How do we choose to travel?
What is reliable in the rain?
What is our ultimate destination,
for this time, this journey, or
this day?
We move at the speed of life.
Depending on traffic, others
may chose to follow your path,
but not your direction.
© 2021 j.g. lewis
A little cold, little wet,
a little tired and yet
I am here. Still,
full of wonder.
The morning chill leaves
little to the imagination
and much less
to hope for.
Expected, perhaps, as it
always is, this time, this
season is only what
we ask of it.
11/21/2024 j.g.l.
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.
Consider each moment
leading up to now.
Cause and effect
affects where you are,
whom you have been, and all
you are now.
Any possibility sustains every reality.
To doubt is to question;
to ask is to reply.
11/22/2024 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.
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.
Victimless crime.
Take what is yours, take what is mine.
Undue violence, the greed, hypocrisy;
what is left behind when
we are only accountable
to ourselves.
Each of us a shadow,
most of us forgettable,
all of us trying
to get by.
Beyond the barking dogs, before
pungent night air strangles any humanity
from vagrants who piss in corners
we never visit.
On the darker side of 3 a.m.
A wrong answer will get you knifed,
the wrong needle will leave you dead.
No one will care.
Fewer will know.
Remind me who I am
before I forget to see.
Just write
my name
in graffiti.
Claim my sins
and transgressions.
I will own up to my responsibilities,
like a prayer
like a poem
like a person.
© 2018 j.g. lewis
Final details, a finishing touch, depending on how you look at it.
Layers of inspiration, time between conception and completion.
It does not look how I thought it would before I began. It never may.
How will I know when it is done? Perception varies moment to moment.
I am still not sure. I doubt. I fuss. My confidence is not always there.
My art is an attempt to satisfy my curious creativity in whatever form.
I feel it is better to attempt to create than let all those ideas go to waste.
My restless soul will only allow so much. I am less patient with my self.
Patience is not a paradigm, neither pragmatic, nor practical. Neither is art.
© 2023 j.g. lewis
It is not what I was expecting, and everything I expected, should it happen,
For three years plus I’ve managed to steer clear. I followed precautions, I did what I thought needed to be done, and it still happened.
At first it felt like a strong cold; swift and unexpected, and far too early for the flu. The symptoms, the cough, the headache and chills, had me doubting but was it 12 or 24 hours into it I was sure.
COVID-19 hit me hard.
The fatigue, brain fog, delusional sleep, cough, congestion and headache; my body felt brittle. I couldn’t get up; I didn’t feel like moving and was pretty sure I couldn’t. Then, there was the lack of taste, lack of appetite, total lack of motivation.
A simple at-home test confirmed the reality I had been living with for much longer than I expected.
For months now health officials have been cautioning against the latest strain. Over these past years I’ve masked up, washed and regularly sanitized my hands. I’ve been vaccinated with regular booster shoots as recommended, as available. Actually, I was expecting I would receive my next shot next month, the latest in a series of boosters that would protect me from this ugly virus.
Still it happened.
COVID-19 is still, very much, a reality.
I wasn’t able to do the things I usually do. I didn’t feel much like doing anything. Today might be the first day I’ve really felt like doing something.
It’s an improvement I can only hope will keep me moving forward.
A sign of the times past.
Our Technicolor reality has changed.
We no longer repair but replace.
Technology that lasted, no longer does.
Obsolescence is expected in our progress,
high definition lives defined now by a
landfill wasteland full of discarded electronics.
No longer serviceable.
We no longer watch like we used to.
We no longer can.
© 2023 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.
