not that i'm a daddy's girl

Remembering my first car
a '78 Audi Fox, standard;
that was before 5 gears
and before power steering;

the timing began to slip
early on and my Daddy
showed me how to set it.

I miss my Daddy,

trailing behind him Saturdays
like a pup in need of petting.
He taught me my independence
I got them through his genes.

Not that I'm a daddy's girl
but I am my father's daughter –
strong or at least perseverant.

in conversation with my ex

In conversation with my Ex,
we spoke of a sabbatical

that I would retreat from my nature
much as I have in the past
time and again after our divorce.

I knew he and I had lasted
sixteen years on the shear will
of my vagina knowing what it wants

so I had to clarify my hope
that my libido would be sabbatical
away from my heart, emotions

but then again, really,
I always did hope too much as well.



leaving me to lust

I have danced with the devil
in the pale moonlight
so young then,
much too young to be
impaled upon his phallic state
embraced in arms of might
bitten on bare buttock
in the cold damp night;
he left me learned, in hot wet
dreams, leaving me to lust
in need, love bursting at the seams.

i may become that girl

Though I am fearless I do fear
I may become that girl –
Mrs. Parker and her boys –
writing my wit and reaching fame
with a string of lovers in a line
nothing ever keeping long
the highs the lows
the only difference?
She was weak where I am strong.



something in me shivers

My god the day got dark
still, cool and calm;
I wait for the cloud burst pensive
breathing deep, thinking
much too much as always
distractions lacking comfort.

Something in me shivers
a single lover in the last two years
I held as long as ever we could have last-
but in this damp, I hunger
the clouds open and I want.


friends surrounding

I surround myself
with beautiful men,
beautiful women.

They come in many
a shape and size
and color; laughter
surrounds us
much as care does.

I surround myself
with beautiful men,
beautiful women.

the glimpse

There's a Glimpse that flees
at any attempt of a grasp,

there, just behind my eyes
in the shadow of wonder

and I on the brink seeming
eons now or a world away;

the Glimpse impresses on me
divinity yet of something
perhaps I should be concerned.

I, I just want to lick the dream
from it's sweet tease of a promise

and get to where I am going.

may came too swift

and I know

The voice comes soft and low
melodic in bittersweet:

"Do you remember when you'd pray
To never see the day
When someone would make you feel this way
'Cause you knew
They would cut right through you
And once inside, you were afraid they'd find
Nothing to hold on to"

and I know
I have faced my worst fear.


May 15, 2007 - Tuesday

cold blue damp

Masque', the cold blue
damp glows
that I will let my lover fade
my heart, each step
along with goes
leaving me the numb


catch and release

These last few years
I have had many a sweet crush
like a pup's nose in an ant hill

I have discovered

something about me
that I am made to love;

they were beautiful men –
each in their own way

of such varying depths…some
more handsome than others
some more shy, wry of wit, most
of words, one or two I happed to kiss

everywhere,
especially the lips
.
Then one day I fell in love

and I discovered
something about me
that I could learn to trust
that I had learned to catch

and release

but in my joy I had forgotten
how to breathe.


beauty behind me

I long for eves
of fevered dreams
not so much them
but the morrow
and waking
sweat purged and pure

instead of days
spent in slight tinge
of something
unsettling, on edge,

a fear of should be's
and moving on
but how to put
beauty behind me?



May 14, 2007 - Monday

what it means to be naked

The Naked Poet is a spin off of the Naked Chef, Jamie Oliver...
"The idea behind The Naked Chef was to strip food down to its bare essentials - to prove that you didn't need to dress up ingredients or buy a load of fancy ..."
Anyway, so...The Naked Poet is my forage into simplicity. Though I love questions on authorial intent and yes, of course my writing is very much autobiographical, I am all about reader's interpretation. I want you to take away what you need, not what i am compelled at any given time to express.
much love and stay naked,
~peach

(When my ex and i divorced, it was logical that i would get the bookshelves and he would get the leather living room furniture but when it came to the two autographed cook books by Jamie, we split custody. check him out: www.jamieoliver.com)



May 5, 2007 - Saturday

drowsy is this day too damp

I am saturated to the bone with damp;

sweat – and other bodily fluids
we won't mention –
(and sleep between) smeared
with hands and tongue until…

I am saturated to the bone with damp.

Seventy-three degrees of damp
as I left him sleeping in mid morn.

This is not my Texas summer
of dry heat coming up in waves
from black gumbo and hot concrete

let these clouds burn off and give me the sun

for drowsy is this day too sweet
when indeed I need to write.


May 4, 2007 - Friday

I on the brink
I wanna get a guitar
strum to the countless hum
that fills my silence
echoes of low beats
and the moon in twilight

I had one once
it was smaller
made for little girl
fingers so fey;
drug around for years
sold it, no tears but
melancholia for a youth
that never bloomed
resignation to that life
of sacrifice
I was always sacrificing

and then on to the leaving
along Valhalla's shores
I stepped, let blood drip
from vorpal blade
blood from all
those demons slain

now I bend and sway
fluid lest ye break
wanting to lay
naked in the water
warmed on the rocks
walk barefoot in the river
the creek bed, the rills
that trickle sweet
and I have learned

change is ever in the coming
and I on the brink



May 3, 2007 - Thursday

journalesque - brave but lost

Where am I in my life? My shit…is far from together.

At thirty-seven I'm just now graduating. People ask, "Your Masters?" Regrettably I reply, "No." But it is an accomplishment – though dragging and ready to be done in these latter days – an accomplishment that excites me. I will not graduate Cum Laude but close and it is the immense effort that counts. It is an accomplishment of which I can be proud.

My job is paying for my degree through benefits so I'll have no loans to repay. Otherwise, this is not my, my career, what I want from life. I often dread even going in. Almost eight years though, surely that says something toward loyalty and dedication…even lunacy?

The internship is developing slowly, but I love it, have set hopes on it. I tingle at the potential of something brave; work from anywhere, get paid nicely eventually but nothing for now and positively impact the failing ecology.

My teaching is not quite a joke. I have learned that third-graders run over me and I don't want children of my own. Though they learn little of creative writing, they learn to read, orate in front of others, to express creative ideas without censor. They blossom and bloom like I never did. I mold future generations and affect the lives of children. I worry that I'll fuck them up.

My home is livable. It's a decent size condo that has all the right parts and pieces necessary to live. The paint is pealing, foundation shifting, carpets are a hideous blue. It is in dire need of repair and updating. But it's mine and I'll get it all done some day. I'm getting involved with my HOA and therefore the community and this feels pretty good.

I sound like a good citizen but feel spread thin and know that much is just filler to quell a thirst for accomplishment and companionship. Really, if I had the time and money I would spend it with family and friends; going out, staying in. I would schedule time to write more creatively than therapeutically. I would think less and do more.

My sights aren't set on marriage or children. I feel I'm to open to understanding and too fluid by nature to set my sites on relationships or any other prize. I find I too much enjoy the means and the process of discovery. I just can't say I want my life to be X, Y, Z. That's not to say that long term companionship isn't preferable to hermetic reclusion.

But still, I desperately want to know at what place I am in life, what all this says about me. Where do you think I am, because I'm not so sure I know. I feel rather lost in America…brave, but lost.



May 2, 2007 - Wednesday

this thing entrez nous

Last night I dreamt
in a sky blue haze
a myriad comprehensions flooding
of me
of you
of this thing entrez nous.

I want to keep you
loosely but fear
if I fail to assert, pursue
you will fade
and go.

Help me hold you
while apart but feed
my passion that consumes

let us stay
and wallow
in squeals and coos
in this thing that binds
into summer, into fall,
into winter

for if it were nothing
would we be this long about things

at all?



May 1, 2007 - Tuesday

eight months in...

I have paced about this cage
this wrenching limbo
in constant push-pull
of joy and concern
ready to move in, or on.

The outs I gave were many
but you never took them. Why?


I am neither happy
nor sure in this distance;
I have tried but the day is gray
and feral instinct wonders…


my heart recedes instead
into observance
and the cool wet of mourn

that time will escape you
indefinitely and I will
have faded away, forlorn.


summer

Sun comes to call
world moves easy
into slow grooves
of water and shine
cool, salient smiles
from her hot rock
of too warm days
she lay, stretching
sleek in skin soft.


in this city, Terra Firma

So much traffic out my window
I try to think of them
as animals or birds
(and really, aren't they?)
I wait for them
to do something curious.

Two sat on my stoop the other day
I flicked the blinds
and tapped on the window
shoo shoo go away
but they didn't go far enough
I had to step outside

up and to the right as well as left
are these ghetto-ites
up the street
they crowd the pharmacy steps
drive the grocery into disrepair
do their deals in the open on the street.

So much traffic out my window

and I teach their children how to write.

Behind me, behind the creek
the affluent in their quietude
they crowd the coffee house
emit exhaust to shop miles away
they are good at avoidance
no traffic out their window.

Us in the middle
we speak of moving bus routes
making the grocery remodel
how best to recycle
in our attempt to affect change;

in this city, Terra Firma,
we, the eclectic, are the minority
we, the eclectic, are the future
we pay attention
to the traffic out our windows.


April 25, 2007 - Wednesday

untitled

fuzzy haze of strange days
as if my skin had been
under veil too long tactilly
subtlety molted into grandiose

I think I could sleep
deep at peace this eve
the fear I ate whole digesting

and I recall the ocean off Vieques
fingertips in the water
streaming baby stingray below

I knew god then
later in sadness letting go
grown girl setting aside
childish things

and then the leaving
to be alone

suddenly this summer
I feel soft beautiful blessed
salient on a roll



April 24, 2007 - Tuesday

as I write

coffee grows cold as I write

stop to masturbate
then bathe

cold and bitter
and the day is gray


slap and tickle - three

I
The other day I suppose
my body forgot to breathe
bit by bit my face grew numb
and I found deep peace
in that deepest exhalation

and a strange awareness
came over me – mortality, and
that days would pass
before anyone guessed
or came to call.

The doctor took his bits
poked and prod
"No worries, it's just this…"
but the bits came back odd.


II
Robert, there are reasons
I sought to sever ties
want to sever more

but for love, I need them


III
And oh but Death,

look not for me in the shadows
look not for me in the river
for fear not I you but scorn

and laugh
and bare my naked ass

borne too much true
but taken it all in the end
in squeals of pleasure and delight

and lived I in the growing madness
of deafness, of other – full and bright.

I will run ye a merry chase;
stratagem of confusion
in exasperation you fail for

attitudinal, socially inept, synaptically
challenged and giggly, I prevail.


April 23, 2007 - Monday

shade my eyes against the glare

In the skies come the bright

I want the bright
it's taste and feel
for often am I steeped in shadow
and blur and sorrow;

if I could I would
but you may need to lead me
out and into twilight where
I want, need, to sing my soul

shade my eyes against the glare.

sorry, got sidetracked

Sunday, April 22, 2007


crumbs and siblings

Blood test results
sadness and fear
Robert, brother,

on the nineteenth of May this year you would have been forty-one
instead you will always be thirty-five
and I am thirty-seven

what were you thinking that first time
much like I, not to worry
it's nothing, easily explained?

and our sister, the elder, the abuser
of her body, her mind, her heart
greedy user of siblings,

my god, will you outlive us all?



journalesque on slim blonde men and solace and love

In conversation with a friend, I realized recently that I have a weakness for slim blonde men who drink and smoke. Did I mention pretty? They are, and by most women's standards. Tentatively they draw to me; some friends, one or two lovers. (I would think, at my age and depth of plainness, they would be unattainable.) One, so heart-stoppingly gorgeous in visage and heart, he steels my love with every breath and just when I thought I had grown as much as I could grow, I discover me more deeply. I try to hold him loosely, though I feel that often I cling.

These men have so much in common, these pretty men. Something in their hearts that need healing, a tenderness to which I want to stroke and coo soft words. Yes, so much in common and yet cannot be compared to another or each other. Strangely, they and so many others recognize in me solace and the attempted logic of emotion. I try to love and heal, unconditionally and then let them leave, go their way. I watch them go with bittersweet memories later to recall.

Even my brother, sister, mother, have at one point reached to me, reached out to me to make sense of things, for simple words of understating. They have wanted the most and in their view I may have failed them but in mine I have come through. For those that would stay and suck the life from me, I wish you would see that it's better to stand on your own two feet and that I can only give so much before I myself have to heal.

All comes at a price. I have severed deep, familial attachments and sometimes the sense of disconnectedness is overwhelming. My father, the one deep attachment I choose to keep, asks for nothing, is too like me, simply sleeping deep under my roof, blanketed by a sense of home.

But after so many years of feeling old, I view the world as fluid and ever changing and I have marveled at the beauty of my own ability to love, not to harden but to retain a sense of youth.

Yes, on occasion, disconnectedness plagues me
but more often the freedom to live burns in passion bright
and the world is always new to me
the slim blonde men, making me smile
as I watch them grow and go and live

but in this moment I do wonder

will my lover let me hold him this night.



Thursday, April 19, 2007


In Tongues I Have Dreamt; or Plato's Theory of Forms

Mas-que is what I have named
the turtle that keeps the earth afloat.

I do not have the words passed down
from generation to generation
Culture and inheritance are lost too me,
the emergent Texan American gone Global.

But Mas-que, like many things I write,
by chance, strings together in coherence –
thoughts that are oft times a mere syllabic utterance
of expression; they are concepts granted before birth.
those of which I catch a glimpse,
feel to the core, inherent, but cannot articulate.
Abstracts that allude me intellectually, linguistically.

They are feelings manifest in syllabic utterance
of sound for which I can only weep for the never knowing.



Wednesday, April 18, 2007


as she warms my cheek

I will rise from this meloncholied winter
and I will worship, soon, by the water,

there in the grass; warm days
of cold drinks, browned skin
and tender bits almost too pink.

I will run by the wayside watching
the hubbub of the Others, foreign
as they pursue pursuant things

while the Heat basks in adoration
of the sensitivity I coddle close
in vows to never harden again. No

if I feel too deep blame not me
but summer in her brilliance
as she warms my cheek and burns

passion into the further recess
of dreams and hope and love for you.



Tuesday, April 17, 2007


i have touched brief of bright white lights

I have touched brief
of bright white
lights
inside
mind and heart
external stimuli
but no it was not grief that bore me home
only the coming out that undid me

and the myriad lights gave way to seed
to bloom
to blossom free

I felt young then
younger than my youth
younger than the forms
of thought that came well before any grave
yes those there that allude me
still
always

in pixie dusts of hide and play
mischief
mischief
do I seek and do you flee
come again another day
flitter and tease

Oh yes ever do I touch brief
of a bright white
light
oft here oft there

lately, wings aflame
know I
have I learned to care
too much, too much, I know, T. C., to much

but such is my life
how I grow
each spark of light
a stepping stone

I molt and glow and catch the wind
pull myself up – strong
fall down again



Monday, April 09, 2007


a-long the road

Somewhere a-long the road
I came
and went
left a husband by the wayside
got educated
got read
got some lovin;
growed into a wo-maan
a brick house of a girl
somewhere along the road
I solidified
into something fluid
yet still
inarticulate
though I do try
and his ears
unlike mine, are patient.



Tuesday, March 27, 2007


panic and water and theft

I
That close to my degree
just been invited to join Sigma Tau Delta
(the International English Honors Society),
there's this internship, writing,
that may make an impact on the ecology and
I've got a fantastic lover that I adore,
don't see us parting soon, I have
great friends that grow with me
and I am realizing my life path; only
I am that afraid of fucking it all up because
that's what I'm great at - fucking things up
pushing people away
when I feel the water sucking me down.

II
I am greedy with his love
though he cannot hold my head above the waves
he gives me breath and strength to swim;
that same breath he steels
upon each first glance and trailing kisses
along the length of me.



Friday, March 23, 2007


lucky girl

greedily
he drinks from me
the pleasure
he gives

of matrimony wilt
there's this cowboy
one long tall drink of water
in a hat and boots
bass flapping on the license plate
of his big boat towin' truck

been two years plus some
since that day on the lake
and the strangely few that followed

but we chat now and then
as if there had been more than
going down, a bit of fun,
a bit of one-sided interest

so the timing is always off
and one of us flirts while the other -
the other is with someone
checking things out or even

getting married
bad timing ya know?

but cowboys on the prowl
sans their cowgirl
just ain't my thing

and my chat grew cordial
slow and sad
that my freedom to love
where I do, where I may,
blossoms beautifully
into a brave new trust

whereas his bonds
of matrimony wilt



Thursday, March 22, 2007


exhaustion finds me

I think too much
too deep
I wanna wax poetic about stupid shit
like how
butterflies remind me of my lost virginity
and not home team dugouts
or hard, scarred wood digging into my back

I wanna talk about
how
soft trickling rills bring me to transcendence
and not the sheer sight of my lover's engorged penis –
how thinking of him makes my mouth water
and my thighs burn

sometimes
I wanna be that socio-conformist sheep
with no thoughts that scar,
I wanna be normal, blend in
and not that socially inept, unapproachable
loud laugh you hear a mile away

sometimes

I want
to not rise up to meet the road ahead
to stop these dreams
this hope

exist in a moment without thought
want, desire

trade my freedom for a cage
where I am fed three square meals a day

sometimes

I wish

I could hear

and sometimes

I am weary


and exhaustion finds me.



Monday, March 05, 2007


renamed: bit past three finally i sleep

My lover leads me far past
the point of exhaustion and
into the twilight of a full moon
A bit past three finally I sleep
should rise at six but do so later
He loves me deep, carries me past
transcendence's bliss
into the realm of betrayal
my body no longer responding
to my will but his
My heart torn asunder
ripped from my chest, swallowed
Betrayal, bliss sustained, hours
knowing I will rise, sore, just
ridden hard, put away wet
a bit past three, perhaps
I passed out, I can't be sure
I had wanted to talk soft
– he tempted me over with talk –
and close, disclose my heart
yet in the morning
I was hushed until another day
I think I slept, he says I slept
still and dead and deaf
but I knew each time he tossed
turned, my heart stopping
thoughts silently forlorn
finally I spoke meek
if you don't want to keep me
you'll have to set me free
something softer in my mind
Oh my love, I only want to grow
in the gouges my nails rent
in your sweet flesh
to see if two so different lives
could balance on madness
and core beliefs in sinc
no harm no foul if we part
it's all in the attempt to me


hopes and wishes

I called my Daddy last week or so.
We were talking, I mentioned wishing and
he asked if I recalled what my granddad used to say
I said of course not so he explained…

hold out both hands palm up

let your wishes pile up in one hand

and shit pile up in the other

see which one fills up faster.

I said ummm, thanks dad and of course
he replied that my granddad was a strange man.
We had a good laugh, my dad and I, so much alike,
but it got me thinkin' 'bout hope and wishes;

how I had been bereft of them so long
now suddenly they were in my life
and I feel odd, distorted, wanting
to toss them the hell away and run.

Hope and wishes, you see, are ambiguous to me
by nature. I feel lost without clear boundaries,
unable to define my own way, being unsure
of the future, of people I want to keep.

I have placed a lot of hope on my own shoulders
and wishes in my lover's thoughts and care.
As I attempt to balance them I struggle
within the bounds of others' dictation, restless,

within the discomfort of charterless waters. But
I dream the me I want to be, the life I want to live
lay naked 'neath the sun's caress
and let my hopes and wishes lead me forth.



Tuesday, February 27, 2007

awakening

I stretch and molt
within the bounds
of lover, sweetheart;
new dynamics'
growing bond
and the allowance
to adore simply
to caress my nose
my cheek along
sweetest flesh
to chatter away
thoughts streaming -
it's a brave new me
come to play,
awakening.



Monday, February 26, 2007

we meet in that twilight

We meet in the dreamscape of twilight;
that horizon where hell caresses heaven.
He has things to fill his night, you see,
and I have things to fill my day.
He the moon and I the sun, Oh
but our core values sinc,
our love is profound
and we fuck like madness in rebirth,
make love like there really is no tomorrow.
Yet how, I wonder, do I keep us free
and still hold on tight;
Habits and lives in opposition –
and yet what is day without night,
the sun and the moon begetting
stars to fill our gaze, to wish upon…
So yes, we meet in that twilight,
and my soul at least finding peace;
deep, breathless, deserved – peace.


Wednesday, February 21, 2007

outstanding

if moans were words
last eve I found a few;

soft coos and purrs

while we drank our fill
past exhaustion...



Monday, February 19, 2007


transcendence three

some day I will find transcendence;
no, it will not be in death
through spiritual enlightenment
or the attainment of higher education,

but deep in the flesh of man...

hands splayed wide on too hot flesh

and the taste of him sweet

on the tip of tongue, words lost.



Thursday, February 15, 2007


Stendhal's Syndrome

She reached out
grasped air
where she thought you had been
in dreams sweet;

mistaken.

tired
drunk
fever

all the good shit comes with fever
like the moon bright afire
and sweat pouring in miniscule rivulets;

your cheek so beautiful en finis
you mistook
her tears
for Sorrow herself. Yet

it was with Stendhal's Syndrome
she wept.