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“)
Tuning out the office buzz
We step into our headphones
Where lush beats shuffle and thud
Echoing from the bottom of a well
Time dilates in each Narnia of noise
We are all aware eyes around us
Pecking at their own high-def problem
Each of us will slay a dragon
Together and alone
Both captain and captive
-T. Weeks
(A response to “With Husky-Haughty Lips, O Sea“)
Forgotten minds
Once a fertile ablation to a virile land
Ferment in stagnant pools
A swamp that cannot be drained
Should we bottle them back up?
And pour it again?
No
Silk flowers never bloom
Life feeds on life
So we must live
Compost for the saplings
And the leaves of grass undiscovered
-T. Weeks
(A response to “Election Day, November, 1884“)
Glass in hand we submit the query
Where does space end
Wading through the results
Guesses mostly
We also see ourselves
Faintly in the glass
Staring back
A backdrop to the space under the glass
And the space above
And spaces we don’t know
Everywhere we look is space
Who can say where it ends
Perhaps the end is where we don’t look
-T. Weeks
(A response to “Then Last Of All”)
How is my fear faced?
Has it twin fanged loss
Betrayed by scars
Of hollow socket rage?
Can it smell goblin eared defeat?
When it comes will I see a face
Under that ambiguous hood?
Or have I seen it already
And forgotten?
Does it try to face me?
-T. Weeks
(A response to “By That Long Scan of Waves”)
No matter how perfectly executed
Papier-mâchè betrays its paper
Revealing text torn from its context
And pasted into forms foreign and new
Prose divorced from their origin
Hiding beneath the paint and glitter
Among these million orphaned words
By chance one may serve the sculpture
But will never reveal what it means
For it was never meant to
-T. Weeks
(A response to “Proudly the Flood Comes In”)
This is the perfect poem
Profound
Metered
Clever
Passionate
Gentle
Focused
I guess it’s a lot like her
-T. Weeks
(A response to “And Yet Not You Alone”)
Life Immense 