AJ Lewis Poetry, Poems: March 2008

I never really open up to a person
unless I trust a person, and when this happens
a kind of diarrhea of my soul drowns us both,
revealing parts of me that are inclusive to my inner workings.

it is intense and it is honest
and sometimes even a bit exaggerated,
and nothing momentarily feels as good as getting empathy
from a person whose attention you've taken
for an afternoon chat at a restaurant
or a 2am conversation on the phone.

I used to talk to this girl about spirituality,
religion, the occult,
poetry, music
and sometimes even about "us."
she was a good listener
and at some points in our dating
I think she genuinely cared about me.

I remember a conversation I had with her back in 1996.
God, that was not a good year for me -
too much of everything;
which seemed to fit so well with our conversation of
how we would belong together in the future

ah yes, ignorance is bliss.
I have heard this tired cliché too many times,
and ironically it fit me so well then
as love was a simple thing for me to understand,
never having taken that into me.

and so I blindly put it into her,
making love, thinking that's what it was,
milking the ecstasy, and believing the fantasy of being together
forever.

did it last forever? no.

I have re-lived it a hundred times: going back,
making wrong decisions, trying to make it right, battling the carelessness
of being young, until I was sick of it all,
replaying it over-and-over in my mind:
cringing, hating, regretting, losing sleep, and all of it caused
because of those tempting moments of our passion.

this, I have come to know, is the tragedy of the heart.
once I took myself into her
I don't think that I have ever
come back into myself.

View Poem (posted 4:24 AM) Leave Comment (0 comments)

Just Living (from "Disarming The Atom Bomb")

I have been swallowing vodka like a fish
and sitting here at 4am
staring at the TV
and this guy is on there
open bible on the desk
telling me how
Jesus will save me
if...

lately I have been playing video games like
some sort of
zombie
and sleeping during the day when I can.

I bought this book on the science of meditation
and I thumbed through it noting
the relevance
and the
lack of it.

I've read the bible
cover to cover
and studied it for years
and this guy on the TV
has his own interpretations
and facts
to prove how he is going to help save
me.

hell,
this is just living;
this is just fucking
living.

and there are people so lost and
there are people so right and
there are people asleep.
and all of my studying of the bible
and all of my understanding
and lack of it,
I am just living
like

you

you

you

so do you care what I have to say?
have I amused you?
entertained you?

I have learned that
knowing doesn't justify anything and
learning doesn't make you a master of
anything.
the only thing that you can be a master of in this life is
yourself.

and I am typing this out of me to
disarm my atom bomb
to get to the core of me
to save me to
master
me.

now this guy on the TV has more facts to prove his
interpretations
of his truth of the
bible.
and I am happy for him
and others
because this is just living
and that is why we are here:
to
live

and I am just here
in my own way
disarming my atom bomb
and trying to
fucking
live.

View Poem (posted 5:58 AM) Leave Comment (0 comments)

Est. 1863 (from "A Slip Of The Tongue")

I am feeling good tonight
took some pills
and I am drinking sparkling wine of all things
listening to Toto
as midnight passes.
a poem can happen with little warning
and it is the best that I can do
to lug this typewriter around
this ancient machine
and capture the lines as they come.

I am not trying to capture anything immortal here,
just trying to keep the paint from dripping off the canvass too much.
I think that some artists force this type of thing
but I have found that it comes easy for me.
some people were born to be heroes, great men and women,
athletes
and role models,
but myself, I am hardly anything worthy of redemption
and still I try to be a good man, try to do the right things,
try to live a life less decadent.

my mother told my wife
before my son was born and before we were married
that I am not a good person, that my wife shouldn’t
live her life with me, to have the child without me, to leave me.

I was there when she told my wife this.

well, I may not be a good man
but I am struggling through it all like everyone else.
and I don't bother people with my problems, I don't do that.
I have found my comfort in this emptiness
as my phone doesn't ring
as my wife is out tonight
as I sit under this hot ceiling lamp
and pick at this wine bottle label.

this is
my
life
and I aim to enjoy what little I have of it.

View Poem (posted 8:57 AM) Leave Comment (0 comments)

I Know I Have (from "A Slip Of The Tongue")

written about pain and indifference
and demons and
loss,
but today as I reflect through this open window,
the sun is out,
the clouds come and go,
the birds sing in the trees
and the wet green grass
jumps with life.

it would seem that there will always be another day.
the sun will come again
and life will birth
and grow.

but me, well, I have become stagnant.

I have become stale.

I ache in the desire to live and live and
live.

and through this window
I see that much life is living
where I am
not.

for me, another day
is a slow death:
I must wake, dress,
and move on to my place of business
where my soul will suffocate and die,
where lines are drawn, erased, and then redrawn.
and at the end of my day
I come back to this
and shit
and flush
and wonder about butterflies and
rainy days
and old comic strips.

much of my life will be forgotten,
and maybe only a small portion of it will appear
as a paragraph
in the obituaries.
but this life today outside this window
has kept me
as other things have not.

death, life, both are moving forward
with the eternal question mark inside of me.
and today I think I will stick with the latter
as I hit these typewriter keys,
as the wind makes its way through this
open
window.