I keep a little notebook tucked in the front pocket of my packsack. Actually, I have a selection of small notebooks in a selection of bags, and a couple of spare pads on my desk.
   While I keep a daily journal — and always have a notebook on the go for reminders, poems and observations — the pocket-sized scratch pads are there should I come across a random thought, idea, or phrase that needs to be written down.
   Everything needs a place to go.
   I write every damn day. Sometimes it involves hours of composing (or editing) at my computer, other times it is playful poetry in a park. Often times it is sitting in a coffee shop; as it is today, where I am lamenting my neglect in packing my pencil case.
   Like the small notebook in the front pocket of my packsack, I always keep a spare pencil (or pencil stub) with every bag in my possession; you never want to be without a pencil.
   You never know when something needs to be written down.
   Part of my process, my practice, or my purpose, is taking notes. Notes become poems, essays, chapters, letters, or simply remain notes on the nonsense we all encounter.
   For me, writing provides time to make sense of the madness.
   Writing, for me, provides clarity.
   Does it become any clearer if you take the time to write it down?

Plans, projections, anticipated
results or expectations don’t
always happen when or as they
should (or at all for that matter).
Who knows why, or how, but
on any given day, without notice,
you are going to fuck up.
It happens.
Repeat after me:
shit happens.
You can question why, rage at
the moon, or have a good cry,
but none of that is going to correct
what has happened. 
Yeah, you might learn a lesson
or three, but lessons don’t help
unless you put them into practice.
So try again.
It’s. That. Simple.
You’ve already made the major
mistake(s), so what else can go wrong?
Dry your tears, take a deep breath,
and try again. If you want to rage,
tonight’s moon gives you a great
big target, but let it out and
be done with it.
Rest up and try again tomorrow.
It’s that simple.

© 2018 j.g. lewis

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