There is a small mustard streak on the crisper drawer, inside the fridge. Inside this particular crisper rests a half bag of semi-composted baby spinach. It’s not that I don’t eat a lot of spinach; I just don’t eat it from this particular bag.

And it’s still there.

Early last week, the sign pictured above was posted on the bank of refrigerators in the lunchroom at work. I presume similar signs were posted on similar fridge doors in other lunchrooms within the company’s high-rise architectural wonder.

Now I wasn’t home all day Sunday, but someone was, and the fridge is still in need of a good cleaning. Nobody showed up to do the job.

The sign, as you can see, said “all refrigerators”. It didn’t specify a certain floor, or building, or city for that matter. The sign said “all” fridges.

I like to take words seriously.

Now I hadn’t heard anything on the radio, or television, and nobody Tweeted, about a national or international campaign to ensure all fridges were cleaned. Nor do I recall any sort of Royal proclamation. But, you know, it could happen. The Easter Bunny still shows up, and Santa Claus, so maybe there was this new mystical entity that would, each year on August 2, visit households worldwide to empty and clean out the refrigerator.

It could happen. Most likely though, it was somebody not truly thinking about the totality of the project, and they just slapped up the laminated sign rather than thinking about how to better convey this rather timely message.

Think of all the mothers who may have spent Saturday evening baking, just so their children could leave a plate of cookies and glass of milk for these fridge elves who were going to magically appear and clean out the icebox. How disappointed were the kids who woke the next day and rushed to the kitchen for Corn Flakes, only to discover the cookies had not been eaten?

How disappointed were the mothers? Who wouldn’t want to wake up to a clean fridge?

Words are important; not only for conveying messages, but for the messages they convey. Words have always been important; how else would we know what has happened before, or be warned of what is still to come, if it weren’t for words.

Correct word usage has been essential, historically, but as information now arrives at a pace we have never before known, words are more crucial than ever. Words provide context. Words provide content. Words provide consideration. It’s important to care a little more about how you use your words, and what words you use.

If you want to make a point, make it effectively. Be specific. Say what you mean, mean what you say, and say it like you mean it. If you leave holes, sure enough, something or someone will slip through. The more open you have been, or less specific you are, the more room there is for greater interpretation, further confusion, and higher expectations.

© 2015 j.g. lewis

 

The radio no longer crackles
as it used to do
with
the lightening,
as
it happens.
Through the darkness
a voice calls out, Pagliaro singing to the broken and the lame.
                                                                                              Rain, rain,
                                                                                        rain showers.
The radio crackled in the night
sharp-edged static
then a stinging silence
before the thunder,
not but a few heartbeats.
The sky
opens up.
Thunder and lightening, touches the earth, as you feel shame.
                                                                                                Rain, rain,
                                                                                          rain showers.
The radio plays to the lonely
as it always has.
The moon
cowers behind vengeful clouds.
She, partially broken, is vulnerable
like you.
Still not there.
Unable to protect, as you thought she could, from all the pain.
                                                                                                Rain, rain,
                                                                                          rain showers.
The radio no longer crackles
across the airwaves.
Emotions, still fragile,
shatter
in the rain.
No one is to blame.
Strengthen my faith.
Let me live again. No longer broken, no longer tame. Not again.
                                                                                                 Rain, rain,
                                                                                           rain showers.
© 2015 j.g. lewis

They don’t make radios, or write songs, like they did in 1971. Michel Pagliaro still rocks.

The edges were crispy, no . . . hard.
Cookies can be like that, and sometimes deservedly so. Like a Ginger Snap; a Ginger Snap has to be hard. A Ginger Snap just has to be hard, or there is no snap.
          But this was Chocolate Chip, a big cookie, an expensive cookie, and a hard cookie. And I didn’t really need a cookie, but it called out to me. It was a good-looking cookie, one of a few stacked up like pancakes behind the display case glass.
          Standing in line at Starbucks, waiting, I decided I needed a cookie. I hadn’t had breakfast, woke late, and I had to be at the office for a conference call at 8:30, and in that rush hour traffic, I decided I really needed coffee. Really.
          So there I was, at 8:12, six minutes from the office, almost ready to order coffee,
          when I decided the cookie would be some sort of breakfast,
          something to stop the stomach from rumbling,
          as I knew it would be rumbling (it always did)
          when I only had coffee for breakfast.
I was sure I could afford the cookie. I’d left my wallet on the kitchen counter, but managed to scrounge a little over five, or just about six, bucks in silver from my pockets and the car’s ash tray (hopefully there’d be a few quarters left for the parking meter).
          I really needed coffee, and I really need that cookie.
          I didn’t discover the hardness of the cookie immediately, not until partway through the conference call. My stomach rumbled. I wasn’t saying much, I was really only listening to the call, so I reached into the small, crisp Starbucks bag to break off a corner of the cookie, just a quick bite.
          It didn’t break.
          The cookie certainly didn’t even bend, not even with the pressure I felt would be required to break the corner off a big Chocolate Chip cookie. It was hard, and hard didn’t necessarily mean brittle. There was no snap.
          So I put off my cookie break until after the call, and then I tried again.
          It took two hands to break the cookie.
          Two hands!
          One cookie.
It was a hard cookie, a deceiving cookie. It didn’t look, at all, like it would be hard, not
when it was displayed in the case. Then, it looked good. It looked soft and sweet and
delicious, as a cookie should be; especially an expensive cookie.
          Its edges were stiff, almost calcified. It more than crunched as I bit into it. Its looks were not all that was deceiving; its taste (and I use that word loosely) was disguised by the crunch, what taste there was. I did not taste like Chocolate. It tasted more of freezer, and crunch, and, and burnt (I knew all about burnt cookies). I didn’t see that, and I didn’t anticipate that. There was the taste of burnt, like it was baked on a cookie sheet that had previously burned a batch of cookies.
          And it had looked so good.
          If this was buyer beware, hell, I didn’t feel I’d been warned. And if that’s the way the cookie crumbles, well, it didn’t.
          It lied to me.
          The cookie was a lie. Not just metaphorically.
          Lies always leave a bad taste in your mouth.
Still I ate it. I wondered why. The militant consumer in me wanted to slip it back into the branded envelope and return to Starbucks. Yes, I could use another cup of coffee, but more so, I wanted another cookie: a replacement cookie. Money was dear, but this wasn’t even about the money, it was more about the principle.
          If you are going to charge $2.00 for a cookie, it should taste like a $2.00 cookie.
          It looked like a $2.00 cookie, as far as cookies go.
          It looked like an expensive cookie, a good cookie.
It wasn’t, not at all.
          In hindsight had I the time and had it not been a spontaneous purchase I would have stepped next door. Subway had a deal, a dozen cookies for $5. A good deal, if you wanted a dozen cookies.
          But I didn’t want, nor did I need, a dozen cookies. I only wanted one cookie (and really, I didn’t need that, not as far as the calorie count goes).
          Even then, if I wanted a dozen cookies, and had planned on purchasing a dozen cookies, and had made time for said purchase, I would have driven a few blocks over to that bakery.
          Now those were cookies.
          I used to go there a lot, or frequently. That place had great cookies, and not just chocolate chip.
          Who had the time?
          I didn’t have the time, not this morning, to make the trip to that bakery, and I certainly didn’t have the time to drive back to Starbucks.
          I couldn’t even make time (could you ever?), and now and not because of the back-to-back appointments scheduled throughout the morning and the intermittent interruption of the calls that would surely come I was in a shitty mood.
          All because of a cookie,
          all because that cookie did not appear to be what it was.
          I should have known. Things are rarely as they appear.
          I should have known that.

 

I could say I’ve been sorry, or least of all try.
I could think of more reasons, I can’t think of more whys.
City streets nearly barren, the clock nearly two,
there’s nothing worth doing, or there’s nothing to do.
So come see the night, how I think it should be.
Open your eyes. Admission is free.

Let’s walk under the moonlight like it’s not even there.
Remembering moments, remembering where.
We could question our virtues, or shout out at fate,
laugh at the boundaries we haphazardly create.
Still, there’s no point showing the scars we once knew,
this is the night to think it all through.

In daylight I’m restless, it’s become a disease.
Yet I won’t beg for mercy, I can’t even say please.
I won’t become another victim, who walks in their sleep,
I won’t pick or choose battles as I look for relief.
All that’s familiar is the uncertain dance,
deciding on whether it’s choice, or it’s chance.

We can go on pretending we are getting on with life,
with its make-believe anger and fictional strife.
Still we know how we are, and we know what is ours.
Let’s get back to believing, and get lost in the stars.
Little comes from resistance. Little comes over time,
little comes from knowing what is no longer mine.

Time passes like traffic, oftentimes too slow,
keeps changing directions, unsure where it goes.
It takes longer to get there than you once realized,
as you hold back the wonder, or hold in the surprise.
Months turn to years, and you get stuck in a lane,
mistakes keep returning again, and again.

Storm clouds are rolling, gathering up the rain,
to rinse off the silence and wash out the pain.
Let’s walk through the night like it’s not even there,
and make up a version of our own truth or dare.
Forget the umbrella, we’ll get soaked to the skin.
If we don’t have the answers, will we find them within?

We can pick off the problems, like lint on a sleeve,
take a pulse of our feelings, and control of our needs.
We could walk like it’s nothing. We could walk like we’re real.
We could walk like you walk, walking away from a deal.
Still the money’s on the table, I’ve got nowhere to go
and nowhere I want to, nowhere but home.

© 2015 j.g. lewis

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Don’t talk to me at dawn. Caught up in whispers
of residual dreams beyond my control,
I’m not always ready for a new day, and
frequently have difficulty comprehending
where the night falls.

Morning is not the time for words
if the night has come before. Every breath
a struggle. I wake. No heartbeat. No. No talk.
Blinded by sight and sound I won’t hear
the meaning, or the message.

Give voice to my days instead, where I won’t
see your reflection, but will feel the wonder above
the cacophony and confusion
that terrorizes an otherwise
monotonous day.

Evening’s long shadow laps up scraps
of humanity. I pay less and less attention as
the planets close in. Considering your many renditions,
I await your arrival. Any night. What shade
will you be this night?

Then is the time, when distance fades, where we tell
each other stories. Little else matters, and we ask
the impossible. Inevitably darkness
consumes me, until you become
less significant.

Through nights, when I’m restless, when dawn
is simply a concept, don’t waste your words on me.
I will not hear them, promises or otherwise,
or find the light, or time, to
see your lips move.

Dawn reveals serious wounds, time misspent
and misplaced words. Where morning hints
of the night before and I may not hear your call,
don’t talk to me at dawn,
or talk to me at all.

© 2015 j.g. lewis