4.5.23

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.