Bus shelter                park bench
              city streets

   Clothing strewn across pavement
like a secret
                                or sins

             in this weather
   March not yet forgotten
                  the lion does not rest

       neither do society’s sacrificial lambs
       the unhoused or the addicted

An existence
harder than concrete
we walk on                      We walk by

   seeing only what is left behind
   more comments than questions

           Blood on the sidewalk

   like the clothing          we do not know
         whom it belongs to

              Another secret
                                       another question
                     No comments

         Some sinners don’t get saved

         Some sins are unaccounted for

04/19/2022 j.g.l.

April is Poetry Month
find it where you can

Why don’t you meet me in Paris? Half a globe away,
another lifetime. They write songs about the city,
in April. I have never been. In any season.
Spring has yet to find its way here,
so Paris awaits.
Rendezvous. City of lights, city for lovers.
Should we not taste all Paris could be? Could we
not see nights from a tiny apartment,
streets below filled with people like us.
Experience I do not yet know, but I desire
to feel the city against your skin.

I have been told one night in Paris
is like a year in any other place. Language
I do not understand, but the art speaks to me.
Culture not found anywhere but Paris.
History unto itself.
Art knows no boundaries, no geographic space,
yet Paris, as I have been led to believe, is
the capital city.
Hemingway wrote of Paris, Fitzgerald as well.
Picasso found poetry in Paris, the painter found himself,
adopted the city, or it him.

Artists, from anywhere, are meant
to spend time in Paris, to discover, to recover
from wherever they have lived. You don’t
get that feeling anywhere else.
Or so I am told. I need Paris.
I would write in Paris, I would paint,
perhaps on the street, because I can only imagine
what others have lived.
I can only imagine. In Paris. In poetry.
In April. We would meet in Paris.
We may never leave.

© 2018 j.g. lewis

You can see the stars
hundreds of millions of miles away,
the light of years past flashing each day,
yet you can’t see the bomb blasts
on the other side of this earth.

Thunder may take the time
to memorize the sound, and we will
hear it as spring rain changes from gentle
to worse, but will we know the pain
it has caused?

The dead bodies, civilians, knew the
sounds at close range, even by surprise.
For many, it was the last noise they heard.
Others heard the cries, perhaps
their own voice.

Mass media images and scenes
tell the heartbreaking atrocities of
the invasion of Ukraine. Far enough
that you don’t hear it, close enough
that you feel the pain.

If you think of the breathless bodies
as human beings, as people; mothers
or children, even soldiers, it hurts
a little more – today, tomorrow
and for years to come.

© 2022 j.g. lewis

I am old, he said,
not in regret but as fact.
Tea splashed on the table as
he tried to offer hospitality. All
he could afford. Too many days
between pension cheques,
not enough time to enjoy them.
His smile was genuine,
teeth brown or broken.
I have no milk. His head shook.
His hands shook.
I take it clear, I replied.
A smile again, not as long
but very real.
Conversation
revolved around
a story he heard
on talk radio,
or memory.
More tea?
He spoke about dust, as if
it meant something; where
it travelled, why it settled.
Everything begins in the wind,
he paused to catch his breath
or to let the words find
a more profound meaning.
It never lets up.
He was old.
His small room smelled
of cheap aftershave,
stale cigarettes, and loneliness.
He welcomed me, regularly,
as he would anyone
with time to spend.
It was all he could offer.
Tea and dust.

© 2018 j.g. lewis

   On the other side of the
window, trees rustle, ripples
   cross over the pool.    I feel
each movement, short stroke
or long.    All in remembrance
       of a morning’s crisp dawn.
   This planet revolves; gravity
holds us close.    A clock’s
second hand sweeps through
our time.    Together.
   Simple breakfast: eggs,
          toast and coffee.
   I raise my cup, gently blow
across the brim, as your lips
whisper direct intentions.
   Words connote action.
       Imperative moments last
   longer in a memory.
         Water bubbles surround
four-minute eggs; all the time
it took for you to say goodbye.

© 2022 j.g. lewis