It’s the first night back in the house
After the flood
We sift boxes and greet rooms
And reintroduced waiting breezes
Just before the credits roll on this episode
The washing machine begins to spin
Like a desperate villainous lunge at our backs
Water drips from a light
Tapping out a promise on the kitchen floor
Disaster is always waiting in our walls
Working it’s way towards a sequel
Or maybe a trilogy
-T. Weeks
(A response to “A Persian Lesson“)
Just leave me alone you giant bully
You engine of life
What right do you have
Poking and prodding the sleeping helpless
So painfully early in the morning
What resentment do you carry
What offense could we have thrown so far
Turn your fury elsewhere
For just another fifteen minutes
-T. Weeks
(A response to “A Voice from Death“)
At the edge of a small bay
Framed by stacks of black lava rock
A hundred people watch the water
Others stand in the water
Beads strung across the mouth of the bay
Splooshing and whapping they advance
Shrinking the bay with each step
Sliding over and around obstacles
They keep the line unbroken and noisy
The bay folds in on itself
Fish have nowhere to go but towards shore
Onlookers follow along
We all bunch up
Fish and humans
From the shore we can see a great school
Nervous yellow tangs looking for escape
The master of the ceremony steps forward
Releases a low note from the conch
Silence is returned by the crowd
He volleys back an ancient chant
We hold hands and sing
Words we don’t understand
Strangers and interlopers and appropriators
The rite doesn’t care who we are
It casts its spell anyway
Opening our eyes to this bay and its bounty
T. Weeks
(A response to “Osceola”)
Hey Dad let’s see if we can follow one fish
And so we kicked off
On the tail of some peacock colored wanderer
It swam in a large lazy circle
Turning right slightly more often than it turned left
A survey of the neighborhood
Casual nods to resident parrot fish and urchins
And then it was gone
Busy at surviving in a dark corral fold
Where we cannot follow
A lazy eel watches us glide back to shore
Where none of these can follow
-T. Weeks
(A response to “When the Full-Grown Poet Came“)
Everything changed when the house flooded
And washed away the topsoil
All routines and havens washed away
Nothing left but us and skeletons of past usses
These remains over here are particularly interesting
They tell the story of stabby-poky
A playful mood most active at dusk
Feeding on water fights, tickling, and headlocks
Long ago stabby-poky was hunted to extinction
Because it was too scary
But there’s viable material here
Maybe we can get all Jurassic Park on it
-T. Weeks
(A response to “A Twilight Song“)
Predawn-mumbles spread into the hallway
Yawns and zippers and clips and buckles
This trip has been on the calendar all year
Now it’s here and no one is excited to be awake
In an hour we’ll be standing in a line
In two hours we’ll be sitting on a plane
In eight hours we’ll be in a new airport
Stale sweat from vinyl seats dried to our backs
Hurrying into a foreign scape
To collect fading memories
In twenty years we’ll dust them off
And pass them around the dinner table
For the hundredth time with the same punchlines
And the same unanswered calls to go back together
-T. Weeks
(A response to “Sounds of the Winter“)
Home but still there
Scaling rippled mountains
Like tigers’ shoulders
Charged and powerful
Remorseless and cold
T. Weeks
(A response to “A Christmas Greeting“)
Was it love at first sight
The falsest and ficklest of feelings
Or was it a week’s affair
Hardly less fleeting
Where in I fell in love
With this island between
Icy seas and tormented valleys
A holy temple for gold diggers
Of every generation to stake their claim
Among jewelry stores and bars
Selling knickknacks and conquest
To well-fed travelers
Who wander off floating castles
Where pilgrims and scoundrels
Find summer refuge
Taking their sacrament with the land
With boots and packs and fishing poles
Seeking alms from the tourists
To fund their worship
Of the towering wild
-T. Weeks
(A response to “Old Chants“)
Everywhere a trail goes
Someone has walked
Every peak with a name
Has been climbed
Forests called parks
Are amusement for the masses
But here I see forgotten mountains
Faceless valleys
Falls with no clever names
The wild wilderness
Void of destinations
After a trek out there
How do you tell anyone
Where you’ve been?
-T. Weeks
(A response to “To the Sun-Set Breeze“)
Work life
Life work
Work’s life
Life’s work
Work in life
Life in work
Work as life
Life as work
Work by life
Life by work
Work or life
Life or work
Work on life
Life on work
Work for life
Life for work
Work and life
Life and work
Work about life
Life about work
Work around life
Life around work
-T. Weeks
(A response to “Interpolation Sounds“)
Life Immense 