do not even need
to write poem about life
title says it all
—Terri Guillemets
silly
Zzzzzhakespeare
reading in my cozy bed, ridiculously late
words begin to slur and rhymes, to blear
my eyelids fight me — like a heavyweight
goodnight, sweet sleepy zzzzzhakespeare
—Terri Guillemets
Losing count
Damnit! I binged
again II day
IV life was hard
and so I
VIII my stress away.
O why do I so of X gorge?
Since turning XL
I’ve been extra large.
—Terri Guillemets
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
Spring’s sure well-done over, at 100°
Poetic words flow much better in pleasant climes—
Springtime and autumn, more friendly for rhymes
Winter’s good too, we self-reflect well in cold times
But blazing summer melts words & numbs minds!
—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,
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
A life with papers
Any real writer — or reader — has had a papercut on the forehead at least once.
—Terri Guillemets
They’ll be back
you can shout it to every star
bare your soul up to the moon
cast your problems nightly afar —
but they always flood back by noon
—Terri Guillemets
Stages of Papago Orange Blossom
segmented,
fermented,
demented.
—Terri Guillemets
entry in my beer tasting journal for Huss Brewing Co.’s Papago Orange Blossom, a delicious Arizona vanilla mandarin wheat ale
There are actually eight
It’s a sin to waste chocolate. It’s in the Bible.
—Terri Guillemets
P.S. Thanks to my mom for letting me know that she saw a Viabella greeting card with this quote on it at a nearby store. The inside reads: “Wishing you a birthday that’s sinfully delicious.”
Unreasonably warm in Phoenix
We live in a desert Arizona town
where winter is brown and green
and summer is green and brown
with 300 annual days of sunscreen
our autumn’s unreasonably warm
and spring time is mostly too hot
here we live for every rain storm
and the seasons—well, they’re not.
—Terri Guillemets