Terri Guillemets Archives — 2023
This is the archive of my publicly published writing from 2023 — the good, the bad, the silly and the serious, the active and the retired.
—tg
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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
TITLE: Zzzzzhakespeare
DATE: 2023 Jan 13
phoenix monsoon storm
haboob isn't dirty word
it is dusty though
TITLE: Writing up a storm
DATE: 2023 Jul 26
LOCATION: Phoenix, Arizona
NOTES: silly summer senryu
the wisdom of age
takes root to blossom
in crevices of the brain
emptied by letting go
TITLE: Release
DATE: 2023 Nov 24
pick out your fears
worries, anger, and hate
from the bag of stones you carry
and love, find yourself lifted by
the wings of featherweight faith
TITLE: Carrying
DATE: 2023 Sep 15
bee-buzzed blooms
wilt white into winter —
hellish heavy heat
silently softens to snow —
lovely lustrous leaves
fall freckled in frost —
senescent slanting sun
solstices southward —
the young year yules
dizzily debarks december
TITLE: Whirlwind
DATE: 2023 Dec 4
At 2 pm, doves coo
an afternoon lullaby —
drowsy ticking
drowns out work —
the clock’s face
and leaden hands
fall napping into
the hour’s warm lap —
minutes nod off and
sleepy seconds snore
digesting noon away —
time teeters —
its breathing slows
weighed down by
heavy parts of day —
TITLE: Lapse
DATE: 2023 Dec 11
the world we abuse
roasting us like marshmallows
in a fire we lit
TITLE: Inflame
DATE: 2023 Jul 22
LOCATION: Phoenix, Arizona
NOTES: climate change senryu
our apocalypse
once in ultra slow motion
now on fast forward
TITLE: Accelerant
DATE: 2023 Jul 13
LOCATION: Phoenix, Arizona
NOTES: climate change senryu
Nature and wildlife
are gradually vanishing
like in the photograph
from Back to the Future —
our future is vanishing too
but we have no hundred
and thirty horsepower
gas-fired time machine
to go back and fix it.
TITLE: Flux capacity
DATE: 2023 Jul 13
watching birds splash in
morning-after rain puddles
cleanses my spirit
TITLE: Finally a bath!
DATE: 2023 Jul 27
LOCATION: Phoenix, Arizona
shards of memory
jagged-edged
broken emotions —
wholeness
is the fossil
of childhood —
growing up
fractures
many things —
TITLE: Fractal
DATE: 2023 Jun 23
May you live long enough
to let your life return to
the pleasures of simplicity
TITLE: Elementary
DATE: 2023 Dec 31
Birds in the springtime —
daredevilish in their quest
songful in their survival —
weightless wings — heavy risk
TITLE: Fell swoop
DATE: 2023 Mar 25
LOCATION: Phoenix, Arizona
my willpower has become
a fraction of what it was—
my sweet tooth is now
much greater than my resolve—
and the laboratory reports
that my blood glucose
no longer measures in
milligrams per deciliter—
but in sugar cubes squared
TITLE: Sugar shock
DATE: 2023 Mar 26
LOCATION: Phoenix, Arizona
how the nighttime looks
during a power outage
is how night should look
TITLE: Dark thoughts
DATE: 2023 Aug 31
LOCATION: Phoenix, Arizona
NOTES: light pollution senryu
freed pubescent girl
finally crawls out of time
into middle age
TITLE: Perimenopause
DATE: 2023 Jul 30
AGE: forty-nine
NOTES: womanhood senryu
autumn leaves rustle
the tension out of me
on pleasant breezy days
sunlit gentle tree, i am
a ragdoll under your sway
TITLE: Entranced
DATE: 2023 Aug 1
LOCATION: Phoenix, Arizona
European starlings
multiply like weeds
they are avian Borg
assimilating resistlessly
they are teenage girls
who will always travel
to the restroom together —
from yellow beaks
oddly alien noises
and so much chatter —
one or two are cute
but the whole crowd
is so flocking loud!
TITLE: Starlings
DATE: 2023 Sep 28
Poetry is beauty that blooms from bruises.
DATE: 2023 Oct 3
watching over the shoulder of patience
studying how he does his work
TITLE: Re-learning at 49
DATE: 2023 Sep 3
days in winter
fall so short —
as the sun sets
loneliness rises
TITLE: Ember
DATE: 2023 Dec 1
the walls of my prison crumble
as the walls of my castle appear
TITLE: 49–17/20
DATE: 2023 Sep 2
in this day and age
dealing with health insurance
worst disease of all
TITLE: $ick
DATE: 2023 Jan 19
NOTES: “All complaints about life today will be ignored unless they are submitted in the format of elegant haiku poetry.”—Dr. SunWolf
God completed my heart
then you finished it —
mortal combat style
SOURCE: freewriting typewriter poem
DATE: 2023 Mar 26
princess lightning reigned
it was a dark and stormy
knight to fall in love
TITLE: Storm story
DATE: 2023 Jul 30
LOCATION: Phoenix, Arizona
NOTES: silly weather senryu
it is raining!
no, not water
from clouds
but dead leaves
from july trees
scorched by
a brutal heat
too sunburnt
to evergreen
falling, fallen
brittle brown
leafy teardrops
raining down
the dry warm
forlorn face of
mother earth
TITLE: Ravish
DATE: 2023 Aug 20
LOCATION: Phoenix, Arizona
in nature i am
water in the breeze
going with the flow
in society i thrash
every cell halting
resistance grows
i become boulder
thrown off cliffs
accelerating through
no choice of my own
landing hard
splitting open
shattering into
everything wrong
TITLE: Rippling
DATE: 2023 Aug 20
LOCATION: Phoenix, Arizona
That trusty mockingbird —
you can set your sundial by it.
TITLE: Early bird
DATE: 2023 Sep 29
TIME: 5:56 a.m.
LOCATION: Phoenix, Arizona
STATUS: awake
If we don't continually get knocked off balance, how are we going to continue to be good at balancing ourselves?
TITLE: Over & again
DATE: 2023 Nov 29
just like trees
my life is a mix—
seasonal change
and evergreen
TITLE: Deciduous
DATE: 2023 Dec 15
TITLE: Balancing act
DATE: 2023 Sep 13
she was wandering
completely lost —
yet on the path
the whole time
TITLE: Wondering
DATE: 2023 Jan 20
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 in 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 behind that moulten shell, and
in this moment i know — silence is poetry
when the poet has nothing more to say
TITLE: Silence in the poet
DATE: 2023 Jan 2
Silence is poetry
when the poet
has nothing more to say
TITLE: Hush
DATE: 2023 Jan 2
believing my wings were fragile and fractured
in my formidable forties, i abandoned flying—
approaching fifty, i know my wings are strong
they just cannot lift so many heavy anxieties—
TITLE: Liftoff
DATE: 2023 Jul 13
they say i am sensitive
and that i’m not tough —
enough. but — i made
it this far — ain’t i have?
amongst y’all, who are.
TITLE: In{j}ured
DATE: 2023 Feb 26
laughed so hard
i healed myself
TITLE: Dr Reubens
SOURCE: journal
DATE: 2023 Dec 15
i am growing old —
many leaves of my memory
have yellow'd and fallen —
so that i am beginning to have
many secrets from myself —
TITLE: Olvidando
DATE: 2023 Dec 17
AGE: fifty
great horned christmas caroling owl
crooning to a nearly full cold moon—
aromatic firewood smoke dancing
with chill desert air and winter stars—
people holidaying with indoor trees
oblivious to nature’s nighttime party
TITLE: Christmas night
DATE: 2023 Dec 25
LOCATION: Phoenix, Arizona
i lost myself
and panicked
like a parent
who lost sight
of their child
— i looked in
all the places
i had been —
looked in all
the corners
of my soul —
it had been
so long since
i had seen
myself that
very nearly
i gave up —
but suddenly
one fall day
on passing
a mirror i saw
acceptance
in an old face
and realized
i don’t need
that little lost
girl anymore
TITLE: Looking back at myself
SOURCE: journal
DATE: 2023 Dec 15
AGE: fifty
America —
toxic profit
center of
the world
TITLE: U. $. A.
DATE: 2023 Aug 10
do not even need
to write poem about life
title says it all
TITLE: Juggernautical chaos
DATE: 2023 Mar 3
NOTES: senryu poem
boom rustle tip tap
tippity clink rumble crack
whoosh whish shhh fade black
TITLE: Thunderstorm
DATE: 2023 Jul 26
LOCATION: Phoenix, Arizona
full moon monsoon clouds
glow pale light through windy trees
parched leaves shadow dance
TITLE: It's a dry heat streak
DATE: 2023 Jul 30
LOCATION: Phoenix, Arizona
In Phoenix, summer is a heat bomb that explodes in late June.
TITLE: Summer shrapnel
DATE: 2023 Jun 26
LOCATION: Phoenix, Arizona
we can see the air
praying monk choking in orange
begging for clean breaths
TITLE: Phoenix skies
DATE: 2023 Jun 23
LOCATION: Phoenix, Arizona
NOTES: pollution senryu
but the science bears out
my catastrophic thinking
TITLE: CBT
DATE: 2023 Jul 13
LOCATION: Phoenix, Arizona
currently i am about halfway through
doing the list of things i swore before
i would never ever do when i got old
TITLE: Don’t-do-it list
DATE: 2023 Sep 25
AGE: forty-nine
monsoon winds tell tales
lightning dances thunder sings
rain is main event
TITLE: Opening night
DATE: 2023 Jul 26
LOCATION: Phoenix, Arizona
for the harsh heat wave
wet apologetic gift
from clouds to tree roots
TITLE: Monsoon love
DATE: 2023 Jul 31
LOCATION: Phoenix, Arizona
Middle age is a heap of abandoned ideals.
TITLE: Jettison
DATE: 2023 Mar 26
AGE: forty-freaking-nine
lobotomy by sparrow beak
brain pecked full of dread
brimful society syrupy sweet
carelessness killing us dead
memoryvines creeping through
sockets of wasteland dreams
a humming vibration of stasis
stuck lid on boiling progress
jammed gears of regression—
a spinning orbiting rotation
would be movement at least
incessant click click click
of the going nowhere echoes
like fading robotic heartbeats
a constant why? why? why?
the most important question
that never even mattered
answerless, unanswerable
speedbumps of psychological
queries emerging like stones
in the body — stuck motion
mind eternally trying, failing
to write its story, click clack
bones, ligaments, thoughts
stutter sputter twitch to death
choking on ink overflowing
poems destined for somewhere
turned inward flooding nowhere
release my brain to infancy
for it is smothered with age
TITLE: Fixate
DATE: 2023 Jul 11
AGE: forty-nine
oh my gosh is that a star
in bright city sky?
nope! police helicopter
TITLE: Big city night
DATE: 2023 Jul 29
LOCATION: Phoenix, Arizona
NOTES: light pollution senryu
Star!
Nope, rocket.
Star?
Nope, police helicopter.
Star!
Nope, corporate satellite.
Star?
Nope, airplane.
TITLE: $tarry-eyed
DATE: 2023 Jul 29
sunset casts shadows
yet we see only colors
and glorious light
TITLE: Westerly
DATE: 2023 Aug 20
AGE: forty-nine
LOCATION: Phoenix, Arizona
NOTES: middle-age senryu
i am naked and spinning
unmasked and repenting
wasn’t i just fourteen
mere unwound hours ago
i breathed, i sang
a lyric or two, loudly
in my quiet voice —
cycled through colors
found beautiful hues
my butterfly wings
cripplingly morphed
to chrysalis again
— reflect retread —
growing wisdom in my head
thrust out the blonde hair
and that all the new
is gray matters not —
focus is a summit reached
rock bottom at the top
perimenopausal paradox —
if someone would listen
if anyone would care
from up here or down there
the invisible i have become
could unhide everted —
but what has burned out
is not the heart soul
bones mind or gut but
only the brittle shell
of youth — falling apart
shedding and crumbling
finally wasting far away
leaving a glowing
blossom unsplayed —
TITLE: Fading in
DATE: 2023 Sep 15
AGE: forty-nine
syl·la·bles in my life
i cannot utter anymore
with the grace of youth
i stutter with freedom
and slur in wild love
words that once made
sense now are blind
faith doesn’t see and
hope rarely speaks
i’ve never needed you
to spell it out for me
the echo of emptiness
calls out like the sea
ebbing flowing waving
crashing shoring up
a million tear drops
whisper gently into
the gossamer of years
winds blow away our
comforts of home in
a smoke of memories
lost childhood remains
both here and gone
audible and sadly silent
echoes of those poems
voice words that sound
exactly the same but mean
something entirely different
TITLE: Fading out
DATE: 2023 Sep 15
artificial? check.
now we are just waiting for
the intelligence!
DATE: 2023 Feb 6
NOTES: senryu about AI
in the desert southwest
doves call themselves out
and say their own names
in self-identifying syllables —
two in “ink-uh” of the little inca
eurasian’s 3-noted “you-ray-zhun”
four of the “white-wingèd dove”
and the unmistakable five notes
of the song “mourning dove i am”
TITLE: Self-expression
DATE: 2023 Oct 1
my brain —
desiccating
deprived
of sleep
pulsating
too much
life today —
is
as i lay
here in bed
becoming its
own creature
trying to crawl
out of my head —
it throbs away
seconds ticking
memory flashes
of today tocking —
twelve o-three
twelve twenty
one eleven
two seventeen
three something —
fickle
in my mind
restless
the thoughts
runaway
hobos
on a train
down the tracks
to four o’clock —
how did Byron
how the F
did Shelley
write masterpieces
at such young ages
when it has taken
me 36 years
just to get out
three good poems
and entire reams
of bad ones —
how is it that
i wrote better
in my teens
in my early 20s
than i ever have
in middle age
and why won’t that
come back to me? —
oh my brain!
is it purring
or is that the cat?
these thoughts! —
why does
the inevitable creep
ever closer to me?
not crawl
but threaten
overpower
reach over me
horrific shadows
surrounding me
hovering
swallowing
with immensity
of darkness —
insomnia is
a sickness
and i am so sick —
in waking hours
of sunlight
the inevitable
is invisible
but during
wakeful nights
it suffocates
still invisible
but it is all
that i can see —
oh comfort please
i beg of you
curl up with me —
brain throbbing
wanting throbbing
future throbbing —
pink, rubbery, firm
pressing against
my thoughts —
all it takes
is one big fear
to sit on my mind
for all the air
of the future
to explode
with a bang
and seep out
with a muffle
leaving me
empty —
isn’t it interesting
that we can die
from too much of something
that we can die
from lack of something
for want of something
i could die
of lacking sleep
i could die
from too much
passion for life
they are intertwined
within me, destiny —
images or omens
flash through my mind
a watercolor painting
all the colors shades of black —
i have no regrets
in my past
all my regrets
are in the future —
the tree outside my window
is rapidly growing leaves
from bare winter
to verdant spring
but all shades of green
are the same with
night’s eyes closed —
i may as well
bring the typewriter
into bed with me
and let it sing
me a lullaby:
clack click clack
once upon a time
happily ever after
that is all she wrote
springtime mayday
brain overboard —
the cold chatters
in my teeth
warmth boils over
in my brain
and it helps me
feel better to say
the same over and
over in every refrain —
i cannot sleep
the loudness
of springtime
awakening
is deafening
even in the middle
of the night —
oh! it is two a.m.
oh two hundred
oh two oh oh
oh please
let me sleep tonight —
as i turn over
flip-flopping sides
my brain is turned
from black to white
it tosses a ball
playing ping pong
bouncing, falling
flailing seconds
minutes hours ticking
water dripping
from the faucet
into the sink
time drips out of
my leaky head
please let me sleep —
TITLE: Awake’ish
DATE: 2023 Mar 4
NOTES: written while teetering on the brink of sleep, from 00:57 to 02:13, and unedited excepting dashes
a poet’s job is to hurt
to feel — everything;
to suffer and bleed —
to hold it in; not heal
’til ink touches paper
TITLE: Angst-written
DATE: 2023 Sep 27
july the nineteenth
overnight low temp
of ninety-seven degrees
TITLE: Phx Wx 2023
DATE: 2023 Jul 20
october nineteenth
one hundred and three degrees
climate change is hoax
TITLE: Forecast
DATE: 2023 Oct 16
LOCATION: Phoenix, Arizona
NOTES: average high is 87.9 °F
ninety-three degrees
november the sixth
summer-autumn in phoenix
TITLE: Nov. 6th
DATE: 2023 Nov 4
LOCATION: Phoenix, Arizona
NOTES: climate change senryu
dear gods of weather —
will it ever rain again
in bone-dry phoenix?
TITLE: Withered
DATE: 2023 Nov 5
NOTES: Arizona senryu. It finally rained later in November. From March 23rd until November 15th, Phoenix had a total of only 0.13" of rainfall. It was the driest monsoon season on record.
November fourteenth
high: eighty-eight F degrees
that’s not Fahrenheit
TITLE: Nearly 90°
DATE: 2023 Nov 14
LOCATION: Phoenix, Arizona
NOTES: snarky senryu
i begged & pleaded
for rain but now bemoaning
winter mosquitoes
TITLE: Whining
DATE: 2023 Nov 18
LOCATION: Phoenix, Arizona
NOTES: senryu poem
december the sixth
high of eighty-two degrees
oh no you didn't
TITLE: Could be worse
DATE: 2023 Nov 30
LOCATION: Phoenix, Arizona
NOTES: climate change senryu
on midwinter day
seventy-seven degrees
a sunburned solstice
TITLE: WINO
DATE: 2023 Dec 21
LOCATION: Phoenix, Arizona
NOTES: climate change senryu
fifty hit me
a ton of bricks
insult to injury
for some body
still on the floor
under the anvil
of forty-nine
TITLE: Reeling
DATE: 2023 Nov 21
the world may see dried-up and irrelevant —
they may not even see me at all —
LOOK! i've re-blossomed with beautiful new petals —
strength, focus, perspective, poetry, silver wisdom —
i am roaring out all that i have held in,
taken on, and put up with — for all my life —
i roar for myself and for all women
i roar at the top of my lungs with all my midlife rage —
LISTEN! no longer can i do it all, nor do i want to —
i may be getting old, but also i am brand new —
TITLE: See me, hear me, I am fifty.
DATE: 2023 Nov 12
good luck to you, leo grande
emma thompson — you
are my new hero
TITLE: Movie review
DATE: 2023 Nov 13
NOTES: kudos too, Katy Brand, Sophie Hyde, & Daryl McCormack!
January sundown —
I go out hoping for
spectacular colors
as we Arizonans are
accustomed to —
but tonight there is
just beautiful clear
simplicity of pale blue
sky with a streak of
soft alabaster clouds
it's okay, though —
I could never be
disappointed, with
this crisp cool air
and winter quiet —
I watch the edges
of tall palms wave
ever so gently —
and all else is still
save my beating heart
TITLE: Be still
DATE: 2023 Jan 8
LOCATION: Phoenix, Arizona
squeeze tight — dollars drip,
lay off loyalty — tears drop,
squeeze tighter — cents bleed
TITLE: Servicing shareholders
DATE: 2023 Sep 21
NOTES: corporate senryu
age split a cherry
midlife is the pit
sweet and ripe surround
TITLE: Sweet life
DATE: 2023 Sep 16
i feel like the real me
is in a bottle of beer
the beer inside is me
and inside i am beer
TITLE: Huzzah.
SOURCE: freewriting typewriter poem
DATE: 2023 Jun 15
STATUS: whoa, tipsy!
Don't judge this online book by its cover
Despite a retro look and tiny typography
It has better quotations than any other
And that's not a brag, it's true—literarily.
TITLE: The Quote Garden, 2023
DATE: 2023 Aug 22
Please don't let the heat
melt all your hopes
Do not allow the world
to enflame your anger
Keep a cool head and
warmhearted spirit
Extinguish that cold-blooded
scorched-earth temper
TITLE: Burned-out
DATE: 2023 Jul 19
LOCATION: Phoenix, Arizona
NOTES: overnight low 97° F
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Machine Cooties , Archives Homepage
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
TITLE: Zzzzzhakespeare
DATE: 2023 Jan 13
phoenix monsoon storm
haboob isn't dirty word
it is dusty though
TITLE: Writing up a storm
DATE: 2023 Jul 26
LOCATION: Phoenix, Arizona
NOTES: silly summer senryu
the wisdom of age
takes root to blossom
in crevices of the brain
emptied by letting go
TITLE: Release
DATE: 2023 Nov 24
pick out your fears
worries, anger, and hate
from the bag of stones you carry
and love, find yourself lifted by
the wings of featherweight faith
TITLE: Carrying
DATE: 2023 Sep 15
bee-buzzed blooms
wilt white into winter —
hellish heavy heat
silently softens to snow —
lovely lustrous leaves
fall freckled in frost —
senescent slanting sun
solstices southward —
the young year yules
dizzily debarks december
TITLE: Whirlwind
DATE: 2023 Dec 4
At 2 pm, doves coo
an afternoon lullaby —
drowsy ticking
drowns out work —
the clock’s face
and leaden hands
fall napping into
the hour’s warm lap —
minutes nod off and
sleepy seconds snore
digesting noon away —
time teeters —
its breathing slows
weighed down by
heavy parts of day —
TITLE: Lapse
DATE: 2023 Dec 11
the world we abuse
roasting us like marshmallows
in a fire we lit
TITLE: Inflame
DATE: 2023 Jul 22
LOCATION: Phoenix, Arizona
NOTES: climate change senryu
our apocalypse
once in ultra slow motion
now on fast forward
TITLE: Accelerant
DATE: 2023 Jul 13
LOCATION: Phoenix, Arizona
NOTES: climate change senryu
Nature and wildlife
are gradually vanishing
like in the photograph
from Back to the Future —
our future is vanishing too
but we have no hundred
and thirty horsepower
gas-fired time machine
to go back and fix it.
TITLE: Flux capacity
DATE: 2023 Jul 13
watching birds splash in
morning-after rain puddles
cleanses my spirit
TITLE: Finally a bath!
DATE: 2023 Jul 27
LOCATION: Phoenix, Arizona
shards of memory
jagged-edged
broken emotions —
wholeness
is the fossil
of childhood —
growing up
fractures
many things —
TITLE: Fractal
DATE: 2023 Jun 23
May you live long enough
to let your life return to
the pleasures of simplicity
TITLE: Elementary
DATE: 2023 Dec 31
Birds in the springtime —
daredevilish in their quest
songful in their survival —
weightless wings — heavy risk
TITLE: Fell swoop
DATE: 2023 Mar 25
LOCATION: Phoenix, Arizona
my willpower has become
a fraction of what it was—
my sweet tooth is now
much greater than my resolve—
and the laboratory reports
that my blood glucose
no longer measures in
milligrams per deciliter—
but in sugar cubes squared
TITLE: Sugar shock
DATE: 2023 Mar 26
LOCATION: Phoenix, Arizona
how the nighttime looks
during a power outage
is how night should look
TITLE: Dark thoughts
DATE: 2023 Aug 31
LOCATION: Phoenix, Arizona
NOTES: light pollution senryu
freed pubescent girl
finally crawls out of time
into middle age
TITLE: Perimenopause
DATE: 2023 Jul 30
AGE: forty-nine
NOTES: womanhood senryu
autumn leaves rustle
the tension out of me
on pleasant breezy days
sunlit gentle tree, i am
a ragdoll under your sway
TITLE: Entranced
DATE: 2023 Aug 1
LOCATION: Phoenix, Arizona
European starlings
multiply like weeds
they are avian Borg
assimilating resistlessly
they are teenage girls
who will always travel
to the restroom together —
from yellow beaks
oddly alien noises
and so much chatter —
one or two are cute
but the whole crowd
is so flocking loud!
TITLE: Starlings
DATE: 2023 Sep 28
Poetry is beauty that blooms from bruises.
DATE: 2023 Oct 3
watching over the shoulder of patience
studying how he does his work
TITLE: Re-learning at 49
DATE: 2023 Sep 3
days in winter
fall so short —
as the sun sets
loneliness rises
TITLE: Ember
DATE: 2023 Dec 1
the walls of my prison crumble
as the walls of my castle appear
TITLE: 49–17/20
DATE: 2023 Sep 2
in this day and age
dealing with health insurance
worst disease of all
TITLE: $ick
DATE: 2023 Jan 19
NOTES: “All complaints about life today will be ignored unless they are submitted in the format of elegant haiku poetry.”
God completed my heart
then you finished it —
mortal combat style
SOURCE: freewriting typewriter poem
DATE: 2023 Mar 26
princess lightning reigned
it was a dark and stormy
knight to fall in love
TITLE: Storm story
DATE: 2023 Jul 30
LOCATION: Phoenix, Arizona
NOTES: silly weather senryu
it is raining!
no, not water
from clouds
but dead leaves
from july trees
scorched by
a brutal heat
too sunburnt
to evergreen
falling, fallen
brittle brown
leafy teardrops
raining down
the dry warm
forlorn face of
mother earth
TITLE: Ravish
DATE: 2023 Aug 20
LOCATION: Phoenix, Arizona
in nature i am
water in the breeze
going with the flow
in society i thrash
every cell halting
resistance grows
i become boulder
thrown off cliffs
accelerating through
no choice of my own
landing hard
splitting open
shattering into
everything wrong
TITLE: Rippling
DATE: 2023 Aug 20
LOCATION: Phoenix, Arizona
That trusty mockingbird —
you can set your sundial by it.
TITLE: Early bird
DATE: 2023 Sep 29
TIME: 5:56 a.m.
LOCATION: Phoenix, Arizona
STATUS: awake
If we don't continually get knocked off balance, how are we going to continue to be good at balancing ourselves?
TITLE: Over & again
DATE: 2023 Nov 29
just like trees
my life is a mix—
seasonal change
and evergreen
TITLE: Deciduous
DATE: 2023 Dec 15
|
|
TITLE: Balancing act
DATE: 2023 Sep 13
she was wandering
completely lost —
yet on the path
the whole time
TITLE: Wondering
DATE: 2023 Jan 20
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 in 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 behind that moulten shell, and
in this moment i know — silence is poetry
when the poet has nothing more to say
TITLE: Silence in the poet
DATE: 2023 Jan 2
Silence is poetry
when the poet
has nothing more to say
TITLE: Hush
DATE: 2023 Jan 2
believing my wings were fragile and fractured
in my formidable forties, i abandoned flying—
approaching fifty, i know my wings are strong
they just cannot lift so many heavy anxieties—
TITLE: Liftoff
DATE: 2023 Jul 13
they say i am sensitive
and that i’m not tough —
enough. but — i made
it this far — ain’t i have?
amongst y’all, who are.
TITLE: In{j}ured
DATE: 2023 Feb 26
laughed so hard
i healed myself
TITLE: Dr Reubens
SOURCE: journal
DATE: 2023 Dec 15
i am growing old —
many leaves of my memory
have yellow'd and fallen —
so that i am beginning to have
many secrets from myself —
TITLE: Olvidando
DATE: 2023 Dec 17
AGE: fifty
great horned christmas caroling owl
crooning to a nearly full cold moon—
aromatic firewood smoke dancing
with chill desert air and winter stars—
people holidaying with indoor trees
oblivious to nature’s nighttime party
TITLE: Christmas night
DATE: 2023 Dec 25
LOCATION: Phoenix, Arizona
i lost myself
and panicked
like a parent
who lost sight
of their child
— i looked in
all the places
i had been —
looked in all
the corners
of my soul —
it had been
so long since
i had seen
myself that
very nearly
i gave up —
but suddenly
one fall day
on passing
a mirror i saw
acceptance
in an old face
and realized
i don’t need
that little lost
girl anymore
TITLE: Looking back at myself
SOURCE: journal
DATE: 2023 Dec 15
AGE: fifty
America —
toxic profit
center of
the world
TITLE: U. $. A.
DATE: 2023 Aug 10
do not even need
to write poem about life
title says it all
TITLE: Juggernautical chaos
DATE: 2023 Mar 3
NOTES: senryu poem
boom rustle tip tap
tippity clink rumble crack
whoosh whish shhh fade black
TITLE: Thunderstorm
DATE: 2023 Jul 26
LOCATION: Phoenix, Arizona
full moon monsoon clouds
glow pale light through windy trees
parched leaves shadow dance
TITLE: It's a dry heat streak
DATE: 2023 Jul 30
LOCATION: Phoenix, Arizona
In Phoenix, summer is a heat bomb that explodes in late June.
TITLE: Summer shrapnel
DATE: 2023 Jun 26
LOCATION: Phoenix, Arizona
we can see the air
praying monk choking in orange
begging for clean breaths
TITLE: Phoenix skies
DATE: 2023 Jun 23
LOCATION: Phoenix, Arizona
NOTES: pollution senryu
but the science bears out
my catastrophic thinking
TITLE: CBT
DATE: 2023 Jul 13
LOCATION: Phoenix, Arizona
currently i am about halfway through
doing the list of things i swore before
i would never ever do when i got old
TITLE: Don’t-do-it list
DATE: 2023 Sep 25
AGE: forty-nine
monsoon winds tell tales
lightning dances thunder sings
rain is main event
TITLE: Opening night
DATE: 2023 Jul 26
LOCATION: Phoenix, Arizona
for the harsh heat wave
wet apologetic gift
from clouds to tree roots
TITLE: Monsoon love
DATE: 2023 Jul 31
LOCATION: Phoenix, Arizona
Middle age is a heap of abandoned ideals.
TITLE: Jettison
DATE: 2023 Mar 26
AGE: forty-freaking-nine
lobotomy by sparrow beak
brain pecked full of dread
brimful society syrupy sweet
carelessness killing us dead
memoryvines creeping through
sockets of wasteland dreams
a humming vibration of stasis
stuck lid on boiling progress
jammed gears of regression—
a spinning orbiting rotation
would be movement at least
incessant click click click
of the going nowhere echoes
like fading robotic heartbeats
a constant why? why? why?
the most important question
that never even mattered
answerless, unanswerable
speedbumps of psychological
queries emerging like stones
in the body — stuck motion
mind eternally trying, failing
to write its story, click clack
bones, ligaments, thoughts
stutter sputter twitch to death
choking on ink overflowing
poems destined for somewhere
turned inward flooding nowhere
release my brain to infancy
for it is smothered with age
TITLE: Fixate
DATE: 2023 Jul 11
AGE: forty-nine
oh my gosh is that a star
in bright city sky?
nope! police helicopter
TITLE: Big city night
DATE: 2023 Jul 29
LOCATION: Phoenix, Arizona
NOTES: light pollution senryu
Star!
Nope, rocket.
Star?
Nope, police helicopter.
Star!
Nope, corporate satellite.
Star?
Nope, airplane.
TITLE: $tarry-eyed
DATE: 2023 Jul 29
sunset casts shadows
yet we see only colors
and glorious light
TITLE: Westerly
DATE: 2023 Aug 20
AGE: forty-nine
LOCATION: Phoenix, Arizona
NOTES: middle-age senryu
i am naked and spinning
unmasked and repenting
wasn’t i just fourteen
mere unwound hours ago
i breathed, i sang
a lyric or two, loudly
in my quiet voice —
cycled through colors
found beautiful hues
my butterfly wings
cripplingly morphed
to chrysalis again
— reflect retread —
growing wisdom in my head
thrust out the blonde hair
and that all the new
is gray matters not —
focus is a summit reached
rock bottom at the top
perimenopausal paradox —
if someone would listen
if anyone would care
from up here or down there
the invisible i have become
could unhide everted —
but what has burned out
is not the heart soul
bones mind or gut but
only the brittle shell
of youth — falling apart
shedding and crumbling
finally wasting far away
leaving a glowing
blossom unsplayed —
TITLE: Fading in
DATE: 2023 Sep 15
AGE: forty-nine
syl·la·bles in my life
i cannot utter anymore
with the grace of youth
i stutter with freedom
and slur in wild love
words that once made
sense now are blind
faith doesn’t see and
hope rarely speaks
i’ve never needed you
to spell it out for me
the echo of emptiness
calls out like the sea
ebbing flowing waving
crashing shoring up
a million tear drops
whisper gently into
the gossamer of years
winds blow away our
comforts of home in
a smoke of memories
lost childhood remains
both here and gone
audible and sadly silent
echoes of those poems
voice words that sound
exactly the same but mean
something entirely different
TITLE: Fading out
DATE: 2023 Sep 15
artificial? check.
now we are just waiting for
the intelligence!
DATE: 2023 Feb 6
NOTES: senryu about AI
in the desert southwest
doves call themselves out
and say their own names
in self-identifying syllables —
two in “ink-uh” of the little inca
eurasian’s 3-noted “you-ray-zhun”
four of the “white-wingèd dove”
and the unmistakable five notes
of the song “mourning dove i am”
TITLE: Self-expression
DATE: 2023 Oct 1
my brain —
desiccating
deprived
of sleep
pulsating
too much
life today —
is
as i lay
here in bed
becoming its
own creature
trying to crawl
out of my head —
it throbs away
seconds ticking
memory flashes
of today tocking —
twelve o-three
twelve twenty
one eleven
two seventeen
three something —
fickle
in my mind
restless
the thoughts
runaway
hobos
on a train
down the tracks
to four o’clock —
how did Byron
how the F
did Shelley
write masterpieces
at such young ages
when it has taken
me 36 years
just to get out
three good poems
and entire reams
of bad ones —
how is it that
i wrote better
in my teens
in my early 20s
than i ever have
in middle age
and why won’t that
come back to me? —
oh my brain!
is it purring
or is that the cat?
these thoughts! —
why does
the inevitable creep
ever closer to me?
not crawl
but threaten
overpower
reach over me
horrific shadows
surrounding me
hovering
swallowing
with immensity
of darkness —
insomnia is
a sickness
and i am so sick —
in waking hours
of sunlight
the inevitable
is invisible
but during
wakeful nights
it suffocates
still invisible
but it is all
that i can see —
oh comfort please
i beg of you
curl up with me —
brain throbbing
wanting throbbing
future throbbing —
pink, rubbery, firm
pressing against
my thoughts —
all it takes
is one big fear
to sit on my mind
for all the air
of the future
to explode
with a bang
and seep out
with a muffle
leaving me
empty —
isn’t it interesting
that we can die
from too much of something
that we can die
from lack of something
for want of something
i could die
of lacking sleep
i could die
from too much
passion for life
they are intertwined
within me, destiny —
images or omens
flash through my mind
a watercolor painting
all the colors shades of black —
i have no regrets
in my past
all my regrets
are in the future —
the tree outside my window
is rapidly growing leaves
from bare winter
to verdant spring
but all shades of green
are the same with
night’s eyes closed —
i may as well
bring the typewriter
into bed with me
and let it sing
me a lullaby:
clack click clack
once upon a time
happily ever after
that is all she wrote
springtime mayday
brain overboard —
the cold chatters
in my teeth
warmth boils over
in my brain
and it helps me
feel better to say
the same over and
over in every refrain —
i cannot sleep
the loudness
of springtime
awakening
is deafening
even in the middle
of the night —
oh! it is two a.m.
oh two hundred
oh two oh oh
oh please
let me sleep tonight —
as i turn over
flip-flopping sides
my brain is turned
from black to white
it tosses a ball
playing ping pong
bouncing, falling
flailing seconds
minutes hours ticking
water dripping
from the faucet
into the sink
time drips out of
my leaky head
please let me sleep —
TITLE: Awake’ish
DATE: 2023 Mar 4
NOTES: written while teetering on the brink of sleep, from 00:57 to 02:13, and unedited excepting dashes
a poet’s job is to hurt
to feel — everything;
to suffer and bleed —
to hold it in; not heal
’til ink touches paper
TITLE: Angst-written
DATE: 2023 Sep 27
july the nineteenth
overnight low temp
of ninety-seven degrees
TITLE: Phx Wx 2023
DATE: 2023 Jul 20
october nineteenth
one hundred and three degrees
climate change is hoax
TITLE: Forecast
DATE: 2023 Oct 16
LOCATION: Phoenix, Arizona
NOTES: average high is 87.9 °F
ninety-three degrees
november the sixth
summer-autumn in phoenix
TITLE: Nov. 6th
DATE: 2023 Nov 4
LOCATION: Phoenix, Arizona
NOTES: climate change senryu
dear gods of weather —
will it ever rain again
in bone-dry phoenix?
TITLE: Withered
DATE: 2023 Nov 5
NOTES: Arizona senryu. It finally rained later in November. From March 23rd until November 15th, Phoenix had a total of only 0.13" of rainfall. It was the driest monsoon season on record.
November fourteenth
high: eighty-eight F degrees
that’s not Fahrenheit
TITLE: Nearly 90°
DATE: 2023 Nov 14
LOCATION: Phoenix, Arizona
NOTES: snarky senryu
i begged & pleaded
for rain but now bemoaning
winter mosquitoes
TITLE: Whining
DATE: 2023 Nov 18
LOCATION: Phoenix, Arizona
NOTES: senryu poem
december the sixth
high of eighty-two degrees
oh no you didn't
TITLE: Could be worse
DATE: 2023 Nov 30
LOCATION: Phoenix, Arizona
NOTES: climate change senryu
on midwinter day
seventy-seven degrees
a sunburned solstice
TITLE: WINO
DATE: 2023 Dec 21
LOCATION: Phoenix, Arizona
NOTES: climate change senryu
fifty hit me
a ton of bricks
insult to injury
for some body
still on the floor
under the anvil
of forty-nine
TITLE: Reeling
DATE: 2023 Nov 21
the world may see dried-up and irrelevant —
they may not even see me at all —
LOOK! i've re-blossomed with beautiful new petals —
strength, focus, perspective, poetry, silver wisdom —
i am roaring out all that i have held in,
taken on, and put up with — for all my life —
i roar for myself and for all women
i roar at the top of my lungs with all my midlife rage —
LISTEN! no longer can i do it all, nor do i want to —
i may be getting old, but also i am brand new —
TITLE: See me, hear me, I am fifty.
DATE: 2023 Nov 12
good luck to you, leo grande
emma thompson — you
are my new hero
TITLE: Movie review
DATE: 2023 Nov 13
NOTES: kudos too, Katy Brand, Sophie Hyde, & Daryl McCormack!
January sundown —
I go out hoping for
spectacular colors
as we Arizonans are
accustomed to —
but tonight there is
just beautiful clear
simplicity of pale blue
sky with a streak of
soft alabaster clouds
it's okay, though —
I could never be
disappointed, with
this crisp cool air
and winter quiet —
I watch the edges
of tall palms wave
ever so gently —
and all else is still
save my beating heart
TITLE: Be still
DATE: 2023 Jan 8
LOCATION: Phoenix, Arizona
squeeze tight — dollars drip,
lay off loyalty — tears drop,
squeeze tighter — cents bleed
TITLE: Servicing shareholders
DATE: 2023 Sep 21
NOTES: corporate senryu
age split a cherry
midlife is the pit
sweet and ripe surround
TITLE: Sweet life
DATE: 2023 Sep 16
i feel like the real me
is in a bottle of beer
the beer inside is me
and inside i am beer
TITLE: Huzzah.
SOURCE: freewriting typewriter poem
DATE: 2023 Jun 15
STATUS: whoa, tipsy!
Don't judge this online book by its cover
Despite a retro look and tiny typography
It has better quotations than any other
And that's not a brag, it's true—literarily.
TITLE: The Quote Garden, 2023
DATE: 2023 Aug 22
Please don't let the heat
melt all your hopes
Do not allow the world
to enflame your anger
Keep a cool head and
warmhearted spirit
Extinguish that cold-blooded
scorched-earth temper
TITLE: Burned-out
DATE: 2023 Jul 19
LOCATION: Phoenix, Arizona
NOTES: overnight low 97° F