poems

March Night

I shook off the house like a hooded cape,
And came out, free, into the March-blown street…
At a lash of the gale, at a sight of the cloud-tattered skies,
As a coat discarded,
I shook off civilization
And became wild,
And my naked soul raced the clouds,
And the flavor of the Earth was fresh and primitive…

—James Oppenheim (1882–1932), “March Night,” War and Laughter, 1916

Capriccio

you & i are animal lust
spirit and human emotion
entangled in wild passion

you always touch my heart first
but still find every last place

breaths rise, sweat falls
mine, yours, who knows

bodies wise, minds numb
wills weak, feelings, reveal
speak easy, softly, love
at the tips of our tongues
whisper nothings, give everything
our lips link each other’s souls
with kisses blind, rough and kind

fierce fervor, fever, fire, hot desire
flesh burning, hungering, yearning
begging, seeking, pleasing, please
prey of your hands and at my knees

inhale, exhale, scents, intense
assent, consent, relent, unpent
sweet chords, rhythm, rhapsody
harmony, symphony, crescendo

Terri Guillemets

Alarm ringing true

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

Dock & thistle

Driving down the wrong road and knowing it,
The fork years behind, how many have thought
To pull up on the shoulder and leave the car
Empty, strike out across the fields; and how many
Are still mazed among dock and thistle,
Seeking the road they should have taken?

—Damon Knight (1922–2002), The Man in the Tree, 1984

I Vowed that I Would Be a Tree

I vowed that I would be a tree.
      I went up to an oak and said,
“What shall I do that I might be
A beech, an oak, or any tree,
      With branches leafing from my head?”

There was a sound of sap that ran,
      There was a wind of leaves that spoke.
“So you would cease to be a man,
And be a green tree, if you can,
      A pine, a beech, an oak?”

I answered, “I am tired of men,
      As tired as they of me.
I fain would not return again
To the perplexity of men,
      But straightway be a tree.”

There was a sound of winds that went
      To summon every oldest tree,
To hold their austere Parliament
About the thing had craved to be
      Elect of their calm company.

There was a sound of bursting tide,
      There was a wash of clanging foam,
A crumbling shore, a bursting tide.
There came a thunder that outcried,
      “Go, wretched mortal, get thee home!

“Who art thou that would be a tree,
      Least of the weeds that shoot and pass?
Bide till a Wisdom come, and see
Before a mortal be a tree,
      He first must be a blade of grass!”

—Louis Golding (1895–1958), “I Vowed that I Would Be a Tree,” Sorrow of War, 1919