A cycle of poems about the War

by Khrystia Vengryniuk

Translated from the Ukrainian by Dmytro Kyyan

When you shoot from where there is snow now,
I shiver in my veins and wake up.
I close my eyes.
I'm flying away.
Imagining HOW you stand there.
And all these blood-white rings
And everything that makes us happy in the brain:
In an instant, they burn out, and feeling barely alive
I go to the kitchen to get water and communion.
And then the morning, like a wound and a dream
And heat flows between wet thighs,
You shoot my smooth forehead again
It is covered with drops of resentment
Heaven itself.
This is how days are formed in the retina of the eyes.
The entire universe is now a target.
I bow my face and point my shoulder

…

Shoot. Shoot!
If only no one shoots at You.

Jan 9, 2017     

***

Nothing remains in place of this city
The snowstorm stopped, the poison left.
[You are gone].
And when you break the hands of the system.
When you spit on it from above.
When you can walk to Heaven
The light explodes,
God plays with snowballs and smokes a joint.
And it is only somewhere else,
Where my sun rises,
You fall asleep and quietly moan:
"What’s up, brother?"
And your brother dons German boots,
He splits his burning heart open  
To count the losses.
And I look at the Koran and the Torah,
And having read the entire Testament again,
I find answers where there are only questions.
And the body of God is carried at dawn.

I made up nothing, but I remember everything.
All these wars and all these anxieties.
If I recall everything very well
I waited very faithfully,
When there was nothing to wait for.

Jan 10, 2017     

***

Anticipating how you’ll go silent,
I lie down in my cocoon and freeze.   
These embraces fly following between us     
Somewhere at the bottom of the war, I’m looking for you.
Like cold water from a bucket,
Like a sticky morning,
A predatory wind.  
I see neither the river nor the shore
Where our shadows hide in shells.
Unfolding into rhymes and bones,
Talking to the eyes of passersby.
I am reaching out to you,
Knowing only a name and half-breath.
God gives me new words.
Death gives you new ammunition.
I waded quietly across the pool of blood.
Like a little bird, I took off your house.  

Jan 11, 2017