Where is the native
Wise and cryptic and vacant
Who left this place to me
Books partly read
Frames filled with strange smiles
Meals never made
And a sticky note
Marooned on the refrigerator
“Yonnondio”
In my own handwriting
-T. Weeks
(A response to “Yonnondio”)
Rusted joy interred long ago
Beneath careers and ambitions
Pokes up through the path ahead
Strange artifact familiar in my hands
I remember leaving it here
But can’t remember why
Conjuring dormant rites
Atrophied muscles wince
It’s got good bones
With a little work it’ll be good as new
-T. Weeks
(A response to “Continuities”)
Three days past
Low was I
Three days hence
Once again
But today we crest
Throw our hands in the air
And scream
-T. Weeks
(A response to “The Dead Tenor”)
“She’s free — She’s on her last destination”
Words from the poet
From a man long since on his destination
How long did it take to form that thought
An instant a lifetime
If each star were a neuron firing in the void
Would the Milky Way be capable
Of forming such a thought in less than an eon
Or has it already done so
In the pen of a full sailed poet
-T. Weeks
(A response to “Old Salt Kossabone“)
Empty branches scribbled
Without order between me and sunset
Slithering chaotic silhouettes
Beautiful and black against the neon sky
Neither arranged by an artist
Nor blemishing the solar curtain call
But in the sky and of the sky
Priceless and meaningless
Black ink of musty words
Rises between me and me
Framing obscuring illuminating
The chaotic vaporous laser light
Of a setting self
Scratching at order and meaning
Echoing the songs of dead poets
Priceless and meaningless
-T. Weeks
(A response to “To Get the Final Lilt of Songs”)
Leaving town
Leaving the freeway
Leaving familiar signs
Leaving asphalt
Leaving the car
Leaving gravel
Leaving the trail
Smiles mist and mud
-T. Weeks
(A response to “Broadway”)
Tangled strokes of matted lawn
Signal the return
We have a mumpsimus
Crisscrossing old tracks
I corner him in the yard
Face set to the clouds
Heels kicking at the sod
“What are you doing?”
“Walking”
“Umm that’s not walking”
[Eye roll] “Typical”
He scoots away
Tentacles of shredded shirt
Wriggle in his wake
-T. Weeks
(A response to “Of That Blithe Throat of Thine“)
From deep in the charled husk
Of a retired war dungeon
Green flowers sprout
Volcano of tragedy where
Perennial survivors dance
To the pocked-iron tic toc
-T. Weeks
(A response to “Washington’s Monument February, 1885“)
Maudlin clouds
Slump low
Tangled cotton ennui
Gathers
On branches still green
From brighter days
Promising more
But for now
Morning is brisk
-T. Weeks
(A response to “Red Jacket (From Aloft)“)
Shine on me
Red halo of receding taillights
I am audience and actor
Stage hand, director, writer
My bow from this curtainless stage
Tails me through tangled tangents
And will find me
Mid-line and at the climax of a scene
But how can I worry for the plot
The cast can improvise
They’ve been doing it all along
-T. Weeks
(A response to “Death of General Grant“)
Life Immense 