How often can you document the sun as it sets
repeating, many times over, the glorious feeling
it evokes. Now or when.
Are you not observant of the decay and dissolution
of our world, as it is now, or was then?
Reminders play tricks when you ignore
unmistakable sight.

I have read poets whom write of rust and common
deterioration, oxidation, degradation,
felt day by day. Poems of love, what once was,
left now to suffer the elements.
Can you not feel what they believe?
Has the façade been contaminated by life itself,
or is the sun too bright for you to notice.

© 2024 j.g. lewis

April is Poetry Month
feel what is there

From whence we came and where we go, landscapes
follow, flashbacks flow from childhood homes so far-away,
to skeletal evidence of sorrows, secrets, and songs of yesterday.
Weather-beaten dairies or deeply-faded photographs hrdly hold
mere traces of what was truly there, our minds rush over details
and dialogue of kindred spirits found,
then left along the way.
Do people come and go, or do we?
Faulty fragments of what we have collected
travel with us. Destination to designation; another apartment,
another home, immemorial addresses on report cards, bank
statements, divorce certificate, a parent’s obituary.
Disappointments remain undeniably present and unaccounted for.
Our recollection of fact and fiction, over time, is rarely as accurate
as what it once was. We remember our first phone number, but
must think hard to recall the ones that followed. Even now,
area codes blur from one city to the next.
Where am I now?
Impending move to a familiar place, months away but still
a trace of anxiety. Or is it apprehension?
What will be there when I return?

© 2024 j.g. lewis

You will find my passage clearly marked 
with mental breadcrumbs and seeds 
encountered between ravens and me.
We are each hungry, seeking attention 
from both young women and widows who 
may take us in, nature us, share their compassion,
desires, and grilled cheese sandwiches.
Nutrition comes in many forms; 
only I will ascertain when I am adequately sated.
Once fulfilled, I shall leave behind my handkerchief 
under the table or apple tree, not accidentally, so 
I may have a reason to return.

© 2024 j.g. lewis

The greater the body of water, 
the more questionable where a wave comes from.
          Pebble in a puddle, a most obvious start,
a drip from a drop. Ripple resonates, doubles, then triples. 
                        Evermore a pattern.
   The bigger the lake, the more we can see.
   Surge and swell on a monumental ocean 
       changes with the sunset, seaside tide, or a notion.
                  It ends on the shoreline, 
                  from where does it come?
            Unforeseen origin, man-made or natural?
    On the stillest of days, wind hardly a whisper,
    you will notice a rhythm but rarely the source.
             Undertow and currents may alter your course.
True flow you may never know, shining surf leaving you 
in its wake. What will it leave behind for another day?

© 2024 j.g. lewis

April is Poetry Month
you will notice a rhythm

Urban sprawl, now vertically inclined,
sacrificing our skyline.
Everywhere we look, sky-high density,
our common view condensed in an
uncommon sense of overdevelopment
      and zoning changes.
      Our perspective shifts 
as familiar landscapes are altered into
sites we have never before seen, but
will grow to know.
      The population increases, yet
the humanity of it all is diminished.
Progress is never what it appears to be.

© 2024 j.g. lewis