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.
I keep all my pencils, I have for years. I keep not only the long, skinny colourful delights, I save what remains; the nubs and mere shadows of the pencils that have served me well.
A pencil’s life is determined by usage, the firmness (or softness) of its graphite core, and measured by the number of words written on the page. Pressure is always a factor.
I prefer the efficiency of a pencil with an eraser attached. The pencil shows you how you are progressing, its eraser always a sign of how many (or how few) mistakes you have made.
When a pencil gets to a certain length and are no longer comfortable to use, I begin afresh with a new sharp tool.
I used to toss the dead pencils into a box, and then a larger box when it was required. At some point I realized my little friends deserved more than to simply be stowed away in a dark closet.
I now display pencils suspended in past tense in a series of glass jars. An artful display, perhaps, but more a reminder of what the pencils have done.
Don’t we all have a collection of things that matter?
I know many people collect pencils. They keep them whole and proudly marvel at the colour and design, but what’s the point of that?
Pencils were created to create and communicate. If they are safely kept in a drawer they are nothing more than potential.
I believe a pencil is more than that.
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
© 2015 j.g. lewis
This is a city. These are the streets; a bed for some, deathbed for another. Another sister or another brother. Mine may well sleep in comfort, as I will when I stop thinking about economic uncertainty, global recession, personal depression, unconsciously random gun violence, the ever-escalating opiod crisis and the apparent absence of humanity. Yes, I try to give enough (or live enough) yet between unkempt obligations and the finality of it all, my patience is such that I mainly look on, voyeur-like. Even the shame has found a place I can comfortably live with. Guilt is such a useless emotion; I have convinced myself of such, thinking deeply and distractively of the ambivalent imbalance. There are those unhoused and incapable of making it on their own. Have we the time, or the means, to dig a little deeper, even lessen the extremes? How can we when most of us know these sullen circumstances are maybe a paycheque or two away from a reality most of us refuse to acknowledge. Will you, can you, imagine what it feels like to go without? Are you comfortable with that? This is the air we breath, the toxic humidity of greed and misfortune forced upon a society entirely unsure of its way, ushered on by politicians entirely missing the point, incapable of imagining a city beyond their beliefs. This is a city I feel I no longer belong in. These are the streets I only walk on, stepping through people discarded along the way like tainted needles and dog shit. This is a sadness I feel I only know is there. There is the certainty of shame.
© 2023 j.g. lewis
Dawn will come, it always does.
It may take a little longer, depending on your mood.
It might not be as bright as expected, but few of us are.
It will last such a brief moment.
Dawn is like that.
You may have to wait through the darkness for some time,
full daylight arrives, except soon the moment will disappear.
So much left unsaid.
So little to say for yourself.
It comes without thinking, yet
there is so much anticipation.
Dawn appears just like that.
You have waited long enough.
© 2023 j.g. lewis
Detours and distractions, a path filled with exploration,
adventure, and the occasional mishap.
Rear-view mirrors provide no option
when you are focused straight ahead.
Question the direction.
I will forget reverse, I have already let it pass.
I will not need a compass, but require an atlas.
There are too many destinations to be confined to a map.
© 2023 j.g. lewis
Often, occasionally, sporadically,
even spontaneously,
I make mistakes.
They happen naturally:
a missed word or apostrophe,
my mind gets moving and
I fail to see the errs of my ways,
or errors throughout the day.
It is, or was, or has been
when I write or what I say.
Incidentally or accidentally,
it goes without saying,
but the fact remains
I make mistakes.
Every day.
We learn from our mishaps, or
should anyway, we try to
improve and continue
to count the ways. What we do
and how we behave
counts for a lot.
My eraser rubbed raw
by attempts and change,
I continue to make mistakes.
Forgive me please when
my thoughts go amiss, and
remember I am human amidst
this confusion or corruption
we all experience.
I make mistakes,
I may fail or fall,
yet remain myself, flaws and all.
© 2018 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.
