» Fringe Blog – Writing on Film, Culture, and Things on the Fringe

The Wisdom

jelewis8 — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 20:38:36 +0000

There it is.
Isn’t it the same as it was?
Fires loose, examine closely
divine wisdom; Homer’s telling lies
amore in eternam.

What it is isn’t what it seems
where it stays, the magic of commerce
forces unleashed, globally completing for our attentions.
Kinsmen and spears, and lion’s heads and skins
arrayed in pairs, warriors’ wins.
As the sun turns.

There’s a conspiracy here.
You can tell when the voices hush
if you love you must leave
and if you leave you must cry
the dawn of the age, the image of the gods
etched in our brows, sun-drenched and brown.
Where it went was lost too, like honor and originality.

Sow the wheat, mesh the corn into rows and hedges
Fine grained discussions with old men
ladies perfume themselves
tonight we dance and dine
we feast in love
tomorrow fires come
tomorrow people burn and wither
and words will die
as our hearts, lost to the dreams of our fathers.
Perhaps then.

urbanish

jelewis8 — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 00:41:31 +0000

sirens blaze like volcanoes
sounds of couples making love mingle with
the searing glow of lamplight shades
and return as fiery spheres of pleasure
darkness of city alleyways puncture peace
outside the dogs of summer yammer dis-chords
a distant bell, churches or delivery men sound off
heat drizzles, poured by the dregs on black-sphalt
the scrip scrape of skateboards collides with cock-Robin crooo crooo crooo
brown and bushy, looking to Southern skies, months to migration
in the farthest shadow, a light, and opposite, the moon
mimicking a man

Soliloquy

jelewis8 — Wed, 23 May 2007 06:31:46 +0000

Whispering through this green menagerie
the wind calls to me, cavorting with
my mind and playfully gesturing
for me to follow
its Bacchanalian lead
Festive and all at once slowly
somber
this drunken gaiety leaves me in a
peaceful wrestling between lazy body
and racing thoughts when
Lying here in the gray twilight, I see
the fireflies alight in your eyes and
wonder lazily why you look at me
gazing with seeming interest into the
very depths of this pool of pure soul
Into this reflection I question my
being and with a start fracture this
reverie with the remembrance of duty
My mind cries Mutiny
To the obedience of my body as I will
it to abdicate its passivity and return
to mindless, mechanical Doing
Yet remembering reposing on a park
bench and sighing for another
demi-escapade in the glowing
beckoning survey of evening

Drunk Driving

jelewis8 — Sun, 15 Jan 2006 04:11:14 +0000

Rain glints down, it’s three am
Time to get a drink again
I’ve been sucking back dry bottles and bottles of
old times, like whiskey with that old
burning sensation, like cutting up onions
with a dull knife blade.
Cuts not so deep you can’t feel the wound.
I pour myself another shot and nod at the night
waitress, hoping she’ll smile at me and
give me a knowing glance. I like her hair, it makes
me think of safety, but it’s not her hair that
snags me, but the way she bustles back to
my table, being the only customer has its advantages
since there’s no one else here and there’s nowhere else
to go and she’s got no one else to talk to
and she’s just run out of cigarette breaks and I must
have that look on my face says I’m here to stay
’til her shift is done. Might as well, she might
be saying to herself. The long ones never tip well.
God I wish I smoked. It would make these long nights
bearable. But what about life says things gotta be
so? When you’re jacked or loaded or both you
get a sense of time floating along like a tiny
river, you only gotta dip your hand in to feel the flow
but you can stay outside of it as long as you
keep your balance and watch that bank it’s slippery
easy to fall in
easy to remember
especially looking back, you see all that water comin’
at you like a wall of memories
Funny how time runs back to front. Funny how we’re always
scraping, paddling, trying to swim to the stuff we
left behind.
Bottles of whiskey floating on the surface.
I take another slug and slap down a C-note, give the waitress
another nod–you deserve it, lady–and get the hell out of there.
It’s a dark wet night out, and I feel like driving.

Scarecrow

jelewis8 — Fri, 28 Oct 2005 18:14:52 +0000

A-round that yellow road, where oaks and willows roam
where streams like children scream and rivers foam
upon the rocks grey with fall and lichen
upon the mountains tall and rounded, heighten
to heaven in a meadowed haze, tops touching God
and skyward storehouses laden with snow, cloud-shod
and sleet-pierced, foreign and forlorn to death,
Spy I the familiar form of my old friend.
Shocks of corn and tall grass mark his passing, a-rustle
with autumnal breeze that blows low, sometimes bustles
his old flannel and straw hat, kindling sticks and poles
to hold him steady, and rusty tin cans to scare the crows.
Solitary, mournful with his uncertain gaze and smile,
I wish him well as I pass, wish him well in my haste
to pass the place, my errand full, no time to waste
But I shall pass this way again
and tip my hat to him again.

Elemental

jelewis8 — Tue, 27 Sep 2005 10:53:27 +0000

Night sits in His chair next to mine, and we argue
over the nature of morality. He believes in one Absolute.
I believe in two. He makes a strong case.
But I’ve seen both Night and Day. Could I possibly choose?
Silence swam with me the day I was in the river.
When She talked, it was like the water flowing.
I listened, but I could only hear the wind.
When I looked about me, I was alone on a rock.
The water moved on.
Temperance pulled up a stool next to me in the bar.
He didn’t say much, just ordered a few rounds and
smoked a cigarette. When he went to the john,
I took the matches he was using. The cover read “Stop.”
What a joke.
Love sang as I was passing by in my rusted Chevy.
The road was dusty, the tall weeds flowered yellow-white.
I heard the song again, but it was just an old robin.
Its breast was faded from orange into grey.
But I loved it anyway.
The City groaned and sank within herself. She was troubled.
“What’s the matter?” I asked her, and she sank some more.
“Indigestion,” she sighed, and let out a bloated burp.
“And I’m a little dehydrated,” she said.
I told her I sympathized. But I didn’t. Not really.
There was a little Ghost in the circuitry, a pesky thing.
I watched it flit about in its little ghost country of wires
and bones. It touched a synapse, a metal relay, and it
jumped back as the blue snap of electricity singed the
air with ozone. I’ve seen how these things work.
The Year passed by and waved. I waved back.
But the next Year, I pretended to have something in my eye.
The Year waved, but I rubbed my eye until it was gone.
Now, I just ignore them. They all look the same anyway.
They keep waving though. I keep getting older.
There goes Sex. Wearing another low-cut dress.
Always touching someone, making everyone look.
Slut.
Why do all the sluts look so hot?
A Poem woke me up. I sat up in bed and in the darkness
She spoke. She told me to write.
I told her it could wait.
I’ve still got the crimson mark on my face
where she slapped me.

A Song of Rembembrance

jelewis8 — Sun, 11 Sep 2005 23:30:36 +0000

I ran my finger down my face
to erase the tears that mingled there
and collected sorrow upon my brow
a trace of mem’ry silent now
A day shall live in infamy
a symphony of sadness borne
by wanton waste of virgin chaste
Epiphany at cost, agony’s taste
And men shall go about their ways
amazed at horror unanswered so
by open mind and heart so kind
Haze of freedom be so designed
Where city meets the sky and sea
and tree and park meet lane and street
they walked about in harried jaunt
Free from pain, free from want
Then thund’rous down the buildings fell
well to ruin in swoop of fear
Two darkened symbols ceased to be
knell of dark society
Bricks reduced to ash and dust
into rust the beast did fall
jet-thrust through by angered youth
lust of violence, blind to truth
Insatiable, a hungry fire
desire and a holy flame
mechanized into action strong
Mired by her children wrong
Years pass by in measured pace
laced with sadness, gripped by fear
the world changed under solitude
and chased off memory’s fortitude
I want to face the angry day
say the words to make it whole
but kingdom hearts are needed here
Pray the weak have ears to hear
Pray the mind gives wing to song
Longing to embrace the breeze
and chase the dream to bittersweet end
of strong empire and peace within
To the victims and heroes of 9/11

Cycle and Sleep

jelewis8 — Thu, 09 Dec 2004 18:26:52 +0000

This is a new poem that is actually a group of poems. I wrote them with a common thematic goal in mind, and though I feel this is unfinished, at this point, I’m unsure where it is going or when it will end. I hope you enjoy.
UPDATE: Gerard Van Der Leun of American Digest kindly offered his editorial eye for the poem “Fairy Tale Future”, reshaping it into something that retained pretty much all the original wording, but carried a cadence that helps propel the poem forward to, as he words it, “an inevitable conclusion.” The art of fiction should have the intended result of surprising the reader at the end, whilst leaving them with the notion that no other conclusion to the story is possible. With poetry, the same might hold true. Mr. Van Der Leun’s suggested changes help the poem’s rhythm to become more pointed, more musical, and ultimately, the poem is more conclusive and weighted than it was before. I’ve adjusted it slightly, but on the whole, the version you now see is the one suggested by Mr. Van Der Leun.
Nature, Who
Stone, who moved thee?
Who set thee amid the brace?
Sun, who struck thee?
Who lit thy fire from within?
Bird, who sent thee?
Who lifts thy wings upon the wind?
Man, who made thee?
Who fastened the days upon thy face?
The Bell
Seasons bright and strong to count the time.
Cycled rests and stops and fits of rhyme.
Nature sets her course like a ship sublime
and tolls passage true with death and chime.
Untitled
May wind blow strong; zephyrs gust that
August head, hot and sulfurous; violence thrusts
November, shatters ice; metals rust and
March down brutal streets; silence hushed.
Buddha, Christ, and the Robin
“Chirrup,” says he, Mr. Robin, worm-hunting
earth-robbing.
Of seasons and clocks and men he knows but one
true thing:
Nothing.
And Men, who know such things as clocks and rhymes,
know all true things about robins.
Everything.
“Worry not for tomorrow, it brings its own suffering,”
wise man says.
“Worry not for tomorrow, it brings its own desires,”
second man, also wise, says.
“Chirrup,”
Mr. Robin says.
Methinks they agree.
Finance
The dust of moon and mites of feathers
float (lazily, as all must do in times of leisure)
quiet above the fray, listening to the drone
of unquiet city bluster, frets with networking
people, unholy risen at holy hours to net their daily gains.
Streets rumble, glinting cars and sullen lights
and dust settles, mainly on the plains of pain.
Wall Street, 8 am.
Warning
A dangerous precedent, this.
Poetry with a purpose. Feeding a supposed need.
As it lies dying upon a rose, or a flea, or Flanders Field
it reflects the dying moon, its glowing embers trailing, haunt-like
seeking out dark forests, thickets filled with doe and young ones.
It pokes its pale fingers across the leaves, rustling, finding
purpose in purpose. It finds need in need.
Of this, we should not be surprised.
Careful then, as we write. Speak softly.
Write with invisible strokes. Take caution
in your tone and pretend you’re sealing a letter
to a loved one.
Spray it with perfume, place it in a box, then look to the
day when its mate finds you alone by the fire,
snow falling like dust and feathers, goosedown.
We now return to our regularly scheduled broadcast.
Untitled
He runs with purpose, strangely, for the joy is purposeless.
Empty, with promise.
Feet bounce over cork, bounding to spring anew
legs pumping furious blood to parts it’s due
no time for heart to–
it’s bursting just running, keeping up with the gunfire
or surpassing it, all without thought, without desire
without presence of being to waste or tire
Firm heart bursting with the sadness of Life coursing through
The Horoscope
Fortunately, there was a solution to her problem.
Unfortunately, it involved pipes and needles and vomiting.
She decided to stay fat after all.
Which was all well and good until the comet came.
Actually, not really, just her horoscope
“Horrorscope” she called it unknowing, though
it seemed to her a proper word, as every thing it said
came true with a vengeance only fat people can understand.
“Be wary of true love, it doesn’t exist.”
“Confine yourself to large spaces and hope for the best.”
“Dogs love you, however, cats will find you offensive (don’t worry, she thinks, that’s just cats).”
“People–that’s a whole ‘nother bag, honey.”
“Like I said, stay inside your confortable (yes, that’s how it spelled it) house and eat.”
“Forget about slitting your wrists, the razor could never cut through the grease flowing through your veins.”
Well, okay, maybe stars were lying. Or maybe
they had nothing to do with it. Whatever the case,
she figured the universe had had it out for her
from the beginning.
So she rested in confort (the newspaper said it),
waiting for the star to fall and seeing the city lights instead.
Fairy Tale Future
There was age in his eyes
when he first told his son
the story of the three bears,
and his son, wide-eyed,
listened and shrieked
when the bears pounced
on poor Goldilocks.
He liked telling fairy tales
the way they once were:
Cindarella’s toes being chopped
in half to fit the glass slippers;
Little Red Riding Hood as
a recently deflowered virgin;
Sleeping Beauty’s incestuous
and cannibalistic mother.
Tales the old way,
as kings were told once.
He could burn for telling them
in the old way.
He told his son
that he must never tell
anyone, even his mother,
of the tales he heard in bed
in the shifting darkness
of the candled room,
but must treasure them
inside himself, until he could
pass them on to the next.
In this way, he meant
for true history to pass
beyond the slavish, bug kings
that ruled them with tentacles
of pain and suppression.
One person at a time.
His son agreed at age six.
At age twelve, the secret police
caught on and had them both killed,
but not before the son
had told half a dozen field mice
with swords of pincushions,
who alerted their comrades
and rushed to the city center,
where the computer deity
shone like a radiant fire.
The mice did what no human beings
had done since being conquered.
And when it was over,
the mice and newly freed humans struck a deal.
For that is the way of history
that hasn’t yet happened.
She Slept Poetry
Child sleeps, keeps time breathes rhyme
her snoring, verses, nightmares, curses
pillow, potion, brings to death
softly spirits of unrest
moaning wights whose crimes confess
in dreams they dine, in sleep they find
their home inside, roaming halls and walls
of her mind.
Banished on waking, the ghosts of time
and untold night, send thither ’til
the gloaming might unfold the rhyme again.
Flowers In Winter
Winter, and the flowers still bloom on my doorstep
Barren wood lines the forest, bordering ghosts of decay
yet flowers bloom on my doorstep, more set
in Spring than the last shavings of Winter’s dead day

The Great Writer

jelewis8 — Mon, 25 Oct 2004 18:58:06 +0000

Wordy,
he expressed to me in eyes that flickered grey-white with the low expectation of a tired dog.
Cliched.
So tired of reading this stuff that passes as poetry.
In your mind, his eyes tell me, you reach
a point where nothing you write is bad.
At worst it’s uninspired. All illusion.
Let me tell you a story, lad, his back-and-forth irises intone.
Meticulous lines skirt the circles of his pupils, twin hulas of woven hazel-brown grass.
Once, when I was sixteen, I broke my hand attempting to break a window with my fist.
It was my first jolt of inspiration. I knew I was destructible.
My fist shattered, blood, bone, and glass dripping down as
I sat on the pavement, the car alarm bursting with chattering, and my head weak with pain,
I had the revelation that all I had been was nothing,
because I was broken. I wasn’t perfect. I wasn’t even great.
My weak future.
He blinks, and I lose his story for a brief flash,
and when it’s over, his eyes, grey-white and hazel-brown and
disguised by horn-rims,
sink
in
fatigue
one gets when reading James Joyce.
So I don’t expect any great revelation from him,
tired from explaining with his eyes why my writing doesn’t pass muster.
“Nice,” he says with his mouth, but I don’t believe him.
He’s just being lazy.
It’s all in his eyes.
Please stop writing, they say.
Save the world one more bit of tripe and literary trollop.
Surprised, I ask out loud, “What’s literary trollop?”
“Oh. Stories of whiskey bar denizens and people in alleys. Smack addicts. Homosexuals. Chickens popping up on electric grids, like weasels. I mean, groundhogs. Down and out. You know?”
“Like the stuff I write, right?” I say.
“You want it straight, don’t you?” he says.
“I wouldn’t be standing here.”
“Writers are pretentious. It’s just their way. You’ve got it, kid. Elevated sense of self. Think everything you write is gold. Don’t you?”
“No.”
“Bullshit. That’s why you never rewrite any of your lines.”
“How did you know?”
“Because they read like a self-important kid wrote them on his desk.”
I’m quiet. I wasn’t expecting that.
I stand there while his eyes grow colder, more intense.
No fire in them, just cold winter.
Then he sighs, and I know my shoulders slump noticeably.
His eyes tell me to go away. He just wants to not think for a while.
“Look. I’m sorry I said it that way. Here.”
He stands, pulls a slender book from the shelf behind him.
“You can borrow this.”
The Mediocre Writer
I grab the book, thanking him, telling him I’ll return it.
I just want to get out of there. I don’t want to hear him say
“Well, I’ve gotta get going here.”
It was enough seeing it in his eyes.
Still, I know he wasn’t sorry.
And I know he lent me the book to make me leave.
Doesn’t matter what he thinks. I know it’s good. I know it’s good.

Cancelling Christmas

jelewis8 — Mon, 06 Sep 2004 21:33:30 +0000

We cancelled Christmas, my friends and I
though we all had plenty of dough
We despised all the wrapping and hated the way
people pasted on smiles and hastened to say
“Merry Christmas and have a very nice day!”
when it was nothing but play and show.
In spite of our efforts to recruit our own families
to decline from the month of debauch
We found that the bulk of our mass-produced kin
seemed rather to like mint tonics and gin
and screaming young hellions making Christmas Day din
Of quitting they daren’t stomach the thought.
The rest of the world kept on making merry
as the festival of pain grew near
Instead of dismay and instead of displeasure
at their garrulous purses, the wastes of their leisure
burning their paychecks and spoiling their treasure
They deified the end of the year.
In stores of department, knick-knacks, and toys
the counters were lined with the wrack
of last-minute customers who seemed not to mind
their towering purchases or increasing waistlines
They glanced at their watches, urgency timed
and grumbled if stuck at the back.
As it so happens, as the weeks went along
it grew harder to stay celibate
from the infectious spirit of holiday greed
of selfish desire spawned straight from a tree
each branch stabbing the world’s real needs
What else to do but celebrate?
And so the day came and we woke with a clatter
as downstairs the gifts were denuded.
And all through the day while our relatives smiled
and the children all played with their gifts in a pile
and retailers laughed at the day they defiled
we wondered just what was the matter.