Scrubbing Toilets

An ergonomic chair
and time to read next year’s
budget, she bitches about
cutbacks while
She Works Hard for the Money
is piped in from some
easy-listening loop
of unknown origin.

I imagine the bathrooms here
are clean, too.

© 2009 Marcy Stoeckel

By a Thread and a Prayer

Driving and thinking
about buttered Pop Tarts,
Italian glass and promises and
why you hang on to these things –
as if you needed tokens to
remember to feel bad.

Regurgitated patterns of
reaching out, reaching back
and retractions, and Dear God,
let us never forget the stuff
we keep, and the moments
and people we squander.

Holed up in a murky room,
inhaling poisons of air and
mind as you ponder the genes
and atmosphere of your person,
and just where the threshold
might be – the very limit of
pains one can accrue and
still manage to breathe.

© 2008 Marcy Stoeckel

Boiled Down

She said that everything gets
reduced to what one is
willing
and able to accept. I
didn’t want to
believe
this so it appears
she was ever so right.

People always seem to get
reduced to what we are
willing
and able to believe. I
simply cannot
accept
this as it smacks of
a willful delusion.

These verses are too structured,
my feelings in garrotte.
Willing
my mind to heed my soul, I
am inclined to
believe
he employs excuse …
and is
unable to
accept
me.

© 2008 Marcy Stoeckel

Affection and Gratitude Indeed

Sincere thanks to Patrice for sending this award. While I’m no stranger to blogging, I have only recently taken up residence in this particular neighborhood. I’m not yet convinced this new blog lives up to this award, but perhaps in time. My choices are as follows:

The Truth About Lies – Wickedly smart and playful and open and interested. That’s right; I said interested. In a great many things. In my world, this is a prerequisite for being thought of as interesting. There's much more to read there but by way of example, I found Taking a thought for a walk particularly satisfying.

Outside the Asylum – A pirate. Sort of. Travel logs and excellent photography abound.

SHAKE: The Poetry of Bryan Borland – Observant and wistful and hopeful and fearless and I like that. Just to name a couple of favorites: Teenage Boys and Strings.

Ramblings of a Medicated Lady - Smart and sad and angry and honest and I like that, too. Try Patio Gas Can and Milk on for size.

Finally: Spectrum Hope – Smart and determined and devoted and witty. Like so many human endeavors, blogging can be so ... so ... tribal. The writers’ tribes, the painters’ tribes, the political tribes, the support-group tribes, etc. To our endlessly categorizing brains, this blog may seem as though it belongs strictly and neatly tucked among the members of the latter tribe. True, you may not be able to relate to all of the words expressed by a mother engaged in an heroic battle against Autism. You may also never need a recipe for GFCFSF pancakes, nor fully understand how vital it is to learn how to add protein to potato chips. However, this woman is not only one of my very favorite people in the world, she’s also a talented writer. Whether she's laughing or crying, I think she's worth the read.

The Dardos Award is given for recognition of cultural, ethical, literary, and personal values transmitted in the form of creative and original writing. These stamps were created with the intention of promoting fraternization between bloggers, a way of showing affection and gratitude for work that adds value to the Web.

The rules:
1) Accept the award by posting it on your blog along with the name of the person that has granted the award and a link to his/her blog. [Note: Don't forget to copy and paste the award jpeg itself to include on your own blog!]
2) Pass the award to another five blogs that are worthy of this acknowledgment, remembering to contact each of them to let them know they have been selected for this award.

Thank you again, Patrice.

Swimming the Forest

It’s a complex game, you know,
but a game nonetheless,
walking through these woods,
sensing souls more or less.

Stepping on a dry twig or two
and tripping over their sound,
I wish I could hear the entire tree
before I fall to the ground.

They are beautiful, you see,
right up until first frost,
when they plot to keep secrets
as if they might be lost.

Perhaps if I came more often
and I lingered long enough,
I could merge before the fall
and elude their cold rebuff.

I’m told that it will happen
when I accept the snow,
that there’s magic in a forest,
in case I didn’t know.

But what if I’m a whale,
not meant to parley with trees?
What if there is more magic
in the sorrows of the seas?

© 2008 Marcy Stoeckel

Suckle

I want to superimpose your
nerve cells to form patterns
on the couch, on our bed,
and in your eyes – to crawl
into your space, open the
doors both small and large,
and quietly hold your hand
as you abjure the weight of
the before. Frustrated and
forlorn because you will let
me touch neither latch nor
hand, and above all else,
deny both my line of sight
and longing to nurse.

Here in this warm crook lies
love and asylum, if with all
gentleness you rest your
head, as arcane experience
is more treasured than the
self-extolled deeds of an
outwardly appealing boy –
the pet that is only loyal to
its master to stave off the
perpetual fear of starvation.
For the eyes of a dog are
not really earnest, but have
instead evolved to pander
for their very existence.

I’m left to plant my thoughts
in empty verse, obscured to
all but me and echoed only
by the sky – because you
asked me to. An alarmingly
familiar hollowness of arm
and bosom has led me to
question the very meaning
of acumen and of fulfillment
when you’re not here. For
what is a life lived without
meaning and connection?
Solitude appears safe until
you discern that it isn’t.

© 2008 Marcy Stoeckel

Tidy Little Boxes

Compartmentalization is like calculus,
and physics at the quantum level. On
the exterior, detachment is all that I’m
able to muster and maintain near you

so that you’ll never see the storming
confusion inside a troubled soul. It’s
best if you think me strong and wise
and witty – for the gales might wash

you away like so many fishes lost to
the hungry. Placing words and verse
inside tidy boxes is relatively simple
when compared to the arduous task

of putting away upsetting and oddly
shaped emotions. Fearful that I may
fail and shine them up for abhorrent
display – unsorted and in fact much

too real – leaving splendor precisely
packaged in hidden attics. It's better
to keep all of the parcels and indeed
all the storms and verses for myself.

© 2008 Marcy Stoeckel

The Writer

You said that I make you feel guilty.
I said, “I’m no Wyrd Sister.
Had I the power to make you feel
I would …
then I could smile as you stoned me.”

I love you.
Your derision,
your anger,
and the spite.

Your work is only butterflies
tacked under glass.
The Proustian, dead wings,
forever in process and damn
if avoidance isn’t delicate work.

Agreed, your mother is a bitch
so you use her like a shield
with a crest of paranoia and excuse.
You wear martyrdom well
on your crusade against all that is pink.

I love you.
Your derision,
your anger,
and the spite.

My life is as hard as the substance
from which it was carved
but I’ve lost all the will to blame.
Call me if you find the wrong Muse,
I hear she’s failed you once again.

© 2007 Marcy Stoeckel

Conditioned Avoidance

There’s a feather on my chest
and I can’t move or breathe.
Pinned down by an imprint
and you I can’t appease.

Eggshells, cherry pits,
and ancient, rotting meat,
all this garbage on your floor
and me in my bare feet.

You look as empty as a desert
and you can’t feel or speak,
but a desert isn’t really empty
and jackals never weep.

Disengage, hide away
and pretend that you are not.
I’m busy looking at the floor
and wading through the rot.

© 2007 Marcy Stoeckel