You do things the things you do — daily tasks, unexpected duties, even pleasurable pastimes and hobbies — as you learned to do them and as you’ve always done.
   For the most part it is productive, or produces results you are satisfied with. You have been successful at doing those things in such a familiar pattern that it becomes routine.
   It is acceptable; in fact you’ve been recognized for your consistency.
   Could it be better?
   Could you further your efforts by changing it up?
   Could you go a little deeper, enhance your results; even perfect your practiced imperfection by trying to do something in a different manner?
   Maybe the time you spend, or time you undertake your drafts or duties, could be done at another hour?
   Have you tried to write your morning pages at the end of the day, or painted your canvases an entirely different way?
   Perhaps your poetry, which usually provides personal satisfaction, could advance itself with some nuanced action?
   Maybe try another setting with a different view, or a switch from pencil to a keyboard for a month or two?
   Don’t think of it as upsetting the balance, but rather shifting the fulcrum of your expanding talent.
   Just because you’ve always done something one way, doesn’t mean there isn’t another way of doing things.

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

 

How many relationships
have been remembered, or explored,
in the attempt to forge a perfect poem?
Memory reminds you of your place.
It doesn’t matter, now or then,
who devised your initial reaction
to the many sorry mistakes.

How many regrets,
how many evil thoughts, forsaken
sentiments or countless untruths
have you counted on, or encountered, in
an effort to scratch out your prose into
a form another human may accept, yet
allow you to go on living?

How many mornings, how many
pencils, how much coffee, has been wasted
trying to find the right word?
Each purposeful letter you surrender to
a page has been there, here, or
elsewhere before.
If only your cluttered thoughts.

No poem is perfect, even those from bards
you envy or admire. They too had faults
as countless as your own.
It is through collective imperfection that
we learn and continue learning.
Without flaws we have so very
little to write about.

© 2022 j.g. lewis

April is Poetry Month
we’ve been here before

Edge of darkness,
dusk signals the forthcoming night.

Fears settle, or are intensified.

As a child, my Mother called out my name;
a sign the evening was done.

City streetlights had just come on,

it was time to come home.
Dusk, then, signaled security

Twilight marked the beginning of the night for a teenager.

Time to spread seeds, share youthful conquests.

Adolescent dreams came alive.
Turn off the headlights.

We grow up at night,

learn the pleasures of another human’s body;
young women (or older)

who will, in many ways, turn you

into an man.

By nature, and by choice, you discover how
your body fits into another.

After dusk you learn

the secrets of the night. And responsibility.

Morning’s light will bring a new reality.
It was not always what your mother said it was.

© 2022 j.g. lewis

 

Ravaged by rain
tormented and
tortured with nature’s harsh breath
               Skin torn away and hanging
                          a mangled skeleton
left for dead
in the gutter                    an umbrella
                     alongside broken bottles
matchsticks and cigarette butts
a spent condom
          salt and dreams washed away
with the rain
Items which once served a purpose
now used or used up
no longer of use
                  Servitude
                                sins and secrets
            susceptible to societal ways
Disposable
   Obsolescence
     Everything once had a purpose
or a reason
                   or an excuse
Now
    all but forgotten
                               until it rains

© 2015 j.g. lewis