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Erase the protective layer of fear: the newest Ukrainian war poems
15.03.2022
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More and more Ukrainian poets react to the full-scale war that has been going on in Ukraine for twenty days. We present you the second selection of poems created during these days — from bomb shelters and train stations, from volunteer centres and queues for food, from relatively safe apartments and already dangerous streets.
Previous poetry selection is available in Ukrainian and in English, the Ukrainian version of this selection is available here.
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Less than one day before the war
we quarreled:
stupidly, abruptly, scathingly,
as if the anxiety wasn’t enough already,
as if both of us
took a sip of sulfuric acid.
Who would have known? Everyone knew.
Imminence acts like a nuclear fallout,
breaking the bonds between words
and transforming what was spoken
into a swelling of blood.
Through that we’ve been talking in the past weeks,
and that’s why
our purported sincerity
keeps whining like a beloved
dog who took a dose of radiation,
and deserves to be mercifully shot.
It’s easier now, for the war has started, easier,
for everything is clear now about the past life,
about the dissonance,
about the core,
about the air.
Translated by Oles Petik
I’m a battery that keeps going
even with a negative charge
barbed wire of scream in my throat
everyone listens
but no one can hear
how the low, anxious sound
pulsates in the sky
it’s the voice of god
god unneeded by anyone
for ten whole days
it’s been raining red stone
it’s time to read
the manual of reincarnation:
in case of emergency,
- a) break the glass of calm
- b) erase the protective layer of fear
look, here it is
the molecular formula of love
use it, then pass it on to the children
Translated by R.B. Lemberg
in the fields the rascals
are lying around unable to pronounce
palyanytsia
Translated by Ella Yevtushenko
From the city ruined by the missiles
I will shout to the entire world:
This year, on the Sunday of Forgiveness,
I will not forgive everyone’s faults.
World, oh world, how mean is your abandon!
But in all this pain and all this doom
Kyiv with its golden domes is standing,
Bucha and Irpin are standing, too.
We will overcome it, we will hold on,
Clean our lands under the peaceful skies
From the bodies sent here by the balding
Bloody vampire with a piglet’s eyes.
I’ll survive as well in this bombarding,
Standing firmly on my native land.
Russia, you will never have my pardon.
…Belarus, are you still our friend?
Translated by Ella Yevtushenko
For years it’s been going on
The war
The death do not exist
only wind
Rubbles, sand
Fangs, needles
A skeleton of submarine
Soldiers’ cans
are going backwards
to the morass
A wind of changes
bring death to nobody
Silhouettes
Ghosts
Shadows
Translated by Victoria Feshchuk
***
even if you are a soldier and you cannot go – you can walk at least, which is great
an infantryman has a notion of soil varieties, topography, and ranges
but there’s only water all around in the sea, and bank outlines get blurred in your imagination, and tectonic plates
are in the inaccessible depth – there’s no reliance, your thoughts lack oxygen, you feel pressure from all directions
There’s no reliance on hope, and there’s no reliance on fear as well
cry out first, «Get off!» if you’re going to cut a tree
since you’re in the woods – you’re not alone, you’re never alone on the earth, multiply by storms with wings spread
a pilot lifts a plane, a ship comes to Dnipro rapids from a sea
hey brother, there’s only a green dot.. online – you’re waiting for it to spark
you and I are left on the verge – among the ground, water, and sky – nothing came true for now
Translated by Odarka Bilokon
when spring comes and winter relents
I want to give you flowers
but first let our air defence
shoot down the enemy missiles
I want to meet you at the train station
to swim with you in the evening river
but I need to defend our population
and you have aid to deliver
when there will be summer and silence in the courtyards
I want to stroke you at dawn
but first let the orcs finish their bombards
And burn in their damn tanks, withdrawn
none will forsake their future life
none of us here frightens
for a way out of shelter to freedom we strive
kissing under the sirens
Translated by Nika Gorovska
Dear Mykola Leontovych,
you have been living with me since my childhood,
my grandpa played the violin revealing about you.
Since 2014, I’ve believed in your little swallows
more and more,
dear Mykola Leontovych.
Since 2019 and till now, I’ve even explored
your piano,
I’ve even explored your fingerprints
to write for children about you.
I was so devoted exploring you,
Mykola Leontovych,
just like my grandpa played the violin revealing about you.
Dear Mykola Leontovych,
On February 23, I was writing about you again.
I was writing for a children’s book which had to be published.
On February 24, the war has started,
dear Mykola Leontovych,
then I’ve spoken to you,
when do we have to listen to Shchedryk
if not now,
when do we have to be charitable
if not now?
I wish a little swallow would fly this February.
Dear Mykola Leontovych,
send it to every home.
We all are ready to hear it.
Translated by Odarka Bilokon
the boy is dreaming of armored vehicles
the father is exhausted
he’s sleeping like a log
only the cat is on the watch near the window
listening to the engines roaring
March 5, 2022
Translated by Ella Yevtushenko
*****
the face of the fear is waking up at night
and seeing red through the windows;
rolling out like tumbleweed
leaving home that refused to be your home
the body of fear is to squat down
while your thought can’t find where to escape:
either to «do to me whatever you wish»
or to «save me»
no body no face:
you are a baroque gate of a cathedral
which you are praying for more than for yourself
Translated by Ella Yevtushenko
×××
they will never get
on Charon’s boat
and never pay
their passage:
because their mouths
are full of rottenness
and their eyes
are full of fungus and mud
even if
they had a coin,
Charon himself
would refuse it
with disgust
he’d drown them in the Styx,
if he could
he’d feed them to Cerberus,
if he could
but
both the noxious waters
and the fierce beast
refuse them with disgust
as well
everyone of their kind is doomed to
eternal damnation
eternal wandering
and eternal oblivion
that are already starting
here
in this world
inside of torn
and abandoned
bodies
in which
even hemlock
will never put down its roots
Translated by Yulia Didokha
When I look at the enemy battle bus
On the Ukrainian wartime television,
I get surprised that Putin’s still with us,
While he is being damned with great precision.
This army’s like from an absurd sci-fi
From Kin-dza-dza, the old satiric movie,
The only thing that is theirs are the “eyes,
in which I saw a peaceful desire moving”.
Where this horde comes, the water becomes poisoned,
Their shit is all around, right where they sleep.
They’ll be forgotten after we destroy them,
And now they’re selling ammo just to eat.
Before the war we used to count sheep
Till morning, when we couldn’t fall asleep.
And now, when we want to forget our woes,
We count the fresh dead bodies of our foes.
Right now I see your corpses from my house.
Am I ashamed or sad? I wouldn’t say…
But I am pretty sure, my little brothers,
That you drank all the nuclear bombs away.
Translated by Ella Yevtushenko
1.
my five years old daughter and I are running
downstairs from the fourth floor
and it gets funny for a moment:
our legs are dangling in the air,
we don’t actually touch anything but
each other,
cosmonauts,
kotsmonauts.
2.
you start shirking
air-raid alerts
like a high-schooler.
3.
who is stirring
in the dark house
in front of your dark house
the house
where
your dark hair
has sturred?
5.
the contents of a backpack:
for whatever reason
escaping from the shells
I took
my poetry collection
«the contents of a man’s pocket»
6.
a refugee’s game
is unfair —
he’s hiding
eight words
from different
dialects
in his sleeves.
Translated by Ella Yevtushenko
the red sea overflows its shores
neither the one in Africa,
nor the one poured by God
but the one singing war songs between the ribs
flowing with channels and rivers
flooding small villages and small villagers
flooding everything
until nothing remains
shamans bow their backs in a sacrificial gesture
women offer their babies to them and weep
in the red sea, babies and tears disappear
it’s not a sacrifice for salvation, it’s just the need
the earth disappears and so do its fruits
the paper disappears
and so do the words
the man disappears
the man disappears with no sound
and the sea between the ribs cannot disappear
there is nowhere to
it will remain
for something just has to remain
Translated by Tanya Rodionova
day 1
to grab your cat in time
to hold on to a news feed
all the way long
day 2
right after the alert
boys are afraid of a new invasion
girls keep silence
day 3
after a curfew
no pads are left
war does not have a woman’s face
day 4
from a siren to siren
you have time to clean the floor
it will get covered or get dry
day 5
now you are afraid to wash your head for long
to stay naked and soaped
under a threat of an air raid
day 6
to hear no fear on my mom’s side
to show no fear to her
to talk three times a day
day 7
to sleep in a tracksuit
to sleep under any circumstances
to sleep
day 8
news about rape cases
in kherson were not confirmed
they promise the next negotiation
day 9
the girl from kharkiv whom I know says
the ordinary thing is to be unable to save
a human next to you
day 10
my friend is charmed
looking at a riffle of a local guard
you cannot get to kyiv now
day 11
my other friend almost a sister
is out of contact for more than a week
our wrath is not enough
day 12
my friend says it’s hard to tell
when everything’s over as the war is still going on
pauses for sleep are insecure
Translated by Odarka Bilokon
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