AJ Lewis Poetry, Poems: March 2007

the wind has come up around me,
rearranging the sky
and dragging the clouds and the sun west.
now there is an orange glow behind the Camelback mountains.

I have been pacing along
a brick walkway,
though the piles of dried mulberry leaves
cracking in a fine brown and
yellow.

this pacing has put my mind at ease.

it has refocused my scope.

today I have been writing about being
introspective and inpatient and
how frustrating it is that I feel guilty about using my time for
this (I still haven’t found a job).
you see, the last few years I have been alone
and I know that I have brought this upon myself by
not taking control.

but knowing doesn’t mean that I can be free of this.
                                        it will take more.

all conflict aside, though, it is relaxing to
watch the clouds as the wind swathes my body;
there is a freedom about the whole
experience.

I know
that to discover why certain events have unfolded in my life
the way that they have
and why I have had the losses
that I have had

may take many years.

yet, to be innocent again
                                        would be nice.

to let go
                                        would be nice.

and to have a moment
to feel that this life could be
simple

                                         would be damn nice.

today I will have to settle,
I suppose, and I will have to wonder
if it is possible to make this change
in me
as I have lived it
in her.

View Poem (posted 9:01 PM) Leave Comment (0 comments)

What Ernie Said (from "A Slip Of The Tongue")

in elementary school I was an outcast.
I had very few friends
and was picked on by a cruel bully named
Jeff
who rallied my classmates against me
to pick on me
to laugh at me
to treat me like
garbage.

this was at a Christian private school.
my parent's suffered and saved to send me
there; they wanted me to have a good education.

my parents were poor
so sometimes I didn't get a haircut for months,
and this would fuel the fire of my peers
and I would get made fun of for how I looked -
I would get laughed at
because my clothes were out of style
because I dressed poor
because I didn't fit into what was popular.

this was also where I met Ernie.

he was Mexican and had bad acne on his face.

both of us had a lot of common interests,
and both of us didn't fit in to what was considered the norm.

sometimes on the weekends we would hang out at his house.
he lived in a Mexican community in west Phoenix;
the houses were smaller and had chain link fences in the
front and back yards.
we would play video games
or go out with his older sister
who could drive.
his parent's were nice, and we would watch the Spanish stations
on the TV during the afternoon.

I considered him my best friend at the time.
it was nice to have someone to talk to.

at the end of our middle school term
Ernie approached me on the school grounds.

his voice sounded important
but I didn't expect what he was about to tell me.

"we are from two different worlds, you and me," he said, "and I don't know
how the two of us can be friends anymore."

"what do you mean?" I asked. I was shocked.

"you are white and I'm Mexican. you don't understand
the world that I come from."

I was angry. I felt betrayed. and he was probably right about it.
I didn't understand his world.
but did I really have to?

he left me there wondering,
and afterwards I didn't say much to him again.

when high school started at the Christian academy,
I realized that I didn't have a friend on the whole campus.
I got out of that place quick
and by the second semester I ended up at a public school,
which became a hell as well,
and I found out that I was even more alone
in a bigger world that
I didn't understand.

that experience...
my life...
Ernie drew the line between our worlds,
and I have been carrying his words with me since.

he turned his back on me,
and I became white
in a world of ethnicity.

yet, I still wonder about him
and where he is today.
he was my best friend,
lost to the world
and to himself.

View Poem (posted 8:03 AM) Leave Comment (0 comments)

Feeling Small (from "A Slip Of The Tongue")

it is dark and I am driving,
feeling tired and trying to pay attention to the road.
the lanes are packed
bumper-to-bumper
and I fight to hold my spot as people pass and honk.

the stars light this highway, and beyond the mountains
the white light of the city burns like a flame in the night.

I feel small.
I am but a single person, with a single life,
a single family and a
single car.
my wife and my three boys are asleep,
and I adjust my mirrors to a better angle to see
this traffic coming at me.
so many lives, so many
stories. so many cars.
I feel crowded. I feel sick.
I feel invaded in my personal space.

these people, they are going
somewhere, like myself.
we have this in common, at least, to share this same road.

now they pass above me, across from me,
going in all directions.
trucks and cars
and faces and
blinding lights.

it is bad enough to want to get where I am going,
but this madness
is enough to make a man want to pull over and pant
for air.

it will still be two more hours until we arrive
at our destination,
and I adjust the rearview mirror again to see my three sleeping children in
the back.
their faces are gentle, not angry or urgent, and I am pulled away
momentarily
from the dizzying madness
of this
highway
traffic.

View Poem (posted 5:06 PM) Leave Comment (0 comments)

Jack (from "A Slip Of The Tongue")

when he was sick
and in the hospital
I had to do his job for him:
janitorial work, not so hard,
just time consuming.

my brother met me at the office building
and we began working.
there were big trash tubs, lots of garbage,
dirty bathrooms and mopping to be done.
and we were doing this because
he doesn't get sick time;
if the job doesn't get done,
then he gets replaced.

when we were done
I went to his car to get a key
but I couldn't find it.
I opened the glove compartment
and a mess of paper fell out.
I fumbled through
and found a letter from his brother
who is in prison, and then another letter
and another.

it was a tomb of memories in his car,
and he carried it all with him.
I found a business plan for his
invention;
he had a patent on it
that almost made him millions
many
many
years
ago.

he was holding onto it like a cross.

he was holding onto it like it could save him.

I looked at it
and began to wonder about myself -
about my ambitions and my dreams.
I wondered about how his nights have been.
have they been dark?
lonely?
sad?
wanting?
I have had these nights.
I have sucked at my bottles and played drunk
in the night.
I have laid numb in bed like
a caged lion.

I carefully put his memories back into his glove compartment.
I wanted to get out of there.
I wanted to drive away
and forget about what I had found.

my brother came out of the building and asked me
what I was doing.

nothing, I said, nothing.