“T.S. Eliot Homage,” Poetry by Timothy Resau

T.S. Eliot Homage 
(a love poem) 
 
Looking, now, at myself, 
do you think of me, later? 
 
When the tropical sun and high waves 
wash across my thin ankles? 
 
White-haired and crazy with spider-like legs, 
stumbling over small sand dunes— 
dunes I shall call memories. 
 
Should I be calling: 
— More champagne? Hashish? Incense? 
       Should I be laughing: 
— Why have you forsaken me O Lord? 
 
Looking, then, at myself, and you, 
seeing you over my Paper-Mache shoulders— 
brittle, like old bird bones, 
these once worldly shoulders. 
 
Do you think of me? 
— And the angel of the Lord declared unto Mary 
that she was to be the Mother of God . . .
 
White-haired and crazed, red bandana and erotic music. 
Original, native paintings upon my clay walls, so modest— 
 
 The Mother of God . . .  dear me . . .  
 
— Christ, you shall say from our breakfast table of     
oranges and melon: Christ, is it really you? O Lord have mercy . . .   
 
White trousers, rolled and pleated, red stained  
with angels’ tears. 
 
—Mother of God, have mercy . . .
 
Do you see me then? 
 
 
 
 
Zooey, Please Don’t Cry 
 
Life has become 
a photo album without frames. 
Calls that can’t be made . . . 
A constant busy signal . . . forever on hold. 
Memories that aren’t recalled, 
Blood that never dries. 
Sure, I can still laugh 
holding up arms without hands, though feeling fingers that should 
be there . . . 
like a vapor in a windy space— 
In short, a wound. 
So, what of this loss, this love? 
This smile that can’t find a face? 
This voice without a throat? 
This brain without a head? 
This cloud without a sky? 
 
 
 
 
Dual Culture 
 
The one that is, 
and the one that tries to be. 
 
Why does money 
always roll in 
the wrong places? 
 
She said, 
she said, 
 
she said: 
- I'll come down for lunch, 
 
and her voice leaped anxiously 
toward hope, 
like my desire to be a poet 
of a personal nature— 
aware that writing was not enough.  
 
I could only answer that I was 
leaving 
leaving 
leaving. 
Nothing ever seemed so large 
for one — much less two. 
 
Now . . . there's just one 
with only these words as proof. 

***

Timothy Resau has published in the U.S., Canada, Portugal, and the U.K. Recently his work has been in Adelaide Literary Magazine, Sideways Poetry Magazine, Sylvia Magazine, The Beautiful Space, Rat’s Ass Review, Loch Raven Review, Rye Whiskey Review, Better than Starbucks, and forthcoming in Scarlet Leaf Review, and Native Skin. He’s just completed a novel, Three Gates East.