Mythos & Marginalia

2015 – 2025: a decade of days

  • learned behaviour

    How we act, what we do, the chances we take and routines we fall into, are influenced by a headful of inner dialogue, a roomful of opinions, and experience that is constantly changing the world beyond your space.
       Right now.
       Still, the single most important factor to all this excessive interior and exterior stimuli is your reaction.
       Only your behaviour will alter your pattern.
       You are responsible for learning or diagnosing, even doubting, what you are doing. Just as you may, or will (or can) switch it up, abandon plans, or simply let things happen as they happen as if it is an act of casual happenstance… and it probably is.
       You already know what you do today will have some sort of effect on what happens tomorrow, or Wednesday, or six months come Sunday.
       You’ve learned that, mostly from trial and error, but it still adds up to learned behaviour.
       How is that serving you now?
       Can you answer that question honestly, or will you have to wait until Wednesday; or Sunday?
       You know the answer, you do, even if you won’t admit it to yourself (that may be your pattern) and sometimes the answer is more of a question.

    © 2021 j.g. lewis

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  • unknown and unforeseen

    I, for all intents and purposes, don’t know where I am going. I have even less of an idea where I am coming from.
       To retrace my steps, to search through journals and diaries of the past, would be taking a look in the rear-view mirror. Despite objects in the mirror being closer than they appear, it will not further my intent (as unknown and unforeseen as that may seem to be).
       I will keep moving forward, a direction that is not so much chosen by me but chosen for me by the power(s) that be (intended or naturally).
       Gravity holds me in my place and allows enough freedom for movement in any direction, depth, or distance chosen (by or for me). I suppose that is both my intent and my purpose.

    © 2022 j.g. lewis

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  • for a shadow

    dead pencils
    still leave a mark
    salvaged from the litter bin
    gave most of their everything 
             from within
    now surrounded 
                        by cigarette butts 
    salad oil      tuna tins     phone
    messages   hydro bills   coffee
    grinds                    orange peel 
    rotting spinach              or kale
         broken 
    shoelaces             leftover pain
                                   a sad refrain
        still saving a few scant lines
                                   of sentiment
    for a man
    and a night
    and a poem

                                   for a shadow

    © 2016 j.g. lewis

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  • faith without discretion

    Take these humble hearts,
    those who trust, perchance, too much,
    the ones who now shelter themselves
    from the agony which lingers
    from trying; from hoping; from
    believing there could be more.
     
    Heathens, yes, for lack of a more apt word
    but neither an infidel, nor a fool.
    Where trust is too much, there is faith
    without discretion. There remains a
    longing few can see, or realize,
    for they need to believe.
     
    See these unwilling victims
    not for what they have not been, but for
    each tiny gesture, shameless notion, and
    act of empathy, however inferred. 
    Allow them to create, leave them 
    to their ways. Let them be.
     
    Teach them, these broken souls, 
    not to look for the lesson, but to accept
    the graceless guidance oft shone into
    clotted shadows. Knowingly they will
    expand and contract in self-preservation, 
    self-examination, and sorrow.
     
    It is there, in seclusion, where errors in
    understanding take on perspective. There, 
    those humble hearts, may come back 
    to being. Each carries a pulse. They bleed
    silently and remorsefully. They have loved 
    you before, and may again.
     

    © 2017 j.g. lewis

    April is Poetry Month

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  • ask the impossible

    Don’t talk to me at dawn. Caught up in whispers
    of residual dreams beyond my control,
    I’m not always ready for a new day, and
    frequently have difficulty comprehending
    where the night falls.

    Morning is not the time for words
    if the night has come before. Every breath 
    a struggle. I wake. No heartbeat. No. No talk. 
    Blinded by sight and sound I won’t hear 
    the meaning, or the message.

    Give voice to my days instead, where I won’t 
    see your reflection, but will feel the wonder above 
    the cacophony and confusion 
    that terrorizes an otherwise 
    monotonous day.

    Evening’s long shadow laps up scraps 
    of humanity. I pay less and less attention as 
    the planets close in. Considering your many renditions, 
    I await your arrival. Any night. What shade
    will you be this night?

    Then is the time, when distance fades, where we tell 
    each other stories. Little else matters, and we ask 
    the impossible. Inevitably darkness 
    consumes me, until you become 
    less significant.

    Through nights, when I’m restless, when dawn 
    is simply a concept, don’t waste your words on me. 
    I will not hear them, promises or otherwise,
    or find the light, or time, to 
    see your lips move.

    Dawn reveals serious wounds, time misspent 
    and misplaced words. Where morning hints 
    of the night before and I may not hear your call, 
    don’t talk to me at dawn, 
    or talk to me at all.

    © 2015 j.g. lewis

    April is Poetry Month

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