Keep It

To where will the momentum go
As this city rusts and slows
And native ferns reclaim sacred ground
Displacing traces of vanished tenants
Will it flow down the Willamette
To the Colombia and out to sea
Or grind it’s way to the heart of Hood
Or sink below silt and pines
Napping before its next millennia

-T. Weeks
(A response to “Give Me the Splendid Silent Sun”)

En-Masse

No terror lies in a darker shadow
Than the paranoia of the bored masses
Painting the world however we like
Too comfortable to challenge our creation

-T. Weeks
(A response to “Long, Too Long America”)

The Wound-Dresser

I read about the wound-dresser,
Counting limbs lost, holes in chests,
Heads crushed, summoning death merciful

Without reference I cannot comprehend
So I must invent a scene worthy of pity
Blood and gore and grime and darkness
Draw revulsion but trigger no compassion

Then I see, behind the verse,
Tears of families divided by death too soon
And I choke on the air around words too heavy

T. Weeks
(A response to “The Wound-Dresser”)

New Day

Indifferent towards the gloom of honest night
Blissful June rise, amber salutation,
Elbows its way around the blinds
Pursuing empathic shadows as they find refuge
Deep within the furniture and door jams

-T. Weeks
(A response to “Year That Trembled and Reel’d Beneath Me”)

Expectation

Not reason have I to fear the falling
Unending tumble from no where at all
Headlong plummet with no floor to end it
Yet still I climb my imaginary perch

T. Weeks
(A response to “Not the Pilot”)

Inscription 

Ancient smooth log
Cut deep cross grain
Mile marker in time
1962, 1987, 2002,
Now
Friends and lovers
Lone travelers
Parties in motion
Scratching proof
They were here
Wandering the woods
Just as I

-T. Weeks
(A response to “As Toilsome I Wander’d Virginia’s Woods”)

Conviction

Here lies a comrade
Faithful slain friend
Once blazing the trail
Then matching strides
Then leaning heavy
Now withered pale cold
Slain by the way

-T. Weeks
(A response to “Vigil Strange I Kept on the Field One Night”)