What will Trump’s victory mean for Ukraine? “It is by no means certain Washington will back any more assistance for Kyiv once Republicans control the White House” –says the Guardian. Our poet today (Day 704 of the Daily Poems) Mykyta Ryzhykh writes in Ukrainian and then translates. We have seen Mykyta’s work before in Poetrywivenhoe – in April this year we published his ‘Variations on the theme of the Garden of Eden’ and I am proud that Mykyta has given us the opportunity to show to you his November poem ‘Memory’. We do not, we must not, forget Ukraine. Slava Ukraini!
Memory
1
There is no more place to cry
The surf brought nothing with it
Autumn took a revolver out of her bag
2
Little love on a huge pavement
Who rolled us into asphalt? Who are we?
Where does God float, even if he is not able to explain the meaning of his presence?
The bird has lost its feather. The tree shed its leaves.
The man shed his skin. What did God do?
The herbarium wept.
I don’t want to live: in this world or another.
3
Autumn tore off its tongue and the foliage stopped crunching
The mill of hours grinds human bones
Iron bullets in the chest of birds looking for nests
4
We pick mushrooms in an abandoned forest
We pick shadows in the forest
We pick moisture on the lips
We pick mushrooms on Hiroshima
We pick ourselves up piece by piece
We can’t piece ourselves together
We can’t be ourselves
We are completely disassembled
We’re torn apart like we’re in a butcher’s shop
We are torn apart like the military
We’re shit like the military
We are shit
5
The night falls out and the bird skeletons sing
I want to lie down and not wake up
I want to become a small indifferent pebble
I want to become a small stone to which everyone is indifferent
I want to die with saliva on my lips
I want to live and not die
I don’t want anything and the night is knocking on the cast-iron neck
Mykyta Ryzhykh