princess lightning reigned
it was a dark and stormy
knight to fall in love
—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
Morning lover
I don’t party at night with alcohol. I party hard in the morning with coffee and oatmeal.
—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
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
Creator with sense of humor
I know intelligent design doesn’t exist because whoever gave wings to sewer roaches wasn’t very bright.
—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
Alternate ending
“Hester unadulterated. The end.”
—Terri Guillemets, altered prose – found poetry, created from
There are actually eight
It’s a sin to waste chocolate. It’s in the Bible.
—Terri Guillemets
Unreasonably warm in Phoenix
We live in an Arizona desert 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 springtime is mostly too hot
here we live for every rainstorm
and the seasons—well, they’re not.
—Terri Guillemets
Classics declassified
Grass of Walt
[D!@%] of Moby
Boz gets Lit
Bard’s the [$h¡t]
—Terri Guillemets
Emily’s dash
Say what! You mean
That’s not why they call it an
Em dash? — those Dickinson
Hyphens between?
—Terri Guillemets
Hiding from the sleep cops
I’ve had such bad insomnia the sleep cops have issued a warrant for my rest.
—Terri Guillemets
Insomniacaholic
I’m an insomniacaholic
if there is such a thing
well, I know there is —
I am one, and their king!
—Terri Guillemets