Archive for December, 2009

(Deborah means ‘bee’ in Hebrew.) From spring 2007: My heart is a bee. Cantankerous, it stings at random. But it dies each time it causes pain— while those attacked recover. Alight with flight, industrious and wild, it hovers over beauty. It yields gifts of honey from those it loves- -and seeks to woo. It is subservient. Yet majestic. Perhaps Queenly. Photo by Deborah Stokol. Bat-Mitzvah invitation encased in a... »

From August 2007: There’s nothing like the ocean at night, It’s obsidian that returns to its molten state while retaining its color, and, of course, its sheen. It rolls in its own wealth like a dragon in his den. It lavishes the lengthy folds of crystal onto its many facets. I wish I could hold it in my hand (feel... »

From Fall 2006: The Sea’s gleaming water nursed the aches of a wounded sun. It laid gentle fingers, jellied and blue, on the dying day dreams of one gold warrior whose armor lay hidden as he healed for the night. He fancied those whose bodies were neither here nor there. Who were neither fish nor fair. He winked at them, those ladies with amber eyes and amber hair. Whose fins shone nearly as brightly as their eyes... »

I’d like to take a past self to coffee. Talk some sense into her. The streamlined maturity would face down the imp, all baubles and lipstick and funky pants. Would I recognize myself in her face? Would she feel betrayed, find me stuffy and stuck-up? Or would she be relieved and excited? I’d rebuke her for her... »

I just found out one of my great-grandmothers wrote her diary in neither Yiddish nor in her adopted Spanish, as I would have supposed, but in Russian–that roving eyes not see and comprehend what was not theirs to see and comprehend. Using a language inaccessible to most in her proximity, she could truly express her... »

Reported October-November 2008, Written November 2008 *Joanna is not her real name. Were I simply to click through her Facebook photos, I would say Joanna Reginald* lives a life of charmed leisure. In picture after picture of the more than 4,000 she has up, I see the blonde with a frayed bob cut luxuriating in hot tubs,... »

Written and performed by Deborah Stokol, 2006 Teal A few words on the piece: I have synesthia. Always have. In my case, that means I can visualize numbers and letters in color. So in my mind’s eye, the letter “F” has ever adopted a middling shade of blue. I wrote Teal in the key of F,... »

From August 2007: Los Angeles is… … a set of idiosyncrasies and sometimes charming characteristics that lend themselves, like any other city, to enthusiastic metaphors. It is a city of corners (and we shall not cut them) facing each other across long divides that have felt neither cobblestones nor the feet of Romans but have experienced the... »

From August 2006 Also appears in 2007’s ‘The Berkeley Poetry Review” And the sea. Which goes, and flows, by delicate means, of ropes and pulleys made of turquoise and pearl. Who hosts armies of starfish and coral cavalcades Peopled by folk of blues and greens whose whims know no boundaries and gifts know no end. Whose very skin—glistens with diamonds and memory. A lass with pipes that sound with... »