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—
—Terri Guillemets
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—
—Terri Guillemets
our apocalypse
once in ultra slow motion
now on fast forward
—Terri Guillemets
but the science bears out
my catastrophic thinking
—Terri Guillemets
we can see the air
praying monk choking in orange
begging for clean breaths
—Terri Guillemets
God completed my heart
then you finished it —
mortal combat style
—Terri Guillemets
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
—Terri Guillemets
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.
—Terri Guillemets
in this day and age
dealing with health insurance
worst disease of all
—Terri Guillemets
“All complaints about life today will be ignored unless they are submitted in the format of elegant haiku poetry.” ~Dr. SunWolf
October has finally broken its scorching summer fever
turning the hesitant desert autumn into a true believer!
—Terri Guillemets
The moon is always
running away from me
as if she thinks that time
is just a cyclical game
of hide & seek —
She runs and runs
then keeps on running
leaving me to the mystery
of why the nights run short
and the days even shorter
Please, Moon —
just for one night
can’t you sit still
and stay a while
We can have
a midnight tea —
just you and me
we’ll talk all night
and bask in the glow
of your regal beauty
—Terri Guillemets
suddenly my life feels
like the air before a storm
silent, searching, charged
an imminent disaster
with destructive beauty
bright sun here and now
dark clouds at my horizon
electrified waiting
a whirlwind of stillness
it’s building, billowing
but to i know not where
and possibly to nothing
no body to forecast
whether or whether not
my future lies ahead
feeling ghosts in the wind
restlessness & anticipation
i dread this storm
but somehow
more than that
i welcome it, ache for it
oh i sorely need to become
sodden, grounded
struggle bedraggled
so i can revive
regrow vibrant —
dead branches torn away
old beliefs ripped from roots
worry whipped to shreds
powerful bolts striking
stronger than anything
i can create myself
blind me — enflame my entire sky
i want to look at the world anew
and that starts
with my own vision
i’m ready
for a new version
my being has become torrential
yet minimal — nearly imperceptible
not yet in a crisis, still
i’m bordering one, circling it
crying out for that flash point
beckoning it, to break —
to shatter my former self
and my current nothingness
into a mended calm
risen from the storm
rain, gales, hail —
i don’t care
just let it come
i need to be reborn
from the wild remains
of my inner tempests —
no, i do not want to die
but only to live again
—Terri Guillemets
There was time —
I know there was —
saw it spread out
all ahead of me,
a beautiful infinity —
immortal fresh-faced
clock of opportunity —
numberless, handless
no ticks & no tocks
save for the sound
of distant decades
too quiet to really hear —
but at forty-eight years
a sudden gear-grinding
cacophony, the outspread
blanket of eternity
has begun to suffocate,
wrapped around me
limiting my agility
darkening my path —
I’m having trouble
breathing, I no longer
see that clock open
or free, its movements
now deafen me, its hands
tear into my flesh and
grip tight my throat —
I am choking on
second thoughts
at this midlife hour
this day of reckoning
—Terri Guillemets
I look out my office window
working too late, again
The half-moon is round
with a glowing halo —
I know it’s pollution but
my heart sees fairy dust
or the happily ever after
romance of a bedtime story
And next to the bright moon
with its fringe of murky light
soars a large airplane
with its lights flashing
and I can hear its engine
even with my windows closed
(it’s hot outside, otherwise —
you know darn well —
I would open them!)
The plane’s lights —
red, green, white orbs
of unsightly technological safety —
are ruining the beautiful night sky
and distracting me from
my dusty fairy-tale moon
Yet maybe
at last
I realize
what’s been
obscuring
my poetic vision
I always seem to focus
on that beautiful moon
and the romantic dark sky
but ignore the 737 monstrous
hunk of metallic civilization
hurling itself through the night,
followed by a second aircraft
and then a third and fourth,
as if the airport is shooing
all her noisy little children
out of the house to play —
And even though that airplane
is hideous and loud
and aerial anti-serenity —
it’s life.
And what is poetry —
if not life?
Perhaps it carries
newlywed lovers
who were finally married
after COVID cancellations,
leaving on the honeymoon
they saved up years for —
and in that plane
is just as much fairy tale
as that beautiful-ugly
dust veiling the moon.
—Terri Guillemets