brought your lover a bouquet of tanks: the newest Ukrainian war poems

Under the war conditions, artists react as quickly as journalists, to make bridges of empathy between different people.

Here you can read poems from Ukrainian authors about perception and anticipation of war. Some authors are currently fighting at forces or territorial defence, some are evacuating or looking for a safe place for themselves or their families, others – are already abroad and now help others to be safe and sound. Nevertheless, all those writers have found the strength to write poems during the last week.

The Ukrainian version is available here

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***

I do not know where I should begin

The city is surrounded by the wall

When the city wakes up

It is surrounded by the war

And some other cities are resting around the fire

A chance that the city will stand

Is one to a hundred.

Later

The ships are slowly reaching the costs

Later

The city is swarmed by locust

The city will stand

Let the moments last for a while

The city will sleep

Let it sleep after being on fire

The morning is coming

Waking us from nothingness

There’s an antonym to life,

But there’s no death.

The bird is flying from the son’s palms to the father’s hands

I don’t know where to begin.

I start at the end.

Translated by Yulia Maksymenko

* * *

you can leave nowhere from here ’cause the distance for a shot is too short it is war after peace you gropingly search for your body

between those alike we’ve been expelled from universities of historical truth hardened in ashes of sense please take this heart as evidence the life just doesn’t go this way

you can leave nowhere from here ’cause children draw autumn yields on the bleached walls shining sheets the buildup and the base of your thoughts is the place where the missile hits warm rays of light as if it’s still spring it happened

you can leave nowhere from here ’cause the world’s drawn in blood and in flesh the war will be over one day and where would you then

the peace doesn’t exist what is it here’s the mallows this pill has been nursed by a wolf the toxic background the new city will be here

happy people will come out of the buildings on the canvas they will count how many of us are still left

it’s almost a love to everything that must disappear to everything given for a day as a butterfly of the soul

you can leave nowhere from here we’re caught and the world puts us under a microscope where to prick with this needle so it gets more interesting to wrestle in the solute the body floats with the water the soul gathers these drawings since it had a lot to forsake the peace is a war with yourself ’cause we’ve been cut in halves

this city we won’t recognize anymore don’t look in your eyes this mirror lies that you existed and there is a warm spring October

that pulses under the skin what’s that as a touch as a blood from the heart that should be alive ’cause otherwise where would you now after the peace

I will learn how to draw still to make it come true

Translated by Yuliia Kostiuk

War

Lord, the way Tychyna writes:

«And Bely, and Blok, and Yesenin»

the way they surrounded us

on all four sides

give us strength and power

a hastily packed suitcase and bread

naturally their sly foxes lie

that we have neither shields nor centuries

Ihor leads us somewhere

over the Don with his regiments

today with the February snow

and tomorrow with a bloody shield

and their dark forces come from Tmutarakan

and Mokshas and Chud

shoot at our location

hit at the positions we take

so what is there in The Tale of Ihor’s Campaign

and what is there in ancient sounds

you — jumping barefoot as a wolf

spreading the spit of the devil

reached the rivers and borders

reached my clenched heart

your blackened icons

can’t even be cleansed with milk

Lord, the way Tychyna writes

about Kyiv — the Messiah — about the country

why didn’t we learn these poems by heart?

Bleed — my heart — bleed

Translated by Olena Jennings 

***

you are standing, with «no war» banner as if it was an indulgence

to what cannot be stopped anymore,

the war cannot be stopped anymore,

it’s like bright arterial blood from a running sore,

it keeps streaming until it kills you,

enters our cities with armed people,

it scatters secret subversive groups all over our yards

they’re like lethal mercury balls that сannot be picked up,

neither turned around, only traced and destroyed

by these civil managers, clerks, it-workers, and students,

life did not prepare them for the urban combats, but the war does

in the field conditions, in haste, on the painfully known ground

territorial defense first admits those with battle experience,

and then even those who fought only in Dune і Fallout, 

oh yeah, and a barman we know also gives a short master-class on how to make burning mixtures

in the nearest club kids are sleeping,

are crying,

and are being born

into the world that is now unfit to live,

at the playground a full complement of family weld antitank hedgehogs

and bottle death «drinks»

whole families, who now are experiencing the happiness of communication

and coordinated collective labor — the war diminishes the distance

between people, between birth and death

between what we did not want for ourselves

and what we occurred to be capable of

– mom, pick up, a woman is begging for more than an hour in an apartment block’s cellar

stubbornly and dumbly, not quitting to believe in miracles,

but her mom is not available, she is in the suburb

where panel houses collapse like a cheap constructor

due to full-blown offensive

where connection towers ceased to connect

since yesterday

where the world fell apart into before and after

along the rough fold of the banner «no war»

which you will throw out into the nearest bin

coming back home after the protests, oh, Russian poet

the war kills with indifferent hands

and even with idle sympathizers’ hands.

Translated by Yulia Maksymenko

***

My god spends the night assembling armed forces,
He fights our battles and holds our lines taut.
My god tolerates my screaming and curses
And wipes his glasses for a better shot.

My god doesn’t hide behind backs of my people,
He covers children with protective shroud.
My god keeps buying haemostatics at chemist‘s
And stands in the queue to donate his blood.

My god cannot sleep, but sleep doesn’t matter
While the whole country stands guard in flames.
My god allows me to be unforgiving
and call all things by their real names.

Translated by Yulia Kostiuk

(son / wording day)

«mom, where the war comes from?» – he asks in quiet

and then, without break: the war is disaster, right?

it has come in for something? like for, you know, 

naughtiness…»

she feels like her head was struck with an iron baculus,

the carpet was pulled from under her, her brain from the brainpan:

«where’d you taken this, kid?..»

«we must’ve been drawing some straws, mom,

and picked the wrong one from the tote bag of God?

maybe we wanted to summit the sky, but somehow we should not,

like the Babylonian did, you know – their tower was caused to fall,

you know, I heard in school…»

and she keeps her tears back, with all her gall,

she’s silent and strains for air with words unvoiced.

«mom, tell me, the wars can also be paid-for? –

he breaths piece of window misty, then draws there the shape.

this is Crimea, Donetsk – inviolate, aren’t they?

they are untouchED and ours — mom, this is so, yes?»

straining for air with words now, «untouchABLE,—- she suggests.

he puts the two-color flag in the midst of his window drawing. —

and where, where you’ve taken, kid, this so unchildish wording?»

Translated by Ksenyslava Krapka

***

So what, you just barged in unannounced,

brought your lover a bouquet

of tanks, helicopters, cruise missiles instead of flowers,

you told her: it is your fault, here is a bomb, a grenade,

Bitch, how dare you hurt your big brother?

That’s not a training flare, you can be sure of that.

We are not entering, we are entertaining — bitch, shut up.

Knees apart, blood on the sheet — that’s what love is.

We are enforcing peace on you, a dinner served with an armored zakuski.

This is not just any world. This is a Russian world. You understand? Russki!

Russian, how many times should I repeat? 

Now, get dressed and make me a sandwich!

Hey, where is your protector? Away wagging his tongue?

Haven’t you been dreaming of having such a boyfriend all along?

The one who would threaten to leave your offender broke?

Insult our daddy calling him a paranoid klepto,

and the Russian man — a dupe and an alcoholic.

We came with fire. You are meeting us with fire?

You say fuck you, so that we stay fucked.

As they say, until further notice,

There — in the intimate zone, there is plenty of room for battles.

Either we will swoop in for an airstrike or wе’ll fire missiles.

You recognized me, didn’t you, it’s me, your Cain, your big brother.

Oh, you have a guardian angel? But we have aircraft.

We are crushing you with our secret archives, with our TV screens,

We will thrust a tyrant in a transparent condom inside you,

We have the red square and we will have a parade there.

Come on, ride your dead white ex-horse,

He is covered in blood, vomit, dirt, and shit.

I am writing shit and the spellchecker corrects it to sheet.

Good night, comrades — in a soiled winding sheet, in a shroud,

In your beloved country which you defiled and befouled.

Translated by Nata Vygovskaya and Anna Geisherik

2

the hand of the history flips the sand clock
and turns the page of the manual
and turns the world upside down too

peels the blue orange
but for some reason the splatters are
red

biblical parables about
shibboleths and wolves in sheep’s clothing
are coming to life

the snow is falling and melting again
like the enemy army on your territory

the calendar won’t start even from the fifth turn
it snorts for a while
the cat’s paw drops the sand clock from the table

Translated by Anna Yezerska

***

Tell me, what is «palianytsia»,

Why do nobody fall asleep?

I’ll show you my camouflage blazer

To check that you don’t me cheat.

The code «kanapa/kanapka»,

When was the war began

And who is fighting with me.

I will kill an occupier,

I will burn a tank

It’s all for you, my honey

I love you, my dear friend.

Under enemy tanks on the fields

there will be rye and wheat weeds

Huge package of personal sanctions

Will be given to every Russian

Our land is their grave

We are sure, there will be Ukraine

We know who is fighting with us.

I will kill an occupier,

I will burn a tank

It’s all for you, my honey

I love you, my dear friend.

Translated by Anna Melenko

the war will not begin tomorrow

in the name of all funeral wreaths and plastic ribbons

in the name of polished coffins and uncomfortable still new polished shoes of the dead

unsuitable to dance twist

/that’s right to dance twist

/that’s right to dance twist

somehow I imagine the dead dancing twist

holding in their hands the polished shoes that are too small for their swollen feet

we name our streets avenues parks after them

erect monuments in central squares

they have turned into monuments’ squares where one can hardly squeeze through

in times of peace there will be children playing seek and hide but that won’t happen immediately –

maybe in two years five years forty years

that is if the monuments’ square the memories’ square survives this war

anticipating the front line closing in from the north the south the east

we keep renaming them again and again

we install new signs at houses kindergartens and schools

to demonstrate just for a split second what is truly important for us

but we fail to be fast enough

to change the names of all the streets

to erect monuments to everybody

in the honour of the dead we rename the things we put into the go-bag

the torch is no longer a torch but Serhiy Viktorovych Kokurin

the radio is not a radio but Yevhen Oleksandrovych Andriyuk

the first aid box is Svyatoslav Serhiyovych Horbenko

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

we bring along the memory of our dead when we evacuate

leaving books diaries and photo albums of the soviet times

to the mercy of missiles and looters

/who will be dancing twist

/that’s right they will be dancing twist

/that’s right they will be dancing twist

/to the sounds of old records from grandma’s collection

Translated by Liliia Aleksandronets

***

i went for a smoke break on the bank of the dnipro 

had a chat with a zsu soldier

and an atb security guard

the soldier was a younger one

full of pride for the frontline brothers 

and eager for his turn

to smash the rusnia

he was caressing his gun

and wiping his nose

with a pixelated sleeve

every time he

wiped his nose

i did the same

automatically

the atb guard

was walking a beautiful husky

and washing down a quarter of horilka

with half a liter of «rohan» lager beer

he offered me a drink

but i refused

we smoked together

debated the current military and geopolitical affairs

and acknowledged that rusnia was in deep shit

and then the atb guard was telling us

about the summer

before the war

when he wooed some girls

on this very beach

we were laughing

though it was nothing to laugh about

it’s getting colder

the nose

is getting wetter

the right bank of dnipro 

is darker 

than a gun’s muzzle 

2022

[ZSU = Збройні сили України/Armed Forces of Ukraine]

[ATB = АТБ-Маркет, the largest Ukrainian network of retail shops]

Translated by Oles Petik

***

nobody told me how to experience it

to feel it

to live with it

to pet a dog

before giving it away for keeping

and not to wash my hands long after that

to close the chinchilla’s cage,

to listen to the goldfinch twit

to feed them keeping in mind

that they won’t survive

how to pay the mortgage again

for the apartment with three balconies

where the glass probably covered the carpets

to close hands behind your back

hugging you

like the bullet-proof vest that you will fasten 

please teach me how to react

with the words “there is no war”

when my sister tells me her basement is flooded

and they sleep across the bed behind the wall 

when my friends’ child is crying

reluctant to go to the shelter 

teach me how to be proud for killers

to distrust my own eyes

to hate my country

so tender that I want to cover every building with my own body

every Primachenko’s work

everyone who had to leave home

learn how to

live with it 

Translated by Ella Yevtushenko

BACK HOME

Once upon a morning I woke up 

being a bomb

And flew headlong home

Translated by Victoria Feshchuk