Category: Poems

To the old man
I’ll someday be
Here’s my gift to you
A legacy

-T. Weeks
(A response to “MY 71st Year“)

Diaphragms bellow and preen
Phrases turn round and round
Muffled time shuffles toward the exits
Did the writer dig for these lines
Or did they exhume him
Their relevance and my ignorance
Spar through the third act
Then laugh then embrace

-T. Weeks
(A response to “On, on the Same, Ye Jocund Twain!“
After seeing Major Barbara at The Armory)

Swept in the current
We all feel it
Swimming for shore
Each our own

-T. Weeks
(In response to “Good-Bye My Fancy“)

The way I use this town
Depends on where I live
Stop lights and grocers
Hibernated in my blind spot
Until that rush and splash
Washed away sheet rock
And comfortable routine
Now disrupted and displaced
We stare out strange windows
Strangers in our own town

-T. Weeks
(A response to “Lingering Last Drops”)

I usually take my mornings black
But today
Two people new to us
Here for the weekend
To drink in Portland
And its teas and coffees
Sat at breakfast
Near to us and greeted us
Smiles and tattoos and stories
If nothing else happens
Here’s to the travelers
Who made our day all the sweeter

-T. Weeks
(A response to “Sail out for Good, Eidolon Yacht!“)

Miles above soggy fields
Belly full of headphones
Breaching and diving
Engines hiss
Hhhhoooommmmeeee
But some hear farewells
Together we race to Portland
Not fast enough

-T. Weeks
(A response to “After the Supper and Talk“)

Long and wide runs the highway
Carved eons before the land was here
There is only one road and this is it
No exits or rest stops or truck stops
Just a beginning and an end
Anxieties and emails buzz across the road
Only to splat across my windshield
Blocking the sunbaked periphery
I forget they were ever not there
Until a little sweat cleans the glass
Clearing my sight and the scene

-T. Weeks
(A response to “An Evening Lull“)

A night’s pain rolls in my stomach
Rolls into my gut and my brain and head
All I want to do is sleep
But the gears are slipping and grinding
Loud irreparable and deep
Medicine doesn’t help maybe even made it worse
What can I do but breath
Breath until my breath reaches the deep
Blurs the noise just enough to see it
It is a hill and every hill has a summit
No matter how much it tries to rise forever

-T. Weeks
(A response to “Now Precedent Songs, Farewell“)

There’s a joke I like to tell myself
The one about the wave that’s afraid of returning to the ocean
Yeah I know it’s silly

-T. Weeks
(A response to “The Dismantled Ship“)

Life fills this house
Children arguing about Minecraft
Cat sitting on a cereal box
Plants green and vascular
Keep the soil from washing out beneath us
The Atlas of our home soundly napping
Setting the weight down for a minute
Only to shoulder it again in the next

-T. Weeks
(A response to “As the Greek’s Signal Flame“)