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.
What will you do, what should you do, when nothing
has been prepared for you as it was supposed to be? No
organization, little thought, and even less hope. Aren’t
we all to rely on what is expected of us? Nothing is
predetermined or planned, no consideration; even less
than the intrusion. What can we know? What will you
remember? What can you do when nothing is ready
for you? Questions always; the answers not inspiring.
Everything is not as it seems
lines align
horizontally
v
e
r
t
i
c
a
l
l
y a grid is formed
parallel lines mark our lifetime
yet the obvious is not apparent
focus on the dot
centre of screen
look closely at all
that you perceive
we cannot always see straight ahead
and hindsight seldom serves a purpose
distortions or distractions
breaks in the lines clarity
acuity
your central vision is not
the same on the periphery
at a distance do you readily
recognize common forms
you will not see things like me
you will not see the same
through
each eye or
each other
open or shut
are all the lines complete enough
even in the black and white
there are many areas of grey
not all lines remain
clear and straight
lines converge
edges distort
like life
we rarely see
the complete picture
© 2023 j.g. lewis
Bruised. Beat up.
Each day we hurt; each day we heal some way:
physically, spiritually, superficially
in most cases.
We exist with pain
we cannot forget, nor will we get past.
It moves with us
through phantom limbs. What is, what it was,
or what will never be. No matter how
we squirm, meditate, medicate
or mask our wounds
we bleed.
You cannot wipe
the taste of an old lover from your lips,
a parent’s words echo, mistakes sustained.
Thoughts better left for dead,
and very much alive.
Terminal disappointment.
Remove the dressing,
scars remain: reminders; where we have been,
what we have done or
what has been done
to us. Excuses solemnly validate
our existence.
This art of living
involves exquisite deception. Calloused knees bent,
we pick at scabs from prayer
or surrender. Impressions remain
pressed into the skin.
Of course we hurt.
Who better would know
the fundamental truth of the human experience?
Tear off the bandage,
the wounds will breathe. Proof
we have done something that can and will
make us stronger.
© 2019 j.g. lewis
April is Poetry Month
it moves with us
Often in the night
you can’t let go of the day. It is not a problem, or concern,
mainly it is the way you think instead of dream.
You plan, you scheme.
You fit words
into the spaces.
It is not uncommon, each night and often, to stare and search
for comfort in thoughts that should be dreams.
You can’t let go of the day. You simply don’t know
what to say to each circumstance that has, then, become a concern.
Often. Then is no moral or resolution to take hold of,
but you cannot let go.
All that you know, ashamed of emotions, the mendacity of the mind
seeking substance instead of sleep.
It is power when we feel weak.
© 2023 j.g. lewis
Refraction. Reflection.
Gradient tones of expression,
landscapes or history,
our light rarely follows a straight line.
Curves. Diagonally,
adjustment required in space or
sign, it seeps through cracks
moves forcefully beyond sublime.
Unusually unaware,
we cannot control the capacity, or
silence, of corresponding darkness.
An unlikely presence of another mind.
Intimacy initially.
To those who dare expose themselves,
our light will not be altered
but eternally fortified.
Transcendent existence,
born unto an incidental state, we
cannot separate stigma from strata.
Dust on the wind, particles of matter.
Fragmentation, alienation,
morals to immortality, holding tight
all we believe is crucial.
Our life rarely follows a straight line.
©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.
