picasso found poetry in Paris, the painter found himself,
adopted the city, or it him.

Artists, from anywhere, are meant
to spend time in Paris, to discover, to recover
from wherever they have lived. You don’t
get that feeling anywhere else.
Or so I am told. I need Paris.
I would write in Paris, I would paint,
perhaps on the street, because I can only imagine
what others have lived.
I can only imagine. In Paris. In poetry.
In April. We would meet in Paris.
We may never leave.

© 2018 j.g. lewis

You can see the stars
hundreds of millions of miles away,
the light of years past flashing each day,
yet you can’t see the bomb blasts
on the other side of this earth.

Thunder may take the time
to memorize the sound, and we will
hear it as spring rain changes from gentle
to worse, but will we know the pain
it has caused?

The dead bodies, civilians, knew the
sounds at close range, even by surprise.
For many, it was the last noise they heard.
Others heard the cries, perhaps
their own voice.

Mass media images and scenes
tell the heartbreaking atrocities of
the invasion of Ukraine. Far enough
that you don’t hear it, close enough
that you feel the pain.

If you think of the breathless bodies
as human beings, as people; mothers
or children, even soldiers, it hurts
a little more – today, tomorrow
and for years to come.

© 2022 j.g. lewis

I am old, he said,
not in regret but as fact.
Tea splashed on the table as
he tried to offer hospitality. All
he could afford. Too many days
between pension cheques,
not enough time to enjoy them.
His smile was genuine,
teeth brown or broken.
I have no milk. His head shook.
His hands shook.
I take it clear, I replied.
A smile again, not as long
but very real.
Conversation
revolved around
a story he heard
on talk radio,
or memory.
More tea?
He spoke about dust, as if
it meant something; where
it travelled, why it settled.
Everything begins in the wind,
he paused to catch his breath
or to let the words find
a more profound meaning.
It never lets up.
He was old.
His small room smelled
of cheap aftershave,
stale cigarettes, and loneliness.
He welcomed me, regularly,
as he would anyone
with time to spend.
It was all he could offer.
Tea and dust.

© 2018 j.g. lewis

   On the other side of the
window, trees rustle, ripples
   cross over the pool.    I feel
each movement, short stroke
or long.    All in remembrance
       of a morning’s crisp dawn.
   This planet revolves; gravity
holds us close.    A clock’s
second hand sweeps through
our time.    Together.
   Simple breakfast: eggs,
          toast and coffee.
   I raise my cup, gently blow
across the brim, as your lips
whisper direct intentions.
   Words connote action.
       Imperative moments last
   longer in a memory.
         Water bubbles surround
four-minute eggs; all the time
it took for you to say goodbye.

© 2022 j.g. lewis

If I had known that, I would
also be alone;
alone inside my head, where thoughts
would circulate like the blood
inside my body
between my ribs. Also
between my lips.
where words would no longer flow.

There were now only my eyes
with nowhere
to look, no more beauty to absorb
because inside my head, so many things
crowd the memories
I had attempted to build.
And I think; I think that
I am still here.

Anger sits between my ribs
I am still here.
Watching my blood switching from
red to blue, as if it is a habit. Automatically
I scream from the outside.
Hopeless on the inside. Help me.
I want to get out from here
desperate on the outside.

Those who surround me, strangers,
do not see.
They turn a deaf ear, since it is
but my loneliness following me everywhere.
Maybe a year, maybe even longer.
I am still here. My anger, I keep it,
there is no exit from the outside.
Here is not near.

A smile had, once, looked at me,
believed in me.
Happiness cut through me, finally.
A hand offered support, and this option
I loved, as only I could.
Whoever can say, who was aware,
that so much could be built upon a smile
and so much could be taken away.

©2013 j.g. lewis

 

© 2013 j.g. lewis

April is Poetry Month