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Terri Guillemets
Archives — 2020
This page is the archive of my public writings and journals from 2020 — the good, the bad, the active and the retired. Some entries were originally untitled with a title added later. Anything that has been modified since original publication, even if just the title or one piece of punctuation, is marked with a 'revised' note.
Sun coaxes life
from the earth
with its warmth —
Grow, thrive, breathe
green things of the land
wake from your
winter's nap and
joyously reach
for the spring —
Colors burst
into vibrant being —
fresh fireworks
on verdant stems of life
TITLE: Waking welcome
DATE: 2020 Jan 2
NOTES: revised
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.
TITLE: At two-fifty-nine
DATE: 2020 Jan 14
Stumbling over all those little moments of grief is just a part of moving forward.
DATE: 2020 Jan 21
There is no timetable for grieving —
Grief is a snail
It's a shooting star
A walk around the lake
It's eternity
Or frost 'til bloom —
Memories coursing through the heart
It lasts as many heartbeats as it takes;
sometimes all of them.
DATE: 2020 Jan 21
tortoise clouds
barely crawling across the sky
hare clouds
drifting swiftly over our heads
chameleon clouds
changing every moment
borrowing colors from the sun
dragon clouds
breathing fire into the horizon
TITLE: All kinds
DATE: 2020 Jan 26
early February in the desert—
the sun is springtime warmth
the breeze, winter’s leftovers
TITLE: Desert winter departing
DATE: 2020 Jan 28
LOCATION: PҺoenᎥᶍ ArᎥɀønα
NOTES: revised
late winter and early spring blend and blur
in pleasant days and chilly nights
penetrating sun and gentle cool breezes
with stirrings of life, subtle and green —
mornings that light ever earlier rouse us, but
sunsets that still come in evening's youth lull
TITLE: Blend & blur
DATE: 2020 Jan 28
LOCATION: PҺoenᎥᶍ ArᎥɀønα
NOTES: revised
If your armor against the world is laziness and excuses, you're not protecting yourself from battle and injury — you've trapped yourself inside with them.
TITLE: Your battle
DATE: 2020 Feb 8
NOTES: revised
minutes bloom
hours flower
seconds vine
through the hands
of time —
days hustle
weeks speed
decades scatter
in confetti’d years
TITLE: Growing old
DATE: 2020 Feb 8
AGE: forty-six
Standing in a silent still-dark February morning
Cool dewy grass grazes half-bare sandaled feet
Lo! Saturn arrives as Jupiter saddles Sagittarius
Mars burns red near the glowing crescent moon
Serpens slithers against a vaporous galaxy border
Antares winks green and gold, crimson and rust
As Scorpius swings its tail at the southern horizon
Libra starboard and upward of the crowded scene
Balancing askew over the poor impaled lone wolf
Ophiuchus a bystander in the busy celestial show
TITLE: Galactic gathering
DATE: 2020 Feb 17
LOCATION: PҺoenᎥᶍ ArᎥɀønα
entire continents of grey-white clouds
hovering serenely in an enormous spring-blue sky
a soaring raven calls, out of its element
why are you this far south, beautiful bird?
then all is quiet but for a distant plane
heading to who-knows-where —
what a gorgeous afternoon!
way too beautiful for negative thoughts —
listening to subtle sounds of nature's energies
oooh, sudden chilly-breeze goosebumps
coolness swirling through sunlit seventy degrees
a day of sensation and eerily silent excitement —
winter and spring overlapping at the seams
TITLE: Oh amazing desert, let’s rejoice together!
DATE: 2020 Mar 2
LOCATION: PҺoenᎥᶍ ArᎥɀønα
NOTES: revised
a shrug, a hug
touchdown, letdown
waving, curling, sprouting
disco, vogue; praise, prayer
bird-pecked, green-specked
skeletonized, or multiplied
flower and fruity fingered
flipped, frail, or fallen off
perfected, nested, crested
TITLE: Saguaro arms
DATE: 2020 Mar 25
dried crackling leaves
though dead
are never quite still
TITLE: Feuille morte
DATE: 2020 Apr 3
I eat bad poetry like a goat — and
eat good poetry like a gourmand.
TITLE: Edacious
DATE: 2020 Apr 15
NOTES: revised
cracks in poetry
are not ruins
but gaps to let
meaning breathe
TITLE: Flux
DATE: 2020 Apr 15
We have now entered the birds-chirping-all-night season.
TITLE: Mocking my insomnia
DATE: 2020 Apr 28
LOCATION: PҺoenᎥᶍ ArᎥɀønα
Owls are hunters
Humans are mechanical separators —
separating by metal machines
meat from bones
life from death
fat from essence —
but in Nature, where Man used to come from
a long time ago — remember it? —
none of those things is separable.
BRAIN from SENSE
TITLE: Talons
DATE: 2020 Apr 30
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.
TITLE: Losing count
DATE: 2020 May 16
NATURE the beautiful
Nature the harsh
Nature the teacher
Nature the warrior
Nature the destroyer
Nature the creator
Nature the protector
Nature the fierce
Nature the indifferent
Nature the ancient
Nature the new
Nature the vast
Nature the minuscule
Nature the awesome
Nature the ugly
Nature the dying
Nature the perpetual
Nature the resilient
Nature the diverse
Nature the mysterious
Nature the artist
Nature the colorful
Nature the swift
Nature the PATIENT
TITLE: Nature, the patient
DATE: 2020 May 20
Hummingbird mama
abandons her nonviable eggs —
but keeps checking back
a few more times, just to be sure.
An arm falls from a sickly saguaro
and breaks open on the ground
like a prickly green eggshell —
after decades of desert still-life
a few seconds of death-motion.
But the night breeze is so beautiful
those breezes are — so beautiful
it’s hard not to get swept away.
TITLE: Death lights heavy
DATE: 2020 May 22
NOTES: revised
Privilege lets you have struggle for a bargain.
DATE: 2020 Jun 18
wishes come
wishes go
life is trapped
between
TITLE: Hindsight
DATE: 2020 Jul 11
NOTES: revised
Bread –
fresh baking
Butter drawn
Yeast and memories
Childhood, fond
DATE: 2020 Jul 11
snakes and worms
squiggles and sperms
phantom insects
crawling, free-falling
TITLE: Eye floaters
DATE: 2020 Jul 12
AGE: forty-six
canceled, isolated, distanced
dazed, befuddled, harried
rationed, washed, disinfected
zoomed, homeschooled
furloughed, fired, scared
impoverished, subsidized
learned, helped, sacrificed
inspired, respected, thanked
hospitalized, intubated, died
lied, gaslighted, denied
masked, tested, untested
endured, abided, accepted
annoyed, outraged, protested
anticipated, waited, voted
TITLE: 2020
DATE: 2020 Aug 21
my youth is caked over
with heartache and pains
regrets and inflammations
and sudden calcifications
of ligaments and spirit
not-bothers and defeats
that went to my head
and bruises that take
too long to heal
cracked teeth and
why-tries and i'm-tireds
that which galloped
now rolls in ruts
my blonde has passed
to mousy and gray —
everyone i know
looks tired and frayed
sagging from the weight
of time and overbusy
and too much stuff
in too-big houses —
it's too much life
and too little living —
no vitamines will fix this
TITLE: Battery
DATE: 2020 Sep 2
AGE: forty-six
These things sift through our minds, with the years, like sand, and find their way out in ink.
DATE: 2020 Sep 9
my eyes can’t see as well anymore
but my heart sees all the better
my ears have begun to fail me
but I hear the quiet budding of success
I move more slowly now
but have learned to be still with myself
my aching body is stiff and sore
but my spirit has never felt so fine
my memory is slipping
but I’ve got a firm grip on what it is to live
my head is going gray
but I have found all my true colors
I get out of bed earlier
but still have plenty of dreams
I live more softly
but don’t back down from doing hard things
my teeth are getting artificially replaced
but my soul is real and all my own
my bones are brittle
but my resolve is strong
I no longer bounce back
but continue to look forward
I tell the same stories over and again
but become a new me every day
I’m nearer to the end
yet I have only just begun
TITLE: My heart sees all the better
DATE: 2020 Sep 22
AGE: forty-six
NOTES: revised
2020 is quicksand—
Keep calm and try
to make it out alive.
DATE: 2020 Oct 2
there is a big hospital nearby
there are several, fairly nearby
fortunately, I don't need one
right now —
but I'm grateful to be close to them,
that they're close to me, just in case
so are the firefighters
and the grocery stores
and post offices
and best of all, libraries!
and
a whole lot of people —
for better or worse
all because I live in a big city
it's convenient —
and it's annoying
It's 4:47 a.m.
three hours ago, the windows vibrated
under a circling police helicopter
a few minutes ago
the clattering A/C
that needs to be fixed
jolted me awake
I dozed back off —
this time it was a stray cat
there are so many of them;
I know them all by name —
Old Lived-In Orange Tom
Marked-Ear Kitten Gone Fat
Dirty-White Tuxedo Guy —
some of them like to jump up
on the sill, be loud, cause trouble
this morning, interrupting my dream,
it was Scraggly White Gray-Heart-Nose
yowling, prowling, howling, meowing
That's it! just can't get back to sleep
may as well get up, even though I've only
had maybe 5 hours — five disturbed hours.
it's still dark out, and for the first time
in several months it's noticeably cooler
outside than inside, even with the air on
and the just-past-full moon is up
she's bright and snuggling with Mars —
Venus, Sirius, Orion, all shining for everyone
and for no one in particular
I step out of my front door, lock it,
and am not even out of my own driveway
before a car speeds by, knocking me over
with its noxious old-car gas fumes
and buck-the-system black exhaust
I look up at the sky, what I can see of it —
nearly every house has bright lights on
shining directly into my eyes, and the
street lights — piercing, glaring, persistent
I've made it almost next door
someone is out smoking, I can't see them
but I smell the strong nasty smoke
and cover my nose with the COVID mask
from my pocket — odd, in my youth
I used to love breathing in the scent
of cigarette smoke — thought it was sexy
now it chokes, it offends, it irks
onto the next block, another smoker,
invisible too — do tobacco lovers hide
in the shadows on purpose?
my grandmother used to do that;
after she told everyone that she quit
we accidentally caught her smoking
on the dark side of the house, but
we didn't let on — it's hard to let go of
our addictions — shadows let us hold on
second house in on the second block
a big way-louder-than-legal motorcycle
leaving its driveway, its rider doesn't see me;
I stand aside and wait as it roars out & away
it's not even freakin' 5 a.m., folks. on Saturday!
I came out here for quiet, fresh air, skygazing,
a pleasant walk in cool early-morning "solitude"
but the air stinks, there are so many lights —
oh, and did I not mention all the irritating
sensor lights that pop on unexpectedly
into my face, just when I think I've found
a nice dark-house reprieve — bam! — they're like
the damn ads and email newsletter pleadings
on nearly every modern web site —
catching you unawares, blocking the
entire screen, at the cursor's slightest
sign of movement — blinding us
like all the sensor lights, blocking
our enjoyment of whatever else it is
that we were trying to do
third house in, second block
the rooster. someone's backyard city-rooster:
I look at my watch, a 5:00 crow on the dot.
I try to stop being annoyed
try hard to focus on the positive
try to figure out which dim little star
is above Venus, it must be one in Leo —
that's my husband's sign
my husband, still sleeping. heavy sleeper.
sleeping 8–9 hours straight through
nearly every night, it's his superpower
I kinda hate him for it —
if I get more than 5 to 6 hours, and
waking several times at that, it's a
miracle. light, light sleeper, I am.
I want to sleep, I try to sleep. I can't.
my husband, who even though he's sleeping
I already know exactly what he would say
about my quandary, my HSP city annoyances:
— Sleep in later.
— Just stay indoors.
— Join a gym and walk on the treadmill.
he just doesn't get it. never has.
Flash! another sensor light in my face —
Screw it. for the first time ever,
I've given up on my morning walk.
it's only been a few minutes
and the weather is gorgeous!
but I am going back inside.
How can people live like this?
with so much constant noise
and so many bright obscuring lights
and so damned much artificial stink
heading back around the corner to my house, I hear
the mini-siren warning bloop of a mile-away ambulance —
did I mention that I live close to a hospital?
TITLE: Slam–bang
DATE: 2020 Oct 3
LOCATION: PҺoenᎥᶍ ArᎥɀønα
America 2020 is a bad dream —
with woke citizens and
an asleep government
DATE: 2020 Oct 3
i hurt every day remembering
that i wasn't there for you
the hardest day of suffering
— i left you painfully alone
when you needed me most
so damn close, but not there
which is the farthest away —
i was a fool, oblivious numbskull
a frozen hearted ragdoll zombie
i'm sorry
TITLE: Vanished
DATE: 2020 Oct 10
NOTES: revised
age creeps into our bones
it slips through our fingers
age brings us to our knees
it crawls inside our heads
DATE: 2020 Oct 25
come scarlet leaves and falling light
this time of year — October-blood
runs through the veins of autumn —
slowing heartbeat and longer breaths
shorter daytimes and chilling nights
warm hearts and sanguine thoughts
TITLE: October-blood
DATE: 2020 Oct 26
NOTES: revised
Now that I’m over the hill
I can see it’s just made of
skeletons of dead monsters
that were never really there.
But that past is no less high
and no less there, and I am
no less on the other side of it.
TITLE: Real eyes
DATE: 2020 Oct 28
AGE: forty-seven
often a mountain decision
is a molehill in retrospect—
and sometimes vice versa
in looking back to reflect
TITLE: Mountainous
DATE: 2020 Oct 30
NOTES: revised
At a certain point, age becomes a triumph of spirit over loneliness.
DATE: 2020 Nov 9
NOTES: revised
Our bodies are meant
for the sun, the rain
the gusty winds
starlight and moon baths
fresh air and seasons —
so why do we trap ourselves
in indoor cages?
If we can't hear birds sing
or feel invigorating breezes —
how are we to be refreshed
to heal, to know the world
beyond the borders
of our bodies?
TITLE: Enclosed
DATE: 2020 Nov 14
NOTES: revised
Earth tilts toward Winter
my heart goes tilty too
the summer-fever cools
to a more reflective hue
TITLE: Tilted
DATE: 2020 Nov 14
LOCATION: PҺoenᎥᶍ ArᎥɀønα
NOTES: revised
We need rests called naps
and rests called play,
We need little moving rests
called getting away.
DATE: 2020 Nov 20
NOTES: revised
Terri Guillemets
Archives — 2020
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