Twelve minutes to seven
Turn then toss
And turn again
Tasks scroll up and down
Implications left to right
This morning-brain menu
Looks familiar
Oh I see how it works
Just like Netflix
Today starts
The way the last one ended
-T. Weeks
First things first
One year on
And moving out
A new place
Moving in
Funny smells
Ugly curtains
Now
Where to put the art?
-T. Weeks
Fat Guy Little Coat
Tommy Boy
Is still funny
Chris Farley
Was only thirty
Bo Derek
Only thirty nine
Both seemed older
In ninety five
The year I moved
To California
-T. Weeks
Funny Smells
I’ve worn the same deodorant for years
Same place
Same shelf
Every time
Somewhere someone made a decision
Fresh branding
New labels
New shelf
This is the same place and a new place
Six feet high
4 feet wide
Options top to bottom
Maybe it’s time for a new deodorant
-T. Weeks
The Ghost of Laurelhurst
Old man crosses the street
Never looks at the blue car stopped and waiting
Doesn’t wave doesn’t nod
Pants low and bursting bags slung high
Maybe his smile is packed away up there
Bent-shoulder-shuffle curb to curb
Where did he come from
Maybe from another Saturday
One with jokes and jabs and wishes
Crossing this same road
All waves and saunter
Towards dark and bright futures
Now here we are
And there he goes towards another
-T. Weeks
Lullaby for Laguna
Lo-fi beats lap against windows sills
Gently rocking rails and breezes
An afternoon lullaby for Laguna
Blue pacific runway unrolling
The sun about to take its walk
Sea birds scatter and we look up
A distant lawn mower turns out to be a plane
Low and greedy
Too close to be innocent
It pulls a banner
Telling us about motorcycle insurance
We’ve been robbed
Horizons are best served add-free
-T. Weeks
Waiting
At 7:00 alone in the yard
The air is cool
California is waiting to exhale
The looking glass pool
Blue and unbroken
Wonderland waiting for a cannon ball
Peekaboo lizards
Do push-ups in the sun
Waiting for a reason to hide
Everything is waiting
Except maybe me
I like it here just fine
-T. Weeks
Father’s Day
Chairs in orbit on the lawn
Alien branches waltz in 4/4 time
Patio shadow crescent faces
Toss hot potato topics
One eye waxing
Two eyes full
One eye waning
No eyes new
Demiurges giggle and fight
Crafting mines through the night
Hungry for a turn
Whiskey twinkle little star
Please explain
-T. Weeks
The King
The man on top of the cell tower
Was hard to see until he waived
Hard-hatted king of Hillsboro
High above his subscribers
Humbly delivering voice text and data
Unlimited for the loyal
We bow our heads and hashtag
-T. Weeks
Pelagic
Pelagic. I came across that word in an article about a shark that mysteriously swam out to sea. Researchers were speculating on why she had strayed so far from home on her “pelagic journey”. In my mind the shark simply swam away from the beach. I forget that the ocean, like space, is disorientingly three-dimensional. The pelagic zone is not just far from either coast it’s also in between the top and the bottom. Creatures that live near the surface and those that live near the floor rarely explore the massive expanse of the in-between. Most of the ocean’s volume is in the pelagic zone, boundaryless, without cover, without reference point, without scenery, without horizon. This is the open ocean. How much does direction matter here? What kinds of creatures flourish in the frameless? How do you hide when there’s nowhere to hide? Is the expansive sameness boring or terrible?
Thinking about the incomprehensible solitude of this shark’s journey a sense of claustrophobia stirs inside. The discomfort appears neither at the surface nor at the floor. It is suspended in the fathomless in-between, where ambiguity glows like gravity. I’m afraid to look. I’m afraid to drift from the edges. Free from shimmer and tumble and armor and shadows a large migratory presence glides in the pelagic vacuum. Free from anything to see the Presence is left with nowhere to look but in.
The shark was pregnant. That’s why she swam away… and returned with something new.
-T. Weeks
Life Immense 