We hide, like turtles...

Stephanie Hilpert is a poet who lives here in Palm Springs. Stephanie has a unique way about her that most people don’t get at first and some, never. After you get to know her and learn that she has interacted most of her life with a father who is wont to rants, lives (by choice) on the streets in and around the desert cities, and occasionally wears aluminum foil on his head, you begin to appreciate her. MTV produced and ran a piece about this relationship in 2000. Her “Daughter of a Rogue” was published as a chapbook by Green Bean Press. She is looking for someone to publish Daughter and other poetry in her body of work and is putting most of her efforts into work on a screenplay about her father. If you get to know Stephanie, well, you love her, both because of and in spite of the blinding chiaroscuro that surrounds her.

It’s officially one hundred and twenty degrees hot here today. I think of Stephanie on days like this. She is likely out looking for her father somewhere on some edge of town, with a cooler full of iced water in her car.

Here is an excerpt from “ Daughter of a Rogue”

Alone
swarms
around
me
like
bees
what
must
I
do
to
force
alone
back
to
the
hive
what
have
I
done
to
agitate
alone
so
much
that
it
continues
to
swarm
around
me
leaving
it's
stinger
embedded
in
my
soul

I've
told
you
the
worst
and
tangled
web
of
heart
that
catches
flies
and
moths
to
feedon

where
is
God
prayer
only
deepens
the
sip
of
soul
where
lips
condense
into
this
moist
circle
of
mouth
and
I
taste
your
purity
I
read
your
language
from
the
pages
of
your
love
poems
that
seep
of
sweet
juices
and
taste
of
words
that
pain
I
am
the
remains
of
a
heart
that
faded
with
the
moon

__________

It's 6:42. Once again we all retreat into the water, which is amost too warm, but we're grateful for it. Blue is a good color for disappearing into.

g'night