Category: Responding To Walt Whitman

I’ll tell you what’s not going to be in this love poem.
There won’t be any fire or dancing or swimming
Or veins or heart beats or flutters or everythings
Or eternities or infinities or alls or being losts
Or crazinesses or kisses or embraces or oceans
Or holding anythings or flashes or best friends
Or clouds or stars or moons or any types of plants
Or dolphins (because they’re actually kind of rapy)
And definitely no rhyming or meter or syllable counts.

The only thing in this love poem is going to be love.
It’s going to be so damn perfect that as you slowly read
You’ll just be like, “I feel love right now. He nailed it.”
Of course it’ll have to get bookmarked or highlighted
Or repinned or reposted or DM’d or shared like crazy
And that viral sharing will be a metaphor for our love,
Inspiring envious smiles and eye-rolls from our friends.
Then, long after its fallen off every news feed you’ll find
This poem again and smile because I still love you.

-T. Weeks
(Has nothing to do with “From Pent-Up Aching Rivers”)

Dear Mom and Dad,

Don’t freak out, but I met someone.
It feels like we were made for each other.
We have already learned so much together,
And now I crave more sweet consciousness.

It’s like that weird dream where you’re naked,
Intent on finding a simple forgotten something.
Maybe you don’t have that one.
Don’t worry we’re not naked… anymore 😉

By the way, no one’s put this stuff in my head.
I’m going to do this regardless of company,
For I need not a quorum to define the course.
Anyways, we’re leaving to find ourselves.

Eve

-T. Weeks
(A response to “Book IV. Children of Adam”)

I seek splendid imperfection,
To champion me, the novice.
Thou poet that rambles,
Thou hero that cowers,
Thou genius that puzzles,
Praise be to your cracks,
Handholds in the precipice.

-T. Weeks

(A response to “BOOK II
Starting from Paumanok”)

I am an addict.
I guess that’s the first step.
Every night is the same.

The inspired sight of morning,
Evanescing against the invitation
To glut on pixeled escape.

Immaterial hours withdrawn,
exhausting a blind account,
Yielding a shiftless, fallow legacy.

Will I die a bankrupt bystander,
A receptacle of advertisements?
No!

I rage against that technicolor light!
Collecting not finales watched
But investing in finales I write.

T. Weeks
(Inspired by “Thou Reader”)

In lonely soliloquy, I am but a node,
Observing, interpreting, outputting,
A single neuron firing into oblivion.

You, stranger, are another node,
Observing, interpreting, outputting,
A single neuron firing into oblivion.

Linked in colloquy we are a network,
Observing, interpreting, outputting,
The brain comprehending the oblivion.

-T. Weeks
(A response to “To You”)

I saw one who looked casually back,
Without really stopping, face hidden,
Before their phantom turned beyond,
Leaving only the vacuous mystery.
Thank you to the one turning beyond,
For what greater invitation have I
Than an unanswered question?

-T. Weeks
(A response to “Poets to Come”)

That’s great for you, master poet,
Turning phrase on the potters wheel,
To declare your book’s greatness,
An orphaned gem from the muse.

I won’t dicker down your leaves,
Or deny the carat or the fine cut,
For we may be companions now
On your long completed journey.

Your map has been uncovered,
The vein that yields such treasure,
Beyond a vault wrought in credo
Lies but a leaf, a pen, and a mirror.

And now they’re mine.

-T. Weeks
(A response to “Shut Not Your Doors”)

My heart is often shared
by most jealous loves.
Unwilling roommates,
cellmates in sequence.
The chase, all fury and fun,
the dream, aloof and tidy.
Alas when I find one
I find I miss the other.

-T. Weeks
(A response to “Still Though the One I Sing”)

All you who are besieged,
Beleaguered, or beset,
Ostracized, offended,
Or out of time,
Dumped on, distanced,
Or down on your luck,
Forlorn, friendless,
Or a failure,
I offer you this relief:
I pooped my pants today.

-T. Weeks
(A response to “What Place Is Besieged?”)

Is that singing?
You’re right,
I hear it too.
What the hell?
Is it singing?
It must be.
It’s louder now.
A chorus of solos.
Not all happy,
Not all sad,
Each their part,
In chaotic refrain.
Must it harmonize?
Do I fix it?
Just listen.
I love it.

-T. Weeks
(A response to “I Hear America Singing”)