The answers are far less certain
than even last week, to all those
perennial questions or solutions
you might seek.
What do you believe, or
what do you believe in?
Come Monday, you have fewer
questions than you had last week.
For a while there are less doubts
in what you believe.
Whom do you believe in,
and who believes in you?
11/18/2024 j.g.l.
We want to know what
we don’t know, or hadn’t thought of,
or forgot.
What mattered then,
or what mattered when, shifts over time.
We notice.
Perception is what you don’t see.
Deception is what know.
You see it differently through your aloneness.
The truth behind a lie,
you question how and why.
It made sense.
Anticipation keeps us waiting
for only so long. Will it matter
if you felt it never did?
© 2021 j.g. lewis
Slow down: even with the ideas that come to quicky. Take the time to acknowledge the feelings that arrive, as they arrive.
Write it down. How else will you remember what you were thinking?
Print neatly. You hardly understand the thoughts at the time, why make it more difficult to comprehend weeks or years from now?
Follow your own logic; only you need to truly make sense of what is happening, or all that has happened.
Pay attention to the lessons of the past. Be mindful that not all are worth repeating.
Clarity. Make corrections as you go. Flaws become more difficult to correct the longer you live with them.
11/14/2024 j.g.l.
As of late, for reasons as varied as they are non-existent, I have not been writing in the manner of which I have come to expect of myself. I am neither as prolific nor as detailed as, I feel, I usually am.
My poetry, while still insightful, does not command the length or breadth I feel I am capable of. Revisions to a manuscript I have toiled away on for some time have become painful (perhaps a sign that the work is closer to completion than I care to acknowledge), and my mind wanders to another project that requires the same diligence.
My daily writing is less than it once was (I feel guilty about that), and even the scant sentences I jot down in my journal seem to only document my time here on earth. Nothing extravagant, nothing more than a slight glimpse of where I am. Nothing that memorable, sadly.
I’ve been feeling for months that I am ready to embark on another kind of writing but have yet to determine exactly what that might be. I am full or ideas, characters, dialogue and circumstance, but it doesn’t quite feel like it has the backbone it needs to pull me in a certain direction. I even, a few weeks back, bought a fresh new notebook to keep these thoughts separate from all the others. The notes I have included in this book are random, undeveloped, at times personal, and (as of yet) make little sense. I reread these notes, almost daily, and I am inspired enough to clarify or expand on certain streams of thought, but it needs a more definite direction.
Perhaps I do as well?
11/17/2024 j.g.l.
What brings you here, anywhere
really? Out of habit, curiosity, or
happenstance? Each one of us
has patterns; a nature of being.
It is how we experience our time
in this place, on this planet, in
this city or another. Confusion.
A delusion? We are grounded by
behaviours, many of which we
will not realize or acknowledge.
Primarily, it is how we function.
Action or response to any given
situation. Stimulation, capitulation,
barely interpretation of that which
surrounds us. Still, here we are.
Nevertheless. In the midst of it all.
11/15/2024 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.
The city has no direction.
Even the streets take you nowhere.
Sprawling. Stopping. Rethinking, recovering.
A destination as much as a distinction, home
to so many. Honoured by so few.
Only a place, only for a while, only to those
who wish to be somewhere else.
Identity. Community. Immunity for some.
Isolation within a population, advancing beyond
the imagination of so many.
To be a stranger is to remain present.
Loneliness. There is always a place.
This search for significance takes us
to inappropriate places: this city is full of them.
Each street. Every building.
The homes we pass by, the contents of which
we do not know; or understand. Only structures.
Will we find such a place where personal information
remains private property? Is it natural
or even possible?
Overlooking common sense, stigma, and the
interpretation of others, can we arrive at a place where
data does not exist?
How, then, will we document our days?
Who will keep track of our shortcomings?
© 2024 j.g. lewis
This reality will surely change overnight,
or later. Vibrant colours, as if a miracle,
will appear. Overnight, or later in the day.
Speculation becomes a greater force, as we
wait, counting on seasons to mark years.
Temperature has as much to do with it as
our want or need for something more. We
wait for the visuals to just happen. Naturally.
When it does, and as it does, we cannot help
notice. Any day now, or any night. Or longer.
© 2024 j.g. lewis
Our view of love changes as
we age. What we feel, all we know
to be true, is provided a fresh point of view.
We forget, from time to time, what it was
when it was something else.
Perspective.
All the mental aspects of affection and
emotions will overwhelm if given a chance,
but for the longest time
we did not allow ourselves to know
the certain realm, or definite destination
of love and all it is capable of.
It is more than physical,
stronger than it has ever been, and
strengthened
over the years and beyond.
Empathy finds its place amidst
individual passions. Understanding becomes
the strongest sense of a relationship.
As we age, we are capable
of something greater, or have we just
realized, now, what love can truly be?
© 2024 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.
