AJ Lewis Poetry, Poems: November 2006

I've been wearing this mood ring
wondering about my emotions
and about how out of control I am
with myself.

my mother-in-law left this morning for Benson
after several arguments
and misunderstandings
forever to be left to the objective observers
to decide who was right
and who was wrong.

here's the scenario: I'm a drunk
and my mother-in-law is an imaginative OCD
and my wife feels trapped in this small 1400 square foot
apartment.

somehow we are raising three
children.

yesterday I was at the Double Tree hotel
(really a corporate hurrah hurrah)
and I ended up at the lobby gift shop.
there was this guy there named
J.
and we started talking about my problems at home
and he told me
that I should express to my wife and my mother-in-law
what kind of man I really am.

thinking of lions in Africa
I nodded to him
and left the gift shop.

when I went home that night
the tension swam in pools of wine
and sharp tongues.

now my mother-in-law is home
and I am too.

but as I am sitting here
wondering about gurus and chance encounters
I am also wondering about
what it really takes to come to terms with an angry mother-in-law
and what I will have to do
to make this family
work.

View Poem (posted 9:59 AM) Leave Comment (0 comments)

As Rome Sleeps (from "A Slip Of The Tongue")

my child is about to wake up on this Monday morning
and I am sitting by the window, looking at the tree branches and the wind.
my life is uneventful at best -
sometimes hardly worth writing about.
yet there are moments that shine out in my mind,
that push me to write,
that connect me to the great creative stream of consciousness,
and that allow me to be
for the moment
greater than myself.

and this morning,
as the quiet pursues,
I wonder about Rome.

yet here I am,
just a vessel of creative words while my child sleeps in the other room.
this is my story, heroic in it's own way,
as I solve my problems
and face the darkness in my life.
I may not be a warrior
or a priest
or a god,
but I know that as long as I am true to my heart
and allow my destiny to unfold before me,
I will hold captive the readers of my story
and realize my place in this world.

and today, as I stare out my window,
two old questions come to mind:
who are we meant to be? and why do these events take place?

I will tell you that, as I have learned,
if you are wondering, then you aren't living,
and while Rome is gone, and the gods seem forgotten,
there is no reason for me to deny myself a life of purpose.
I will be this man, and I will raise my son,
and as the years take us,
perhaps my son and I will rebuild these great cities and civilizations
through bed time stories.

View Poem (posted 10:41 AM) Leave Comment (0 comments)

The Value Of A Minute (from "A Slip Of The Tongue")

I have found that as I get older
my time seems to be fleeting.
I remember when I was a child - time seemed endless then.

but now I feel like I am being dragged through
the ticks and the tocks:
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21,
22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40,
41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59,
60.

tonight I've been sitting here
waiting for bed.
the clock goes
9:00pm
then
9:25pm
and it is all a swirl of desperation
and frustration
knowing that I will have to spend most of my day tomorrow
under the thumb of someone else.

so fucking thanks to the working world.
thanks to the expectations of others.
thanks to the scheduling.
thanks to the consequences and the punishments.

yes, thanks, because now in my short life time
I have learned the value of a
minute.

and it is with great regret that I must inform you
that I'm going to be sick tomorrow.
too sick to work.
too sick to care.
and I will have to spend my time getting better by the pool

with a
six pack
of
beer.

View Poem (posted 10:36 AM) Leave Comment (1 comments)

Why I Shit So Much (from "A Slip Of The Tongue")

oh, the delights of the world:
the booze
the women
the food.

I've eaten only junk... I've sworn,
cursed, gambled,
taken pills
and laughed and joshed and forgotten.

I think that somewhere in the
Bhagavad-Gita
it said not to give into the desires of the mouth
and I believe that the Holy Bible said
something about leading a pure and sinless
life.

well, in this life,
what can you do?
with all the gods, the demons, the angels
and the temptations
who can really cope?
some of us will search forever for divine wholeness
and others will rape
and plunder.
some of us will walk dark roads at night searching for spiritual answers
and others will be fucking and fucking and fucking
a $20 whore in Mexico.

and when we try to draw the line for our sanity
it always comes down to the same old thing:
our shit still stinks.

it has taken me a quarter of a lifetime to realize
that suffering for forgiveness
is still suffering,
that Nietzsche's madman is probably right about
God being dead,
and that we are all so terribly far away from some universal truth
and will be as we know it
as flowers and snails spring up from our graves
while all of us lie unknowing
as life can only continue on.

View Poem (posted 10:35 AM) Leave Comment (1 comments)

It Comes In Waves (from "A Slip Of The Tongue")

it comes in waves
through fascination
and boredom,
new first times
and remembering old times.
but now these bottles are like
decay to me
and my father keeps telling me about
how his bottles have given him
prostate problems
and heart problems.

I know I'm young still
but I got it all figured out
you know... someday I'll be living the good life...
there will be no need for these bottles then
and there will be plenty of sunshine to go around...
yah, plenty of dandelions for my sons...
and green grass...
and polite smiles...

it comes in waves
through ideas
that turn into convictions,
and I could be a better man, I think, without these bottles.
yet,
I've known these bottles well.
they have helped me through lost jobs
and women
and arguments.

but I got it all figured out right now.
you see, I'm getting rid of these bottles.
right after I finish this one
and the other 3,
because I'm gonna be a better man, you know,
for my children... gotta be around for them when they are older...
gotta turn out the lights tonight...
gotta get up early, pay the bills...
got no time for these bottles anymore...

God,
it comes in waves
it comes in waves
it comes in waves

and it always has.

View Poem (posted 10:32 AM) Leave Comment (2 comments)

The Changing Voice (from "A Slip Of The Tongue")

I used to frequent used book stores
looking for a hero in the literature.
I had convinced myself that there had to be a person someplace
sometime
that had gone through what I was going through in my life
spiritually
and mentally.

I remember I used to meditate outside
next to a mesquite tree
and open myself to the spiritual
possibilities.
and because of the nature of our society
who could I trust to talk to about and
relate my experiences to?

one day I ran across a used book
by a poet named Janssen from Arizona
that seemed to have a unique connection to this land
and a significant grasp of
spirituality.
his simplistic style spoke to me
and I read through his book
over and over
and I wondered how such a voice
could be on this dusty shelf here at this book store.

it was an old book
and now I wonder sometimes
if Janssen is dead
or maybe sitting somewhere out there with all those
rays of the sunset
deep in the wild of the desert.

perhaps it is better to remember all those colorful
words of Janssen
still out there
under empty desert skies
still untouched by man
still pure
and still whole.

View Poem (posted 10:25 AM) Leave Comment (1 comments)

A Better Night (from "A Slip Of The Tongue")

I constantly think about writing you a letter
or an email.
I want to know what you think about me now
because I'd like to think that
I have changed into a better man.

when I stand in front of people
reading poetry
or playing music
I think that you are out there
among the faces
and the words go on and on and on
into the drone of my voice
the instrument
the mood
until

here I am again
sitting at my typewriter
my computer
searching through technology
and spirituality
for a meaning to the past.

I can type and type and type
but
where are you
on nights when my creativity is a wild lightning storm
tearing through this desert?
did I become this terrible person
that you warned us all about?
did I betray the words?
the music?
the heart?

yes I did betray you
it
them
to find myself.

but I'd still like to write you a letter
because I'd like you to think that
I have changed into a better man.

View Poem (posted 1:13 PM) Leave Comment (1 comments)

Mail (from "A Slip Of The Tongue")

there is always going to be
more mail.
it comes with each day,
with bills and dates and deadlines,
and eventually becomes piles of trash
in this apartment.

I eat crackers and get bits of it in my
teeth.
what I need now is a drink - maybe vodka -
something to wash it all
down.

today is like any other day: the mail stares at me.
and there are banks
and people
who want my money.

God, this life -
it burns my soul.
and I wonder about the past,
about music,
about old girlfriends
and about spirituality.

outside these walls
a city is burning somewhere...
a person is killing their brother...
a woman is getting raped...
and a child is getting aborted...

I don't want to sound pessimistic,
but jeeesus... what is it going to take to change all this?
I mean,
I'm getting drowned in all this mail
and I can barely cope with this madness.

I take another drink... I set the ceiling fan to low...
the light bulbs sit dry with bug decay...
the summer heat swells against the windows...
and I wonder...

what can a man do?

View Poem (posted 12:59 PM) Leave Comment (0 comments)

As Grand As The Sun (from "A Slip Of The Tongue")

how many of us have gazed into the depths
of that eternal furnace,
penetrating the blue void
and the clouds,
searching for a god to save us:
Christ,
Ra,
Belenos
or Apollo...

yes, it would be grand to steal a cupful
of the sun.
and for a moment
pervert the purity of it
to shape it
to our engineering.

we have tried to control the atom,
but have failed to fashion anything worthy
of total
demonstration.

it would seem that to our end we are confined to this planet:
lost,
desperate
and staring into space...

and this night,
as I play an old record,
I sweat the desire to be a
god.

you may, in your boredom, try to deny
your desire for this.
and in your short days you may try to deny
that you have longed to take control
of your existence.

yet, it would be grand, you see,
as Bradbury wrote:

to steal a cupful
of the sun.