I’ve been hacked.
   There is no other way to say it, other than the soultalk page I have been running on Facebook for about 5 years is no longer under my control..
   soultalk regularly offered journaling programs and had developed into a trustworthy community.
   Now, I don’t have access to the subscribers, followers, or the private pages we used for our journaling sessions.
   Yeah, I’m pissed off, and there is nothing I can do about it. I’m not entirely sure how it happened, but Facebook can’t (or won’t) help.
   So, for now, if you get messages or invitations from soultalk, or see content or advertising this seems strange, know that the page it is not what it used to be, and not what it should be.

j.g. lewis

“A man without words is a man without thoughts.”
                                                           -John Steinbeck

No matter how deep or superficial, words always send a message.

Whether spoken or written, language is used to express a certain emotion, event or situation. Many times they will cause joy, or pain, or spell indifference. We react to words.

Sometimes you have a lot to say, other times there are words you can’t seem to let out; the ones that get stuck in your throat, or are washed away by tears. Where do they go?

Lately I’ve flipped through old notebooks and journals of the past to find scraps of information, half-finished sentences and paragraphs of words intended for someone else. Often they appear as incoherent thought, or accurate accounts of a moment. True, and purposeful, but never released. Now just a remembrance, or a reminder.

The further back I’ve gone, the harder it is to remember who the words were written for, when, or why I bothered scribbling them down.

Words express our worth. Language is used to soothe the soul or sort out details. This is why, mainly, we keep a journal as a map of where we’ve been. These are the skid marks on the road we travel.

Communication the root of all language, but it goes deeper. So much of the time we are trying to keep in touch with our self. There is liberation in letting words out. When you are no longer held hostage by thought, or limited by perspective, you can find calm or comfort.

I am exploring words I have passed over or let sit on the rough pages. There are so many things I’ve got to say, but perhaps these phrases, passages, or poems, have to be said before I can move further.

I have a letter, a couple of essays, and two poems I struggle with off and on. I know what should happen, am often encouraged with the progress, and still I cannot take them where I want to.

Reading over the pieces, I see too many sentences deleted, or altered. I’m not quite sure when the revisions happened, but they are real. Corrections. Still, through the eraser’s smudge, you can still see the meaning, the feelings, and the intention.

Not everything comes out like you want. Not everything will be received as expected. You slowly learn, and maybe that is what holds you back from saying what still needs to be said.

Oftentimes words need to wait for another day.

© 2018 j.g. lewis

   Year three settles in, months and weeks of
pandemic pain, what little
    has been gained.    Still unknown how much
    we have lost.
Social distancing affected all of us, isolation increases
   the uneasy relationship between
    propaganda and fact peddled by social media and
supported by those unwilling to accept the truth.
   Them who claim it to be freedom
     show no empathy
   to those who have lost
    partners, parents and possibilities.

© 2022 j.g. lewis

   So much more than flesh and tissue,
the human heart, of intricate design, responsible naturally
for each second time allows. A complicated array of vessels
and ventricles of immodest proportion,
its importance need not be reinforced. A vital organ.
A muscle; strong, steady. Purposeful. With the lungs
it functions, beneath ribs woven
to shield us from life’s catastrophes. If we should say
the heart is more important than the brain, we would
then again, have to think of how it functions,
or when it faults.
   Humans are complicated, from the start.
   Do we lead with our head, or follow the heart?
Secure in its biological habitat.    Protected.    And we,
as we grow, endeavor to understand emotions, and feelings,
and complications, as blood rushes through our veins,
as we learn to live, or love, in pain.
      Heartbeat.      Heart break.      Heart ache.
Trusting less in the function, less of the body,
we build walls, a facade, to hide behind.
Having lost before, or even since then,
   we protect our self.
    So much more than function or folly,
a human’s heart; the complicated array of flesh and veins,
of sordid pasts and rumpled pain. Strength we can find,
a purpose of which to remind.
If the heart is more important than the brain,
we shall learn to try, and will love again.

©2018 j.g. lewis

Caught up in the fragility of the moment, or
situation, or of the mind, we are all fighting battles.

War exists, one way or another, in our minds;
in this life. These times are tough.

So caught up in the bigger picture, all the
little things go unnoticed. Reality check.

In this city, guns and violence on the street,
in the school, forever on the news.

This year’s twelfth or thirteenth homicide
perpetrator was 14-years-old; the victim 18.

The laws are there but no one cares; they
simply want their freedoms. Regardless.

Politics is blood sport. Promises or ideology
mixed with anger, fear, and stupidity.

Common sense and sanity; one is not the other.
Neither exists in the state of now, or again.

No declaration or participation, there is no peace.
Is everything else is too important?

© 2022 j.g. lewis