Vyarka Kozareva lives in Bulgaria. Her work has appeared in Adelaide Literary Magazine, Ariel Chart, Poetry Pacific, Basset Hound Press, Bosphorus Review of Books, Mad Swirl, Ann Arbor Review, Fevers Of The Mind, Juste Milieu Lit, Trouvaille Review, Aberration Labyrinth, Triggerfish Critical Review, Sampsonia Way Magazine, Synchronized Chaos Magazine, Toasted Cheese, and The Big Windows Review.
DROUGHT
It must be rain
Not tears, sweat, saliva, blood or urine.
Not resin.
The streets no more trace curves, silent and outworn.
Born sad die stamped with misbelief,
Says rumour
For which the usefulness is just a row of letters.
The back side of the world
Keeps carts with their owners’ skeletons
And wheels that don’t know what to do
With their two self-made infinities.
The ancient tumuli store things such as
Conflicts, regrets, and metaphors.
Saline waters drip
From eyeless dead beasts’ holograms.
The hunger stalks to stuff my throat.
When Goddess cries, it must be rain.
The fields lie fallow.
The fields will run to waste
When birds with weak wings float far-away.
Winters are rolling slowly
To let the hunger gain more weight.
I try to master how to pray
To make it rain.
© Vyarka Kozareva
SUPERSTITIONS
We pile up our worn loves in the back yard
Pretending they are remnants from another life,
Unburied Tanagra figurines,
Disjointed symbols of necrolatry.
We arraign the horizon
For the generically-generated artifacts
Which banish emptiness.
The dead trees will become picture postcards
Addressed to blind recluses.
Who is to blame for doors with no egress
And wilted laurel wreaths?
The shamrock jewels need loam and air to stay alive.
© Vyarka Kozareva