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John

lewis — Fri, 19 Sep 2014 17:55:30 +0000

Yesterday morning I found a beautiful feather on the ground—dark gray with a white outline all the way around the rim. Though the feather itself was not cold, my fingers felt cold when I picked it up. I noticed then that there was still blood in the quick, as if the feather had been torn from some bird before it was time. Today, I learned that my cousin John died yesterday morning.

Substitution

lewis — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 19:05:27 +0000

The swimmer watched by the lifeguard drowned.
The swimmer stood by the lifeguard drowned.
The swimmer was by the lifeguard drowned.
The swimmer has by the lifeguard drowned.
The swimmer not by the lifeguard drowned.
The swimmer person by the lifeguard drowned.

Ode to a Kumquat

lewis — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 21:56:33 +0000

Kumquat, kumquat in the mud
Someone thought you were a dud
Or maybe they just dropped you, bud
But now you’re not forgot.

lewis — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 06:49:00 +0000

A house in a desert, very dry. Blighted land and dry sticks, no trees. An empty place. Things must grow here, things grow everywhere, but you can’t tell. It looks empty. There is a house. The details are gone. There is a house, but no features. Just a place where somebody lives. It sits in a desert, alone. The inhabitant is abstract. The house is undefined. The landscape barren.

Here the only thing we can have is belief. We must believe that the man in this desert can become something. Otherwise the scene is boring. Not even terrible or sad, but simply not worth our while – a chronically alone man with no relation to you, so you don’t think of him.

But the vision may stay, and this staying is because we must believe in the potential of this man to become something more than this. A friend, a father, he may plant a tree, he may harvest its fruit. Even if he were to smile, that would be enough.

We do not need to wait and see, but we must believe.

a moment

lewis — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 16:00:24 +0000

I saw a truck that gave me a moment of syntactico-semantic pause (though I think the idea may not be as curious as I believed at the time)

and I saw some balloons rising into the sky, framed by the federal building

then an airplane flew by

(the end)

untitled

lewis — Sat, 16 Dec 2006 16:00:30 +0000

The ravens and the astronauts
Will meet someday in space
And then
We’ll know who’s boss.