Book of the Week

can you hear it? by j.lewis aka Jim Lewis

 

 

 By j.lewis

 Some of my earliest and fondest memories are of music and sounds. As I grew and was exposed to the multiple languages that were spoken around me, the musicality of spoken language became a natural part of my world. When I discovered poetry, I found that written words had a power to whisper to my heart and mind. When others didn’t seem moved or impressed, I wondered “can you hear it?” I still ask that question, because there’s so much going on.

 

Review by Sharon Waller Knutson

I was mesmerized and enamored by this book because it embodies all the talents of j.lewis aka Jim Lewis. photographer, musician, song writer, poet, and fiction writer. The poems are visual, musical and sensual as they tell a story of their own.  Even the cover photo taken by Lewis tells a story on its own about sounds, sights and nature.  I have chosen six poems that can speak for themselves.

 

 can we just reincarnate
 
wouldn't it be great she asked
if we could just reincarnate
drop these tired, broken bodies
and step into new flesh, new bones
new sneakers and new jeans

she laughed at the thought
pulled a photo from a red clutch
as tired and worn as she was
look
me at sixteen
full of ambition and no direction
sixty was nowhere in my mind
my heart, my bones
like it is today

do you think age has weight
she wondered aloud
and answered herself
i do, yes i do
everything feels heavier
harder to hold up
harder to hold onto

she thinks about her uncle
and his heaviness
of heart, of mind, of body
tries to fathom his loneliness
that universal unique pain
of separation, of sorrow
the turning to one no longer there
to complain or whisper his love

just today someone said
at least she this or that
at least he something else
and it was meaningless
wasted words
and no comfort at all

she looks up suddenly and smiles
remembering she is not alone today
though she has been more often than not
more often when it mattered most

do you know how hard it is
starting over again at sixty
with new work, new wrinkles, new worries

he smiled at the rhetorical question
as he scribbled a new poem
on her napkin
yes, he said quietly
yes    

Bogey-Man
 
We talked late into the night
Like Scouts around a campfire
Telling tales as tall as—
Well, as tall as we were,
The scarier the better.
An audit by the IRS,
A broker gone to Mexico,
College costs and three more
Yet to send.

We kept our bravest faces on
Determined not to show how
Deep fear runs when salted with reality.
Like the grinding steady pressure
Of slumping economies and
Pink-slip syndrome that sometimes
Ends in suicide because
Everything was not enough
And then was far too much.
So the shame, the shame, the shame
Became too much for 'you know who'
And on the eighteenth green
he scored a final hole in one
The incongruous 'crack' of the bullet
Was all the applause he heard
As his world went black.

The friend who came running back
Couldn't talk about it.
Not then to the police,
Or later to the media.

Our own talk died quickly
Under a sudden sense of
Our mortality,
Our frail smallness,
The almost tangible touch
Of the reaper reaching
For the first one to close his eyes.

dancing owls
 
each day is a new adventure
listening, filtering
trying to find the substance
in the halting descriptions
of every patient's disease

they wear me down

it would be simple
if each would simply be
something to name, blame, and tame
but they insist on being more
than a diagnosis with a treatment
they come to me with pain
beyond the physical
limping mentally, spiritually
the modern day "halt and lame"
seeking physical relief
needing peace of soul
minds and bodies burned out
from drugs, from mental illness
or both together

they bring me menageries
of dancing owls
and singing rats
choirs of crickets
and juggling whales

they don't need a healer
as much as they need
a ringmaster

and so i write prescriptions
to still the owls
quiet the rats
hush the crickets
and drown the whales
until the circus folds

cold front
 
early evening
late december
college freshman blues
had led me walking
thinking
to the mountainside
shallow depression
could describe me
or the place i found to sit
to sort some trivial trouble

looking out across the valley
the lake and sky both alight
with the yellow glow of evening sun
i watched the clouds line up
like front ranks in battle
and began a relentless march
north to south along the mountain
the weak sunlight yielding ground
to a wall of snowflakes

mesmerized, i stared
for the half hour it took
the ice-crystal battalion to reach me
forgetting that home was not so close
my coat not so warm

i remembered
last night when we disagreed
and i saw the storm front
sweep across your eyes
chasing love like the fading sun
the shiver of a sudden chill
slid through my heart
and i knew the road home
would be icy and cold

love of his life
 
he shifted, drummed, sipped
waiting for the promise to be real
dubious, to be sure
but curious, as men often are
to know what might come of it

blind, why yes, he supposed he was
at least in ways not visual
and therefore the tired jokes
around this arranged meeting
were mildly amusing, less irritating
than his friends wanted them to be

a quarter hour by himself
alone for years uncounted
what did a few minutes matter
this was, after all, no gamble
no last hurrah, no finale
though his friends had pledged
the love of his life
and that, he was certain
was to be seen

love of my life
the thought intrigued
worried him a little
rattled against his sense of order
of precision, of planning
what would that ask of him
to know the uncertainty
of finding, maybe losing
all the clichéd reasons for living

he sighed
thirty minutes late
he smiled to himself
maybe the real answer
was that he was
and always would be
the love of his own life

he ordered a steak
rare, to go

i am a dead man
 
he spoke with the politeness
expected by his culture
apologized for the physical ills
that were today's litany of need
i nodded, speaking nothing
until he paused, waiting for response

the small complaints were easy fixes
a pill, a pillow, a platitude
would satisfy his wants
but there was more beneath the aches
of back, of knee, of knobbed fingers
just as there is more than a simple shadow
that spreads below an autumn maple's golden leaves

i listened and i waited
squirrel on the trunk, watching for the fall
of the larger nut, the meaty one that holds
the past, the now, the future
a grief moved across his face
and he said simply, "i am a dead man"

he continued, excusing himself
for taking up my time
"i am dead inside,
unable to hold my grandson,
unable to care for my family,
unable to understand exactly why i am here-
i am a dead man, inside"

he stood and walked away
leaving me speechless because
i had no resurrection to offer

~~~

Buy the book at:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1680730886