Falling a thousand feet takes about 10 seconds
Enough time to look up and to look down
Enough time to visualize a horrible end
Enough time to search for improbable rescue
Enough time to fully comprehend the situation
And if by cosmic luck the landing is lovely
Unexpected warm firm and alive
What response but laughter could there be
A big inside out laughter flying back into the sky
And who but a fellow free faller would get the joke
-T. Weeks
(A response to a new experience)
Only weeks ago a new continent was found
Somewhere in the South Pacific
Decades of satellite imaging
Centuries of nautical exploration
Missed it
Crews are assembling
Top minds are puzzling
What will we find there
Was it here the whole time
Is it safe to go there
This discovery changes nothing
This discovery changes everything
-T. Weeks
(A response to a changing world)
How do I find my self
Self is no artifact to be excavated
Nor peak to be summited
Siddhartha says it is more like a river
Here I see it calm and slow
“Aww now here is the River”
Here I see it angry and churning
“Aww now here is the River”
Here I see it mount against a dam
“Aww now here is the River”
All of them are one river
All the sounds and temperaments and faces
How clever are time and expectations
That they hide my self from me
Behind where I’ve been and what I wish
-T. Weeks
(A conversation with a friend)
I am confused
Am I still Tyler
I don’t know
Two versions danced
I saw them
Was them
Past me injured but leading
Familiar and scared
Faceless future following
Shadowed and towering
One burned and is gone
Now I am only one
Which am I
Do I like this one
Did the one die
Did I die
Is there such a thing
-T. Weeks
(After watching the film “Annihilation”)
It’s warm down here
So close to so many humans
Recycling crammed breathes
Closed doors offer no exit
The train hesitates for 5 seconds
Panic circles below the surface
Off we go
Panic disappears into the deep
Stop after stop
Hats and coats come and go
Stirring the waters
Deceleration makes us hold tight
This is our dot on the green line
We mind the gap
Find The Way Out
And crawl up to the surface
Emerging on the street
Bees from their hive
Buried in the bark of an ancient tree
Buzzing about the queen
-T. Weeks
(After riding the London Tube system)
Goodbye Mr. Whitman
Companions these three years
You dead and singing your leaves
Me dead and singing my own verse
The two of us banging on the pipes
Tapping out messages across a century
What an odd classroom
A dead teacher that cannot hear
And a sleeping student that cannot speak
You’ve led me down this path
With more to read and say and sing
I round the corner out of sight
Wave thanks and love to a master
Your deadman’s patience
Your poet’s eye
Turning I wonder, am I your fancy?
-T. Weeks
(A response to “Good-Bye My Fancy!“)
There’s a pain in my gut
Probably indigestion
Or maybe the first note of my finale
On stage a melancholy dead man
Eulogizes chaotic doodles
Spent life and ambiguous purchases
Our laughter echos his chorus
Nervous and fitful
Unplaced and a little angry
We worship in playhouse darkness
In this temple to the muse
The muse of muses: mortality
T. Weeks
(A response to “Unseen Buds”)
Life Immense 