Qualifying questions, remedial response.
Knowledge of situations often haunt.
What we know or have been told.
We tell ourselves we just don’t know.
Answers formed by thoughts untold.
Rumour and misinformation often sold.
Conspiracy theories tend to rule the day.
Bare truth and logic will get in the way.
04/22/2024 j.g.l.
Current Thoughts
Open your mouth, let words
bypass lips. Converse consciously
to brethren or bystanders.
Reach out to
close friends gone amiss.
Be not afraid, not now, of
articulating current thoughts and
accomplishments of which
you are proud, and even your sins
(for we have all owned a few)
might seem far less tragic
from an altered point of view.
Give fresh voice
to insecurities and anxieties hidden
within your self, speak highly of
those dusty dreams
languishing on a shelf.
Past sullen moments cast a
lengthy shadow, short-term
expectations tend to dull down
long-term possibilities.
Talk freely around all you want,
or hope, or desire to be.
Each intention will resonate
with those who wholly believe.
Understanding takes effort.
© 2024 j.g. lewis
April 18th is Poem in Your Pocket Day
a day to celebrate poetry by selecting a poem,
carrying it in your pocket, and sharing with the
friends and strangers who cross your path.
Share a poem wherever the day takes you, as you
would share a smile, a gesture, or your kindness.
Sharing is caring.
April is Poetry Month
take a poem to lunch
Our paths shift, circumstance and
attitude shaping our trajectory.
The company we keep alters both
our outlook and destination.
We are where we are
mainly because of who we are
and whom we are with.
04/16/2024 j.g.l.
I'm like a pencil;
sometimes sharp,
most days
well-rounded,
other times
dull or
occasionally
broken.
Still I write.
j.g. lewis
is a writer/photographer in Toronto.
Last week, or last night, or the one before, the
mind-numbing silence raging above sirens, a lyric, or
spouse’s snore, a greater noise than a stream of words.
The life of a poet stretched out to the last stanza.
No longer.
News in the mourning. Not an everyday death. Not
a delinquent child, or deviant mind, trying to fit in, nor
the useless corpse bleeding out in a suburban mall
parking lot. Snuffed-out lives, intended target or otherwise,
the guns, the knives.
Collateral damage we hear on the radio each morning,
as we drive to work, as we try to survive another day.
Street crime, sign of the times, taken for granted.
Death, each day, over and over, and over.
Wilful violence.
This death was different, even expected. A musician
who sang for everyman, as he was himself. A father,
a friend, one we would come to know because his art
allowed more. It went further. He found a purpose
in his calling.
Who will now speak for a generation stuck between
nostalgia and this undefined future. Who will soothe
heaving hearts with the melody required. Illusions
of someday. Each day. Whether we know it
or not.
Cries of anguish above streetlights, beyond sidewalks
littered with deceit and dog shit, or forests brimming
with autumn’s glow. The final hours yet to show as moon
glow, stardust and daily drama, mix with the harsh realities
of hatred.
Undisputed ignorance clashes with brittle indifference.
You can say, and I will believe, this world of violence
has become an extreme. Yet it does not take away from
the efforts to sustain; to fill our lungs with the promise
of another day.
We tolerate as we try, complicit in persistent existence,
to continue moving forward. We all brave on, each
waking hour, defying the only true certainty known
in this life. Death awaits. May we be blessed to
greet it kindly.
©2017 j.g. lewis
I’m like a pencil;
sometimes sharp,
most days
well-rounded,
other times
dull or
occasionally
broken.
Still I write.
j.g. lewis
is a writer/photographer in Toronto.