An E-Zine of Poetic Variety
Muse Cafe Quarterly
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| Stacy Lynn Mar |
ROMANTIC CITYSCAPE
I watch her, bird in a telescope,
Body swaying, half smile, curves lithe
Only in that ironic way of pertinence.
A girl of skinny, a girl of too much pretty.
He wraps himself into the corner of her coat,
Cinnamon of his poached tongue probing,
Center core of his manhood longing,
His hands crawling the bones of her dangling waist.
But she doesn’t notice, her thoughts float,
Helium in a soap bubble, her lips smoke,
Not hearing the raven wail of car sirens,
Men of business and prestige lift their hand cases,
Eyes waist high at the abstract, eyeing protrusion.
He is swift, a spurt of kisses, a nonchalance,
The kind only a wild animal renders to prey,
His promises are a quick coughing of backwash
Against her lips, sweet of gloss, the color of ripe raspberry.
And she smiles to hide the scoff,
Feet shuffling against city concrete,
Old man in their memories, the winding cracks
Leading her mind back to the moment.
She holds him fast, pretending she can’t live without him,
Only to pull away, weak of the resistance,
She knows not the why’s of self-deprivation,
How she can want the scent of his body
Combing her womanly shores like some has-been,
Yet push apart, walk away, red heels against morning gray.
The heart grabs, his hands clutch her skin like rakes,
Each finger jabbing the cortex of her emotional embodiment,
She pushes him away, stray lent insulting posh cashmere,
Her footfalls resonate, the bionic boom of gunshots,
His wind-bent, knitted scarf momentarily pulls a blindfold
Across the panoramic street-view, and she is gone, gone.
PAST THE TIMES
Tonight the plaza side-strip
Is an over-hang of bruised concrete,
A spider-web maze of has-been businesses,
Frayed movie sign, a phantom galloping
Across the wind of this nowhere town.
This is your window into the obsolete,
For even the crows keep fast to their nests,
Nothing stirs, give the townies café debris,
And the forgotten ones in torn rubber soles,
Second-hand metal shopping carts across parking lots,
A side-street swim in the county dumpster.
The is the twisted wheel of civilization,
The suburban metropolis of never-again,
Old men wrapping their spindled fingers
Around wooden canes, and time,
Time is their orange fingernails tapping
Seconds into the night, waiting for tomorrow, waiting to die.
SOME WOMEN
Are born wanting to die,
Face down in the wash basin,
Three feet of telephone cord,
And words, words on blank sheets.
Sheets where love was made,
Wrapped in stillness,
In deaths decompose,
Pretty, in the prime of youth,
Each bone an indenture,
The space she gave,
Trickery of time in a moments gain.
And yesterday,
Yesterday was the sweet surrender,
Carmel popcorn crumbs on her chin,
The flow of verbosity
Down a page of lines,
Girl-girth of her womanhood,
The poetry, the white lies
Before the misguidance
Of a mulberry bush,
Entanglement of branches, arms, hair
His hand brittle, pushing away.
Suspended now, for eternity,
The unfinished soliloquy,
Headline news, The Herald’s front page.
Manicured hands for
French-tipped, official documentation,
Falling to the way-side,
Stick figure mermaid of the morgue,
Palms up, fingers spread,
Waiting for the world to fall.
FRIDAY NIGHT
Time is a paradox,
Faces in a crowd,
Each expression a wrinkle
Across my memory.
Their eyes loll the sockets,
Eyebrows arched,
I stand center-stage
Bird dancing in a wire cage.
Only, no one notices
The tears beneath my lids,
Each one a scraping stone,
Blue sky a mockery to my iris.
Friday night is alive,
It’s toes dancing across the bar
Where I count smoke rings
From the cigarette of the stranger beside me.
His buzz talks in semi-slur
Of the truck-driving life,
Brittle tooth-bite of his cheating wife,
Memories bubbling in his chest like GERD.
I am fiendish in my escape,
A rearranging of shadows in my flee,
Sedated of his memories I chase
The beat of a disco strobe-light outside
Into a stone-slab town of nowhere Appalachian,
Stars dropping their silver slashes
Across the Eastern hemisphere
Like Lithium, stiff in my ex-lovers drink.
I watch her, bird in a telescope,
Body swaying, half smile, curves lithe
Only in that ironic way of pertinence.
A girl of skinny, a girl of too much pretty.
He wraps himself into the corner of her coat,
Cinnamon of his poached tongue probing,
Center core of his manhood longing,
His hands crawling the bones of her dangling waist.
But she doesn’t notice, her thoughts float,
Helium in a soap bubble, her lips smoke,
Not hearing the raven wail of car sirens,
Men of business and prestige lift their hand cases,
Eyes waist high at the abstract, eyeing protrusion.
He is swift, a spurt of kisses, a nonchalance,
The kind only a wild animal renders to prey,
His promises are a quick coughing of backwash
Against her lips, sweet of gloss, the color of ripe raspberry.
And she smiles to hide the scoff,
Feet shuffling against city concrete,
Old man in their memories, the winding cracks
Leading her mind back to the moment.
She holds him fast, pretending she can’t live without him,
Only to pull away, weak of the resistance,
She knows not the why’s of self-deprivation,
How she can want the scent of his body
Combing her womanly shores like some has-been,
Yet push apart, walk away, red heels against morning gray.
The heart grabs, his hands clutch her skin like rakes,
Each finger jabbing the cortex of her emotional embodiment,
She pushes him away, stray lent insulting posh cashmere,
Her footfalls resonate, the bionic boom of gunshots,
His wind-bent, knitted scarf momentarily pulls a blindfold
Across the panoramic street-view, and she is gone, gone.
PAST THE TIMES
Tonight the plaza side-strip
Is an over-hang of bruised concrete,
A spider-web maze of has-been businesses,
Frayed movie sign, a phantom galloping
Across the wind of this nowhere town.
This is your window into the obsolete,
For even the crows keep fast to their nests,
Nothing stirs, give the townies café debris,
And the forgotten ones in torn rubber soles,
Second-hand metal shopping carts across parking lots,
A side-street swim in the county dumpster.
The is the twisted wheel of civilization,
The suburban metropolis of never-again,
Old men wrapping their spindled fingers
Around wooden canes, and time,
Time is their orange fingernails tapping
Seconds into the night, waiting for tomorrow, waiting to die.
SOME WOMEN
Are born wanting to die,
Face down in the wash basin,
Three feet of telephone cord,
And words, words on blank sheets.
Sheets where love was made,
Wrapped in stillness,
In deaths decompose,
Pretty, in the prime of youth,
Each bone an indenture,
The space she gave,
Trickery of time in a moments gain.
And yesterday,
Yesterday was the sweet surrender,
Carmel popcorn crumbs on her chin,
The flow of verbosity
Down a page of lines,
Girl-girth of her womanhood,
The poetry, the white lies
Before the misguidance
Of a mulberry bush,
Entanglement of branches, arms, hair
His hand brittle, pushing away.
Suspended now, for eternity,
The unfinished soliloquy,
Headline news, The Herald’s front page.
Manicured hands for
French-tipped, official documentation,
Falling to the way-side,
Stick figure mermaid of the morgue,
Palms up, fingers spread,
Waiting for the world to fall.
FRIDAY NIGHT
Time is a paradox,
Faces in a crowd,
Each expression a wrinkle
Across my memory.
Their eyes loll the sockets,
Eyebrows arched,
I stand center-stage
Bird dancing in a wire cage.
Only, no one notices
The tears beneath my lids,
Each one a scraping stone,
Blue sky a mockery to my iris.
Friday night is alive,
It’s toes dancing across the bar
Where I count smoke rings
From the cigarette of the stranger beside me.
His buzz talks in semi-slur
Of the truck-driving life,
Brittle tooth-bite of his cheating wife,
Memories bubbling in his chest like GERD.
I am fiendish in my escape,
A rearranging of shadows in my flee,
Sedated of his memories I chase
The beat of a disco strobe-light outside
Into a stone-slab town of nowhere Appalachian,
Stars dropping their silver slashes
Across the Eastern hemisphere
Like Lithium, stiff in my ex-lovers drink.
Stacy Lynn Mar is twenty-seven years old and currently resides in a small town called Morehead,
nestled into the beautiful Appalachian hills of Eastern Kentucky.
Stacy is a grad school student in pursuit of a Masters degree in Counseling Studies and is also applying
for admission into Eastern Kentucky University’s MFA in Creative Writing. If accepted, she will start her
studies in January 2010. Stacy has been writing poetry since the age of fourteen, after discovering the
work of Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton. She is an avid reader and writes daily. She also dabbles in
collage art.
She has been published widely across the web in magazines/journals such as The Beat, All Things Girl,
Mastodon Dentist, and Leaf Garden Press, just to name a few.
She has published several books, Anonymous Confessions and Muse. She has one book in the
production process, Deeper Thank Pink. She is also editor of Muse Café Quarterly. You can visit
and/or contact her at www.stacylynnmar.com.
nestled into the beautiful Appalachian hills of Eastern Kentucky.
Stacy is a grad school student in pursuit of a Masters degree in Counseling Studies and is also applying
for admission into Eastern Kentucky University’s MFA in Creative Writing. If accepted, she will start her
studies in January 2010. Stacy has been writing poetry since the age of fourteen, after discovering the
work of Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton. She is an avid reader and writes daily. She also dabbles in
collage art.
She has been published widely across the web in magazines/journals such as The Beat, All Things Girl,
Mastodon Dentist, and Leaf Garden Press, just to name a few.
She has published several books, Anonymous Confessions and Muse. She has one book in the
production process, Deeper Thank Pink. She is also editor of Muse Café Quarterly. You can visit
and/or contact her at www.stacylynnmar.com.