I listen to the comic prowling through a story,
Belly down in the tall grass, haunches tense,
Patient, prepared, focused on the prey,
Elusive punchline caught in the perfect setup.
The trap springs, the take down is flawless,
The audience erupts, colliding with the zeitgeist.
Visceral laughter warms the hungry room
As I listen, envious of the mastery on stage.
-T. Weeks
(A response to “When I Peruse the Conquer’d Fame”)
Soliloquy of affirmations on tap
Shots of bravado lined up
Courage comes with one or two
Blindness when I can’t stop
-T. Weeks
(A response to “The Prairie-Grass Dividing”)
Faces horses
Rows columns
Companies legions
Armored attention
Forever waiting
Terracotta soldiers
Painstaking detail
Monumental minutiae
All make-believe
-T. Weeks
(A response to “I Hear It Was Charged Against Me”)
Tonight I’m the smartest man alive.
I scaled a problem, insurmountable,
I resolved an issue, unsolvable.
Line after line of text, comments,
For loops, conditionals, and arrays,
Lay prostrate on the battlefield
Of my intellectual conquest, executed.
Here before me, the spoils of my war,
Multicolored lines and fortunate dots
Surfacing a tale concealed in complexity.
Oh my friend, blessed stranger abroad,
Resident of France or China or Russia,
Perhaps you too will claim the title
But tonight I am the smartest man alive.
-T. Weeks
(A response to “This Moment Yearning and Thoughtful”}
A river of red in front of me,
A river of white to my left,
Here I sit in this vehicle
The center of my universe.
In my universe, in the right lane,
I see the wind rattle the wipers.
But to the still evening air
I’m a 4-cylinder comet passing.
Next to me is a trapezoidal window,
Beyond which rushes this wind,
Then another car, another window.
I peer through all the glass
Into a parallel universe,
Centered on different driver.
In that universe I am nothing
But red and white lights.
-T. Weeks
(A response to “To a Stranger”)
Styrofoam triangles cross hatching
The floor, ceiling, and every wall
Squeeze the room in an anechoic fist.
“Will I die in here?” I wonder aloud,
Craving the comfort of my own sound,
Hearing my voice only after it rattles
Flatly through my jawbone to my ear.
I start to think about that oak tree,
The one growing in Louisiana. Alone.
-T. Weeks
(A response to “I Saw in Louisiana a Live-Oak Growing”)
Styrofoam triangles cross hatching
The floor, ceiling, and every wall
Squeeze the room in an anechoic fist.
“Will I die in here?” I wonder aloud,
Craving the comfort of my own sound,
Hearing my voice only after it rattles
Flatly through my jawbone to my ear.
I start to think about that oak tree,
The one growing in Louisiana. Alone.
-T. Weeks
(A response to “I Saw in Louisiana a Live-Oak Growing
You ruined my night, Donald Hall,
With that poetic time capsule
Of tectonic anguish,
Pathosed, pasted, penned
And packed for a day impossible.
Now, as I watch my beloved
I feel the long searching eye,
Reminding me that loss finds us all.
Already mourning the inevitable,
Loth I am to walk in your poem.
-T. Weeks
(After reading Without by Donald Hall)
In the way there are many ways
Many travelers, many destinations.
Along the walk I travel, at times,
With pilgrims sharing the road.
Companions by fortuity or design,
We share a fleeting communal path.
But when I turn left and they turn right
Are we strangers anew, diverging?
To all my comrades on the path
I send this standing invitation:
When I find myself on the middle way
I will look for you, friends reunited.
-T. Weeks
(A response to “Behold This Swarthy Face”)
Here I sit at the park,
Children, women, men,
Tessellating about me.
Space vs negative space,
Transposing symmetry,
Tumbling familial motif.
Do I, can I love them all?
I feel warmth as I watch,
Maybe that’s just entitlement.
-T. Weeks
(A response to “City of Orgies”)
Life Immense 