silly

At two-fifty-nine

Prayer to the middle-of-the-night gods:
      please let me sleep —
thank you for the beautiful moon
      and winter silence
but please let me fall back to sleep —
      no offense.
                        Amen.

—Terri Guillemets

Desert weeds after heavy rains

Some weeds are nourishing, and some medicinal;
Some are beautiful, colorful, and downright flowery;
And yet others, even those that pop up one fine morning
as the tiniest innocent young sprouts of green —
are relentless, run riot, and are one hundred and ten percent determined as  @#!%  to  @#!%  up your  @#!%  yard if it @#!% kills  the @#!%  both of you!

—Terri Guillemets

Tea in bed

Tea in bed? Come on.
Good heavens! ridiculous,
What the dickens?!

—Terri Guillemets

blackout poetry created from Charles Dickens, letter to John Forster, 1842 February 17th, Carlton House, New York, as published in Life, Letters, and Speeches of Charles Dickens, Vol. I, 1894, Houghton, Mifflin & Co., page 151

O! queso what?

What are flowers without the bees,
What of grasses without the breeze?
Nothing the wind if not for the trees,
Nada la quesadilla sin el cheese.

—Terri Guillemets