We want to know what
we don’t know, or hadn’t thought of,
or forgot.
What mattered then,
or what mattered when, shifts over time.
We notice.
Perception is what you don’t see.
Deception is what know.
You see it differently through your aloneness.
The truth behind a lie,
you question how and why.
It made sense.
Anticipation keeps us waiting
for only so long. Will it matter
if you felt it never did?
© 2021 j.g. lewis
Slow down: even with the ideas that come to quicky. Take the time to acknowledge the feelings that arrive, as they arrive.
Write it down. How else will you remember what you were thinking?
Print neatly. You hardly understand the thoughts at the time, why make it more difficult to comprehend weeks or years from now?
Follow your own logic; only you need to truly make sense of what is happening, or all that has happened.
Pay attention to the lessons of the past. Be mindful that not all are worth repeating.
Clarity. Make corrections as you go. Flaws become more difficult to correct the longer you live with them.
11/14/2024 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.
‘If you want to win the teddy bear, you have to break the rules.’
Advice from a panhandler, a regular,
outside one of two coffee shops. People come and go,
tedious ebb and flow of those getting by; life in this city.
Daily she is here or there, barely warm coat,
hands clasped in prayer, paper cup and her frowzy blanket.
Where she sleeps is often a wonder;
women’s shelter a block over, or congregated
rooming house. Downtown. There are many not far away.
‘Any spare change, anything helps.’
Passersby, some smile, others won’t. Many don’t
look down. Not everybody stops, not everybody walks on by.
A quarter or two, a coffee or crumpet. Here and there.
More or less.
‘God bless.’
Sight smile from an everyday face that has braved cold
winter winds, scorn and rejection. Her life harder than
the dirty concrete where she sits. Every day.
Empty stomach. Little promise. Few possibilities.
Some other day.
Some other time, the world was different.
So was I.
So was she.
Society does what it does.
We rarely know
who breaks the rules and do not question those who make them.
© 2021 j.g. lewis
April is Poetry Month
all poetry all the time
right here
poetry every day
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.
