Thoughts of Despair

“If all rivers are sweet
Where does the sea get its salt”—Pablo Neruda

If my private sounds of despair
soak through my spiritless soul,
why do I hear reckless laughter
flowing everywhere?

Writing is never easy and should never be,
but when writing works, it is like the river,
flowing gently with ripples and breezes
moving cool water over rocks and fish,
words and sentences, down the stream of life,
carving paths for others to follow,
creating poems that stir the heart,
telling stories that touch a soul,
seeking solace from one’s stormy paths of darkness,
holding faith in one hand and despair in the other,
praying for forgiveness,
then looking toward that bend in the river,
hoping for the peace and tranquility
that a soft brook feeds us, and not a raging downpour
or waterfall, for in the end no one wants to
fight the rapids or drown because they tipped
over the boat and there is no life preserver
around one’s neck, only a cross and faith,
a pen and thoughts, with only a prayer or two
for forgiveness that one day, God will hear me
screaming in torment and anguish
then pull me out before I drown.

There are no innocent secrets and
no one escapes the shadow of God’s mercy.

Eva Guillot

The Art of Being a Book Lover

The art of becoming a book lover is a long process that takes years of dedication and is not for the faint of heart. Not everyone can proclaim to be a genuine Book Lover” and here’s why.

Step one in the process. Start early. In the early years of childhood, one needs to have the love of books slowly ingrained into one’s psyche, preferably by a parent, if necessary, a lovely librarian will do. Most librarians are book lovers by necessity. The hours of working among the tombs of books, the smell of yellowing paper and fading type must be a heavenly calling or else it is a waste.

My earliest memory of my father is one where I am sitting on his lap and he is reading to me from the Childcraft edition of Mother Goose nursery rhymes and stories, flipping the pages of the book slowly and fingering the next page with all the color pictures that I can still remember so vividly.

Step two in the process. Care about books. Do not crease the pages. Do not write in books unless you own them and then you are allowed to underline or highlight favorite lines and make notes in the margins. Years later, you will wonder at your comments and chuckle out loud. Borrow others’ books but return them promptly and in good condition. Do not bend or crack the spine, especially of a paperback book. It will literally break the book.

Step three is daring, daring to read anything and everything that interests you.

Step four is easy. Share every book, every story, every poem that you find with another person. Share with them the joys to be found in a new author, a rare edition of a fabulous book discovered in someone’s yard sale or the utterly satisfying feeling of finishing the hundred of pages that took only a few days of work to get through.

Character Sketch #2
Stephen Andrews

Stephen Andrews walked into his new work place confident and anxious at the same time. New city, new job, recently divorced. He thought to himself, “The possibilities are endless.” He repeated this phrase every day since he left New York.
He had struggled this morning with what to wear on his first day at work. He did not know if this was an up-tight old school firm in Boston or one of the new trendy ones that he hoped it would be. He had only talked to his boss over the phone, but he got the impression that his designer jeans and chocolate shirt would be just right.
“Hello,” he said to the twenty-something year old blonde receptionist. “I’m Stephen Andrews. Here to see Mr. Brooks.”
She smacked her pink gum loudly and simply pointed her acrylic nail to her right. Stephen’s eyes scanned the room and wandered over each desk until they stopped on the biggest desk in the open space he assumed belonged to the boss.
“Gray hair?” he asked her. She only nodded. Stephen wondered if she knew how to speak. He began his walk over to Mr. Brooks’ desk at the far corner of the room next to the huge windows. The morning sun sparkled on each desk, revealing smudges and fingerprints, but no dust. “Clean place,” he noted.
He stopped just before he reached the antique mahogany desk and Ralph Brooks raised his head and smiled.
“Stephen Andrews. I’m Ralph Brooks. Welcome to the Pit,” he announced, smiling and waving an arm around the room. Others took note but only for a second, nodding heads and returning to their paperwork.
“Thanks, Mr. Brooks,” he responded.
“Ralph, please. I see you did not get the message about dress code here.”
Stephen looked puzzled for a moment, looked down at his jeans, and panic rushed though his body. But then Ralph started to laugh and other soon joined in. First joke on him.
Stephen smiled and joked back, “Thank God you guys are low key here.”
“Yes, jeans for every day except when we pitch a client. Then we whip out the Brooks Brothers’ suits.”
Stephen smiled. Another joke and Stephen knew he was going to fit right in here. Unlike at his old job where suits were mandatory every day with ties. Perhaps that’s what Jessica liked about his old boss. The gentile suit, smart tie, and old school wealth. He had never fit in there. No wonder she fell for Roger.

Eva Guillot

Random Thoughts


The rolly pollies under the bricks of the patio.

The zinnia on my windowsill.

Oyster shells at the Bacque dock.

Vick’s Vapor Rub smell in my dad’s room.

Creamy pecan pralines at Halloween.

The sickly sweet smell of incense on Good Friday.

My daughter’s tiny hands grabbing my finger through the ICU bed.

Bouree on a Friday night with the family.

Green stained thumbnails from pinching African violet leaves.


Eva Guillot

More Elegant Things


The moment just before she realizes I am looking at her.

Seductive wood fires on a cold night.

My father’s stern voice calling us home.

A dancer’s point turn, perfectly executed each time.

My mother’s gentle tug, a tuck behind the ear, and folded hands
cradling her rosary.

Or perhaps a poet’s breath moments after inspiration.



Eva Guillot
9-16-2008

Knowledge and Truth


Monday, umbrellas spoke
feeding him words to live forever
like Eve fed Adam each tasty tidbit
of forbidden fruit, returning a
bite of knowledge, good and evil.
The Impressionist umbrella spoke
of technicolor pills and fireflies,
hinting at love.

Curious for new adventure,
he tasted one juicy pill,
bitterness soon overwhelming
his senses, choking his spirit
then exciting him all over again.
The spinning webs of deceit
dazzled him, flying out of reality
one moment, letting go the next,
then painful constriction.

He walked across a field to clear his head,
longing for the calm intensity of the firefly
he glimpsed for a moment during that
last emotional hallucination.
And then she landed on his shoulder
spreading her wings
healing his wounded spirit, gently.

The umbrellas urged him once more
but he refused any more nightmare
dances preferring the slow waltz
of a firefly across his heart.

Eva Guillot
Nov. 1, 2008

From Jan Risher’s visit, Sept 9, 2008



I am a cat perched by an open window looking for my next adventure.

I am the everlasting New Orleans recovering from Katrina’s winds and water.

I am the breezy lilac fields of southern France ready for harvest.

I am an overripe peach served upon a poet’s plate.

I am my childhood backyard celebrating my 10th birthday with friends and hot dogs under pecan trees.

I am 25, not thinking about 50, moving away from Louisiana for the first time.

I am Klimt’s The Kiss ready for the moment of love and redemption.

I am an email message waiting to be opened by an admirer.

I am bookshelves in every room, grateful for the load I must carry.

I am the anxiety of another storm.

I am a mother, a teacher, a friend and Ms. G.

From Xanga blog

The Hurting
While one of my students struggled today with adminstrative people who constantly strive to hold a good student down, I wondered at my colleagues. One who only wanted to interfere and cause more trouble than was unnecessary and a waste of time. One who is so conservative that she cannot see beyond a piece of jewelry to the inner soul of a beautiful young woman. And one bright soul who, like me, only strives to reach a student or two each year. Someone who is willing to "give up an off period" to teach someone another language, not for extra pay or praise but simply and honestly to help. And the best one of all, is the "guidance" one who could not understand why a student would want to take a writing class "again" when they are not "going to college". Who said that? How incredibly naive and how hurt I felt to know that it was my class that she was talking about. How utterly assinine some folks are. And how simply wonderful others can be if you only let them. Let me do my job and stay out of my way. Let students be explorers. And give us the freedom to make choices that will help us, not hinder.
My two cents and a rant.

New Chances, New Changes
I am looking forward to school starting tomorrow. I look forward to the smiling new faces and the new changes in my schedule. I have to look on the positive side of the situation. I have my Creative Writing class and a English IV Jump Start class which is basically another writing class for college level. Good Change. And although some of my writers did not get to schedule the class we can meet for lunch at 3rd period, my A Day off period.
Most teachers do not look forward to school starting but like I've said many times, I am not like most teachers. If you stop by my classroom, I will give you a smile and a treat tomorrow. Head on over to Room 79, the usual room, somewhat free of algae on the door and with added computers!
I hope that all my students will look forward to the chance to make new friends, a chance to change something that irritates you, or just make a change for the better, even if it a new hair color. Be positive, be nice and smile!
Ciao!

Character Sketch
9-24-2008

Kennedy

“Kennedy, look here!” Mary prompted her boy as she tried to take his first picture at day care before she left for work.
“Mrs. Watkins, you’ll have to go now,” urged Susan, the boy’s teacher.
“One more, please?” Mary pleaded, stifling her tears.
Susan understood. New mother. First day leaving her child at daycare. The nervous type. She made mental notes.
“Bye, bye, Kennedy. Mommy will be back soon.” He just laughed and turned his attention promptly to the red cars just inches from his pudgy little fingers.
“Thank you, Mrs. Watkins. He will be just fine. See you this afternoon.” Susan led Mary to the door. Mental Note #2: Drop off at front. No Mary in the classroom.
But Susan had misunderstood. Kennedy was not an only child, nor was Mary a new mom. In fact, Kennedy was Mary’s fifth child. The other four girls, all a year apart, had never gone to daycare. Mary had never worked outside the home until now.
Sam Watkins lost his job just four weeks ago and Mary had to take on work to make ends meet. She had not worked since they were married eight years ago. Sam was not happy about the situation, but the part-time work he was getting was not enough. His family could not help out any more and Mary’s family refused.
Mary went back to her old job, the one she had since she was 15. The Stein Brothers Cleaners on West 52nd Street, near her parents’ home. She had gotten the job when she was a teen through a friend. The friend eventually quit, but Mary liked greeting the customers. The Stein Brothers, Steve and Mark, gladly welcomed Mary, a hard worker, back to the store.

* * *

“Kennedy, let’s meet the other children, shall we. Class, this is Kennedy. Please say hello.” And the happy little faces lifted their voices in a cheery “Hello, Kennedy!”
Kennedy surprised everyone when he responded, “Hello, class.”
“Well, aren’t we a bright one this morning,” Susan said joyfully.
Kennedy spoke clearly and like a little man, uncommon for a three-year old boy. But unlike other children, his sisters were very verbal and he had spoken his first words at 18 months. “Stop it!” he repeated after older sister Catherine. He was just as shocked as she.

Eva Guillot

The Last Photo

She wears my mother-of-pearl star pin on her left
lapel. He sits without his glasses and smiles
warmly behind her shoulder. His eyes
sparkle a moment before the lens captured
this picture. I can hear his voice muttering,
“Is that it?” Perhaps because it is the last
photograph of them that I treasure its
simplicity. Her curly gray hair is perfectly done.
Her memory has not yet faded. The beige suit
is dressy contrasted with his off-white
shirt. Taken some months after the birth
of my daughter, it serves as a reminder
she has lost them, too.
She does not remember
his tickles or her rocking songs.
She will never speak French
with them nor learn the stories
of overturned beer trucks.
She never looks at the
photograph perched among his books,
the ones I gave to him for Christmas
or a birthday.
The last photo reminds us memories are
sparkles and tokens of love.

Eva Guillot
9-16-2008

My Trinity


Traveling to exotic worlds,
experiencing new adventures,
seeking answers to difficult questions through reading.
From nursery rhymes and stories told
sitting on my daddy’s lap, and pushing
learners looking for dreams through their own words.
I am most secure with a book in hand knowing
I can reach most any destination with just a read.

Expressing my creativity through food, melting
stress away with each chop, turn.
From backyard bar-b-ques, white bean Mondays,
and family crawfish boils under pecan trees spilling
their treasure hand picked by this young girl.
each autumn, amid bagasse air and falling ashes.
I am here to feed my students warm rich lasagna,
tasty green apples, or nuggets too sweet to resist.

Hidden dreams escape through my writing, finding
my French heritage of muted voices once more
revived on my daughter’s tongue. From whistles
before sundown curfews, pear trees and climbing
rose bushes along slow bayous. From Avon perfume
swimming along a skin-so-soft layer of ironed khakis.
I am there once more in shadows, visions of days
vanished, still searching for answers in the memories.


Eva Guillot
Oct. 22, 2008

Write with heart.

Listen by touch.
—Eva Guillot

Kaylise Trahan
August 26, 2008

Bus Altercations

Lafayette Parish School Board is trying to save money by making changes in school transportation. The School Board has limited the amount of transportation for private and public school students. As a result of these limitations, many problems have occurred throughout the parish of Lafayette. Limiting the number of school buses leaves many bus drivers unemployed. After talking to a local bus driver regarding the changes, he exclaimed that in cutting approximately fifty school buses, many buses are exceeding capacity with more students on their routes. This makes it difficult to get to each route in a timely manner. Another problem from this change is that in most schools, duty teachers are needed to make sure students get on the bus and leave school safely. Some duty teachers have to stay late without extra pay because the buses are late arriving to pick up the students.

Elementary, middle, and high school students are also being affected from the reduction of buses. Buses have a safety capacity on the number of students they can have on a bus. Currently on the news, it was stated that some buses have close to eighty students when the capacity is sixty-five. Some students have to catch the bus extremely early for school. My little cousins catch the bus at six twenty-five for school. The elementary school they attend starts at seven fifty-five and is only four miles away from their house. This means they are on the bus for over an hour before arriving at school.

After speaking with several bus drivers, people in the community, reading the newspaper, and watching the local news, the only logical reason the school board cut buses appears to be to save money. Is it justice for bus drivers to be unemployed when they are actually really needed? Is it fair for students to have to catch the bus over an hour in advance to go to school located minutes away? Is it justice to put students’ overall safety in jeopardy? No, it is unjust and one-sided of the school board to cause predicaments in Lafayette Parish just to save money. Is saving money worth the life of a child?

Caitlin Richardson
19 August 2008

Justice

In today’s society, people have been spoiled to having things their way, so when something goes wrong, the famous phrase “That is not fair!” is heard. What those people do not realize is that there are others in our world who would love to experience a small amount of our fairness in their life. In the United States, Americans are given so many freedoms. They have the freedom of speech, the freedom of religion, and many more.

One example relevant to Lafayette teens involves segregated groups in a desegregated school system. There are many unspoken “rules” in the high schools of Lafayette. Students learn quickly as to which cliques are acceptable and which groups to avoid. Usually these groups are established by looks and assumptions. If you go outside the doors of the school, students as well as families determine whether or not a school is acceptable, based on opinion and not fact.
Another example on a national level is the treatment of Muslims in the United States. Since the September 11 attacks on our country, many Americans have turned their backs on the Muslims. Many Muslims are ignored, called unkind names, spat upon, and even some have been killed. These events have been triggered because individual Muslims have been involved in the attacks on our country. Although the terrorist acts are completely wrong, the response of some Americans to Muslims is equally unjustified. Thankfully, informed Americans have stopped antagonizing the Muslims in the United States.

One solution to this problem of justice is for people to quit judging others based on assumptions. If they will get to know the person for who they are, rather than what society says they are, progress will begin. Of course, we can only be accountable for ourselves. I have been guilty of judging other based on their popularity. By being misinformed based on someone else’s opinion, I have almost missed opportunities of true friendship.

We can take the first steps in making a difference in someone’s life by giving them justice. We can also try to encourage those around us to do the same. Hopefully in the future, our society will be more conscientious of others. We can choose to be the difference that gives fair justice.

Inheritance of Loss

title from novel by Kiran Desai

We remember where we were when the planes
hit just as a generation ago they remembered
where they were when Kennedy was shot.

I remember standing behind my sister in the living
room staring at the TV, her wet eyes blinking away
the loss. I could not understand her sadness then

nor when my brother was burned. How could she feel
such extreme emotion when the loss was seemingly
so distant? But we understand such loss even seven

years later—such extremity of emotion even at a distance.
Buried under the rubble of death lie the ruins of grief
waiting to be fused with the blood and honor left on those

crowded streets one September morning. We remember
just as survivors of WWII and the camps inherited that same loss.
And like any survivor, we strive to remember with pain as deeply
embedded as crystalline shards of broken towers.


Eva Guillot
8/3/08

Spiraling Toward Remembrance
Eva Guillot


“The desires of the heart are as
crooked as corkscrews”
from Sarah Polley’s Away From Her

The spire of the church loomed over him,
its windows empty as the eyes of the dead.
He searched through the loneliness
for enlightenment, anything to hold him firm

stop him from falling skyward broaching
the ethereal or wickedly good. The eyes of the spire blinked
taunting him to enter the sanctuary
once forbidden, not embracing.

Confusion milked with momentary lapses of faith
in simple yellow, green apples, clouds.
He shut his eyes spiraling away from the
church and chanting, the water and the wine,

gagging on the tin wafer.
“Do I dare disturb her universe? If those
eyes are dead, how could it matter now?”
Early on she pushed him away,

leaving four lies and two lives running parallel, never touching,
never ending, going on and on like an illusion.
His life under her embrace was all about the desires of the heart.
And in the end it was all about the forgetting.

“Elephants have long memories,” she once told him.
“They never forget. It is all about those long months
with their babies. They cannot forget that.”
She never forgot his betrayal. It haunted

him during those years he watched after her,
the baths and laundry peppered with insults
he swallowed whole still loving her stubbornness,
the tenacity of an uneducated woman. Until the end.


“I forgot what yellow means. Is it in the
butterfly perched upon that flower?”
I do not remember.

“Or is it that ugly blouse you bought me?
I reminded you, I never wear yellow.”
I do not remember.

“Watch closely, blink and I will
disappear, but not for long.”
I am not gone.

“For my sake, do not remember that her
hair was yellow, golden in the wintry lines of light.”
I remember all too well.

He sat across her at the kitchen table, perfect posture,
waiting and watching, wondering if
the moment would ever come
when he could tell her, “You are not gone.”

And even though the nicotine stains had faded
from his fingers, her smell lingered through
their conversations, yellowing years of regrets and
silences. She made it easy to forget the names,

the sandaled feet. Just continue on the lines,
lifting needle, gliding yarn through years of covers,
reaching a place and nowhere at all.
She made it harder to remember the lightness of

her dancing touch across his belly, her soft
whispers, the longing for forgiveness.
A shrug here, scented soap there. Nothing
tangible, always hovering like a suicidal moth

running toward the flickering flame.
He turned once again, looking directly into
the lit church windows, searching his
loneliness for answers she would not,

could not unfold. The eyes of the spire
blinked off one silent window at a time
snuffing out the desires of his heart
forever.

Fragments
10-16-07

Let Us Endure
After Yves Bonnefoy’s “Let This World Endure”

On most dreary days
forgetting is not easy.
Cast a line into the past
drop it, bobbling upon silky waves
for any number of hurts
and aches will tumble to
the surface of a heart.

Forgetfulness has power
over the mind that dreams.
Wake to present horrors
of loss and anger, regrets
and shame while in those dreams
a cure weakens the soul.



Every time I feel lonely, it is September and
my father is gone. His laughter still rings
true, his sturdy hands holding our family firm.

Every time I hear a Cajun accent, it is my Dad’s
Voice reading to me, tucked across his lap,
Snuggling close to heat and heart.



Year One in Creative Writing

In the fall, we gathered our
voices, innocent and experienced,
for the sole purpose of creating something new.

In the winter, we shouted to the world
with songs and rare lines to the amazement
of the curious and profoundly mute.

In the spring, we gave birth with wings of poetry,
lifting our creations to the heavens praising
all the hard work and sacrifices poets crave.

Of Travel
Brennan Guidry

“It is a strange thing, that in sea voyages, where there is nothing to be seen, but sky and sea, men should make diaries; but in land-travel, wherein so much is to be observed, for the most part they omit it; as if chance were fitter to be registered, than observation. Let diaries, therefore, be brought in use.” – Sir Francis Bacon

Perhaps all the issues pressed on relic Earth, from revelations through centuries and centuries of rise and fall, through speakers of prostration and spites of absorption, the only true issue that stirs every human curiosity, if it exists, will only matter, netted under a mother biosphere. Too soon from the cave, too far from the stars. The love for space serpents through modern society at a fledging crawl. Every last dreamt philosophy on space, of the capsule golden years, through which, miraculously, the greatest of science fiction birthed, has withered to a cosmic cry. Every tear of the galactic dream stays shunned, in the distilled streets, in roads of realist consent. A dark voice on screen gently woos our ticklish thoughts that the higher forces blackened our neighbor highway for threat instead of trek.This is bad tenderness, Gaia screaming you to your seat in her burning myrrh hall, the weaved queen by her side, that crowns human fear with a flora throne, to appreciate no more than grass and longing less than mountains. All these are diversions, battlements against spectra Mata romance. But sister moon still gleams despite this, a crackled centauri jewel that beams each sapien with proof of distant fruit. The moon is a screaming spirit, wet as the enveloping sea, its only self-portrait. A solar passion for space still waits in our subconscious. There is an entire drafting of the future embedded in our mind’s naturesque love, now a mere ineptitude waiting to uncage, and the moon is the first shining key. So easily is this cast aside by debates on asphalt desires of the promised towers to come. Stars are calm, their surface holds no life and no reason to unwelcome. Planets are frightened, every planet regrets its existence, even our own. To flea into the novels of space is the ultimate answer to all fire and sin the sun has given humanity. God’s mistake was making us, but the quarantine of human passion is a greater mistake.

Amber Thibodeaux
Of Suitors

“Nay, some undertake suits, with a full purpose to let them fall; to the end to gratify the adverse party, or competitor.” – Sir Francis Bacon

Many people do things that they should not and even those dastardly deeds that are done in our own privacy can affect the common good. Though some ill-fated people try to do good deeds they still manage to somehow make things worse. Some promises remain unfulfilled until a reward is given.

Some find themselves in relationships just for fun like a thrill seeker getting their kicks from hoping from roller coaster to roller coaster. Some take pleasure in the conclusion of the relationship, whether it is a clean break or a messy ending. If a relationship brings forth problems instead of creating new tensions, one should create new solutions to make things right. If one is in the wrong they should make things right before things get worse, like a crack in a windshield that sits in the hot sun only to grow instead of being fixed.

If one is confused they should approach a friend for advice. Friends are the backbone of most relationships, they things aligned. Friends have one’s best interest at heart and often know what is right for someone else than they know themselves.

Of Friendship
Angela Villagomez

“If he have not a friend, he may quit the stage.” ~ Sir Francis Bacon

Friendship is one of the most important things that a person can have.It is one of those strange things that connects people with a special bond that lasts a lifetime. It is full of inside jokes, memories, and deep dark secrets that only they will know. Friends will always be there for each other no matter what, whether the times are good or bad, and they may not even know it. When one is down and depressed, but not showing it, somehow, the other always knows that something is wrong. And they don’t even have to say anything to each other, just sit together, and they’ll somehow understand everything and do just the right things. One can do the slightest thing that could mean absolutely nothing to others, but yet it could mean the world to their friend and will make them feel so much better. Part of that special bond is what friends can do around each other. They can do the most stupid thing in the world, and the other will still like them all the same. But if one starts to do bad things, like rob or do drugs, the other will hopefully have enough sense to get their friend to stop and take another path.