[***] by Mykyta Ryzhykh

***
buy me a fairy tale as a gift
buy me love as a gift
buy me a future as a gift

buy me a future as a gift
 
Im completely out of money
Im completely without

***

sakura gave me silence
the flowers of the soul open
and the sky is bright

***

A refugee runs in

Without an image in a shirt

The last day in this life and that turned

Оut to be an escape

***

beautiful spring

alarm sirens singing

instead of birds

***

explosions instead of music

death instead of sleep

butterflies everywhere butterflies

***

A huge bird with black glasses would have arrived

And taught us all to fly

We've never been here anyway

***

It's scary not to           jump down from the bridge

It's scary that              no one will stop you

Two Poems by Stacy Black

Don't Worry About the Wolves

You can't always be a giant floating eyeball.

Hamlet crawls across the stage

leaving a trail of slime.

 

Having lots of feelings out there in the dark.

Anger at the royalty.

Guilt about your carbon footprint.

 

Sometimes it's nice to think 

of dandelions in the dark,

their yellow faces, waiting.

 

An above ground swimming pool 

in a clearing deep in a forest 

no one knows about.

 

No need to buy a membership 

or register in advance.

No need to be cool

 

or worry about the wolves

if they're ok or if they'll eat you.

We can just go about our business

 

and maybe bump into each other later

like when the sun explodes 

and all this is vaporized

 

and we become atoms

intermingling in black space.

Maybe you can always be a giant floating eyeball

 

after all. Maybe.

Chronic Brain

You can't touch it

but it's there.

Full of water and electricity

and twitchy life

like a diminutive monster 

from one of those movies

your parents would never let you watch

lest there be bloody violence

or a stray boob

to warp you 

and lead you astray.

The world produces 

its own, much less interesting monsters.

They go to Ivy League schools.

Their souls the size

of hotel bars of soap.

Their ejaculate full of little dollar bills.

But forget about them.

You've got problems

of your own

like how did you get here?

What is this new pain?

You can retrace your steps

your entire life 

and never get back 

to anyplace you thought of as home.