writing

Silence in the poet

after a lifetime of doing almost nothing
but collecting words, now — here i am
finding that my life has become all about
that which cannot be expressed by words —
after a half-life of a burning desire to write
in order to find myself, suddenly i’ve found
an even more impassioned desire to write
by leaving that moulten shell behind, and
in this moment i find — silence is poetry
when the poet has nothing more to say

—Terri Guillemets




Insides out

a writer tries valiantly
to transform his insides
into an intricate beautiful painting
and publish himself inside-out
for all the world to see

—Terri Guillemets

Long ago now

I am searching for my feelings
through shelves of dusty books
can’t help but feel I’ve left them
in some forgotten ancient nooks
as if an author long before me
captured my emotions in his day
and saved them in fine poetry
for future me to find someway

—Terri Guillemets

Existing

I wanted to write
      a book of poetry
but it’s already written;
      those poems —
red, throbbing, beating —
      are just trying to
            make their way
                  to the paper

—Terri Guillemets

Strive & struggle

I am a poet, — though
I’ve yet to write a poem —

when my soul blossoms
and my mind goes free
when I finally let go of
the suffocating shroud
o’er the wildness of me

my beauty will spill out
the ink will overflow and

finally I’ll be able to see
through a sapphire lens
into the heart of infinity

.    .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .

I know I am a poet —
someday — I will be

but the earth hasn’t yet
shattered inside me

.    .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .

I have still only yet got
the seeds of the words
within me; I am learning
and yearning and earning
and living my way toward
being born into harvest

.    .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .

There’s a meteor shower
inside my brain —

stars shooting down
every bright idea
words burning out
before inking the page —

broken-hearted dementia
sleepless engulfing fog —
search and rescue crews
report every line gone

—Terri Guillemets

Tools for writing

awareness, audacity, awe
authenticity, acumen, angels
coffee, curiosity, cats
dreams, decision, desire, direction, devils
erasers, endurance, experiments
fearlessness, flexibility
grit, guts, goals
honesty, hyperbole, hunger
ink, ingenuity, insanity, insomnia, insecurity
intention, intellect, insight, intuition
purpose, pain, passion, perspective, personality
rawness, reverie, reference
soul, style, spunk, solitude, silence
substance, stubbornness, struggle, sweat
sagacity, sense, skepticism
typewriter, tea, time
wit, wisdom, what-ifs
wistfulness, window, wings

—Terri Guillemets

Midair

poets swing too high
until the chain kinks
and snaps mid-air
      the
            fall
                  is
                      poetry

—Terri Guillemets