March 2023
Bio Note: I am working really hard to stop telling myself that I'm not quite talented enough to be successful. To that end, I've begun promoting my photography and my poetry more aggressively, and guess what happened? I was invited to do a live reading AND photography slide show of my work at the San Francisco Bay Flyway Festival in February—with encouragement to bring books and photos to sell. Well, all right then! Onward and upward!
Author's Note: The two poems below remind me of winters in New Mexico and Utah. Cold, lonely, desolate times.
Author's Note: The two poems below remind me of winters in New Mexico and Utah. Cold, lonely, desolate times.
silence
silence is an awful sound
howling heavily
through the eye of a hurricane
marching relentlessly
over pre-attack battlefields
whistling in the mist
of a sudden blinding fog
banging and clanging endlessly
in my mailbox
silence
awful silence
until i am deaf
for want of hearing you
Photo credit: j.lewis
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
©2023 j.lewis