If I had known that, I would
also be alone;
alone inside my head, where thoughts
would circulate like the blood
inside my body
between my ribs. Also
between my lips,
where words would no longer flow.

There were now only my eyes
with nowhere
to look, no more beauty to absorb
because inside my head, so many things
crowd the memories
I had attempted to build.
And I think; I think that:
I am still here.

Anger sits, between my ribs.
I am still here
watching my blood switching from
red to blue, as if it is a habit. Automatically
I scream hopelessly from the outside.
Hopeless on the inside. Help me.
I want to get out from here
desperate on the outside.

Those who surround me, strangers,
do not see.
They turn a deaf ear, since it is
but my loneliness following me everywhere.
Maybe a year, maybe even longer,
I am still here. My anger, I keep it,
there is no exit from the outside.
Here is not near.

A smile had, once, looked at me,
believed in me.
Happiness cut through me, finally.
A hand offered support, and this option
I loved, as only I could.
Whoever can say, who was aware,
that so much could be built upon a smile
and so much could be taken away.
© 2013 j.g. lewis

Silence amidst the screams, vacancy, space between darkness and dreams
beyond paisley skies, red velvet mistakes, and muddled remnants of
happenstance and half-lived Tuesdays.

Neverland tenements where landlords fail to repair cracked windows,
broken pipes, and the noxiously rhythmical drip, drip, drip of the sink.
You don’t care anymore.

Deadbolt locks designed to keep your self safe from yourself, or
your type. It gets harder to have faith when held sway by misfortune and
the troubles you create.

Awake, if hardly asleep. Ridiculous notions, infractions on lustful wishes
meant to placate the mind during desperate times or validate your existence
as a lover, has-been; one or the other.

Somewhere in this middle-of-the-night existence, 4:23 slips away, as
only 4:24 can. Time less subjective than one can imagine. Down the hall
the television knows only one volume.

Unfettered anger thrives in this sort of dive, trash bins overflow with
long-forgotten get-rich-quick schemes, recycled promises, and the pursuit
of happiness. Or something like it.

Consumption remains a tireless game, complete with ill-conceived products
and yesterday’s shame. Tomorrow (really today) won’t promise anything anymore.
Less to discover outside any door.

Black noise in a white noise sort of way. Continual reminders of not being alone in
this awkwardness. You hear the echo of booty-call passion in the bedroom above.
It doesn’t mean anything. It never is love.

Sunrise, even sunset, less reason to see. It keeps you awake for another day. Time
even less subjective than it was an hour ago. Close the door on a short night, look
for another reflection in the mirror.

Underneath the pizza crusts and bad fast-food choices, empty calories and
abandoned wine bottles, a Bible sits in a box you never look in. You can’t deal with
the guilt. Or the lies.
©2017 j.g. lewis

 Too long now I’ve been trying to find the essence of poetry, to break it down to a simple format or formula, and completely understand how it moves and why it speaks.
It can’t be all that difficult, I supposed, for if something as significant as the Special Theory of Relativity can be explained so simply and eloquently, why couldn’t then be poetry.
E = mc2
In demonstrating that mass and energy are the same, Albert Einstein used but a few letters to universally explain. Admitting though, at the time, the concept itself was somewhat above the average mind.
Physics, calculus, and specialized sciences have always made use of equations to express a question or solution for every occasion. In mathematics, a rule or principal is frequently spelled out in algebraic symbols. With math, or chemistry, equations quantify anything large into something more compact, like poetry does within the boundaries of language.
Formulas are easily understood by those familiar with the topic, but difficult for those without specific knowledge. One need not acquire specific wisdom to understand, enjoy, and write poetry.
Simply stated (without an equation), prose and verse is about life. Poetry is logic.
Although logic, and life itself, gets complicated, it is more easily understood in poetic form. Like life itself, poetry is not a concept unfamiliar to us; it is expression of the soul and of the senses. We have been surrounded by poetry since we were mere babes, weaned on nursery rhymes and raised with music, popular lyrics consciously or subconsciously showing us rhythm and meter and cadence and phrasing. Each of us has an inner knowledge of poetry, whether we admit it or not.
So, like Einstein’s E and m and c, can we not find an equation for poetry? It’s not a complicated question like Why doesn’t the moon crash into the earth? Or it shouldn’t be. So I continue searching for something that should be rudimentary, but with a subject so seemingly simple, why has this search become more of a quest?
Each day, with an open mind and a cluttered desk, or a wandering mind at a sunlit park bench, I try to put my thoughts to rest. I imagine it should be simple like the X and Y of equations gone by, but will chose my own letters and continue to try.
My L can represent Love and my S might be sorrow, Y may be yellow (colours are a precious tool to play with, and to borrow). V, of course, is volume or velocity, and T, well time is a given, as now it might be.
So I come up with something that seems to make sense, except mornings, before coffee, when my mind is so bloody dense.
P=S ± (T+e) /V x L [m/L + s/L + f/L ]+A x π+g x M
Poetry equals Senses plus or minus time and emotion, divided by the velocity of our motion. We can only feel those feelings at times we cannot express, but they are there, they are whole, even when they’ve gone amiss.
And then there is Love; mindful love and soulful love or lustful love, dying love, a love not returned or acknowledged, even so it must so be added. Love goes to the highest power, for it may be the most basic tenet of poetry.
Your attitude, on any given day, impacts the circumference of your being; easily marked with the symbol Pi, it’s not how hard you live, but how hard you try. Throw in a little geography, the places we’ve travelled or the settings of which we dream, and with it all it is mind over matter. So make it matter, as poetry does.
Now, I’ve never been much with mathematics, or any of its sub-genres or derivatives, preferring study of the less absurd; the uncalculated pleasures of the profound written word.
But my lesser knowledge of calculus, or trigonometry, cannot take away from what is a part of me.
So I, in many ways, use a basic math. You add feelings, time references, and thought, divide up your musings and subtract the words that get in the way. Then it gets messy, for many times the words preventing you from moving ahead are unspoken and can’t be said and therefore must only be represented by an X, Y or a Z, but can’t always be summed up with an M or a C.
The thing is, I don’t want my letters to simply represent something, I want them to be part of it; a piece of everything poetry is and what it stands for.
My letters form words, and yes my S might not be sorrow, but it can also sizzle, sensual, or a shadow. The T is part of temptation and tsunami, and is even part of style. And the beloved X works well for a xenophile, or an easy exit, the text on which we rely. My words are whole and my words are true, they represent a life shared by me, or by you. Whether linear, or constructive, or lyrical verse, words become quite ubiquitous, or sometimes even terse.
So as simple as poetry is, it can seem very complicated. There are no equations, quotients, and its powers can’t be expressed by number. It cannot be squared, it simply has to be free and a poem cannot be summed up by an E, m, or C. Poetry in all its forms, be it whispered or spoken from pages torn, in all the states or divinity might better be expressed by nothing less, or more, than infinity.
∞
© 2016 j.g. lewis
“Pure mathematics is, in its way, the poetry of logical ideas.”
                                       -Albert Einstein

Convenient refuge from the torrential deluge,
unexpected, a Tiki bar; he without an umbrella,
she without an excuse. First date, foreign film,
fix-up by a friend. Free of folly
or awkward moments associated
with ideas you don’t own.
Dusty rubber plants, bamboo walls
and red vinyl booths. Rum drinks
in fake pineapple tumblers from the Sixties,
Doobie Brothers from the Seventies
playing on the jukebox,
and enough shared stories of the decades since
to inspire second date.

They both read Franzen, cursed Netflix,
watched public television, and loved Matisse.
He talked about art and
how he always wished he could paint,
she spoke of Chilhuly like she knew about fragility.
Air conditioned comfort
a contrast to downtown’s August humidity.
No tension. No rush for time.
She liked his affable face, attentiveness,
and manners. He liked how
she seemed genuinely interested
and the way she jiggled
when she laughed, all tits and ribs.

They stopped talking about common friends
and then only referenced themselves, as if
they each recognized each other’s loneliness.
No tension. No checking the time.
Another couple of rounds of exotic drinks,
then a slow walk up the puddled street.
She linked her arm into his, like
it belonged there.
A half-block from his subway station,
a few steps from her apartment, decisions
under a streetlamp. An embrace in the rain,
the thin cotton blouse clung to her bony frame,
until it was removed.

It poured right through the night,
the scent of the city alive with promise,
or something other than crowds and concrete.
No tension. No need to check the clock.
She fell asleep watching traffic lights from below
paint murals across her ceiling, and finding
new comfort in an old bed.
His mind, miles away, ran through reasons
why something felt right
when nothing else had.
He had no excuse. She had few questions.
Slipping out for morning coffee,
he returned with the Sunday paper.

© 2017 j.g. lewis

Within the solemnness of night
I’ve watched
vacant face without a trace,
of thought.
Stillness.
Solitude without distance.
Eyes flicker, and only then
I wonder how you dream and
where you go. Alone,
the unconscious mind
takes you away, where
you want to be.
I know,
I’ve been there too.

To all, to yourself, each night
a gift recounting
and caring about people or places.
Circumstances beyond
all control,
conditions only
you know.
Timeline a blur,
yesterday becomes today, as
months and days recovered.
So many years travelled
in the blink of an eye,
all sorts of when,
all kinds of why.

How can it be only memory
when you are
the only one who will see?
What about me?
I hold moments
in my heart,
only a soul
could tell them apart
from a reality
once planned,
never realized.
Is it ever as it seems?
Do I appear
in your dreams?

@ 2017 j.g. lewis