nothing changes on the eastern front well, I’ve had it up to here at the moment of death, metal gets hot and people get cold
don’t talk to me about Luhansk it’s long since turned into hansk Lu had been razed to the ground to the crimson pavement
my friends are hostages and I can’t reach them, I can’t do netsk to pull them out of the basements from under the rubble
yet here you are, writing poems ideally slick poems high-minded gilded poems beautiful as embroidery
there’s no poetry about war just decomposition only letters remain and they all make a single sound — rrr
Pervomaisk has been split into pervo and maisk into particles in primeval flux war is over once again yet peace has not come
and where’s my deb, alts, evo? no poet will be born there again no human being
I stare into the horizon it has narrowed into a triangle sunflowers dip their heads in the field black and dried out, like me I have gotten so very old no longer Lyuba just a -ba
Translated from Ukrainian by Oksana Maksymchuk and Max Rosochinsky
SUCH PEOPLE ARE CALLED NAKED
for Henri Michaux
you took off your t-shirt i pulled off my dress you unbuckled your belt i unhooked my brassiere you let down your pants and kicked off your socks i freed myself out of my panties, so sassy that it’s better to call them sassies and now we lie in bed two strips like two white bread loaves facing each other you touch my cheek with your hand you lower your hand on my neck you drive your fingers along my clavicle: -how nicely everything is made here! – you utter but suddenly from behind your shoulder your mom peeks and says, -Andryusha, did you wash your hands? you turn to face her, show your hands she offers you fruit compote and goes to the kitchen you turn back to me put your hand back where you stopped from the clavicle it slides down to my breasts softly as sea sand and then I feel my dad’s breath on my nape: -think with your head, baby, he whispers loudly i turn away from you and see his unshaved face quite close and reply that i always think with my head! i turn to you and already my hand slides along your chest and its thin hair bends under it and then behind your back the bed creaks: -Andryusha, have some fruit compote you turn away from me kiss her sonorously and say: mom, i want to be alone for a bit! and she replies, offended: it doesn’t look like you’re alone! and she goes somewhere again and now you are with me again and your hand on my stomach glides slowly down so it gets so close and so tender so it gets so and then i hear my grandmother’s croaking she says loudly into my back: you’re not a pure girl anymore – see how your glance changed! and i take your hand away from my belly turn halfway to my granny with the same hand of yours i straighten her purple kerchief and say loudly: i’m still untouched, gran, and will remain untouched forever! i turn back to you and here, over your shoulder an old lady in a yellow kerchief peeps this time, your granny: what female name finishes with a consonant, as if it was a man’s? – she asks the answer is my name but i’m silent and i take your hands away from my hips snow falls between us and like two toy soldiers we lie like this till morning and in the morning a cleaning lady comes throws away the snow mounds between us and i look into your green eyes for a long, long time and you look at my brown nipples very long then i say: let’s get undressed. and I take off, one by one: my dad my granny my mom my sister and you take off, one by one: your mom your brother your childhood friend your pick-up trainer and we now wear nothing at all such people are called naked
Translated from the Ukrainian by Svetlana Lavochkina
NOTE
“Decomposition” first appeared in Words for War: New Poems from Ukraine (Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute/Academic Studies Press, 2017) and will be featured in Lyuba's forthcoming book of poetry in English translation Apricots of Donbas (Lost Horse Press, 2021).
“Such people are called naked” first appeared in The White Chalk Of Days: The contemporary Ukrainian Literature Series Antology (Academic Studies Pres, 2017) and will be featured in Lyuba’s forthcoming book of poetry in the English translation Apricots of Donbas (Lost Horse Press, 2021).
Lyuba Yakimchuk was born in Pervomaisk near Luhansk, the Ukraine, in 1985. She studied literature at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, and later worked as a journalist. She has authored two collections of poetry, MODA (2009), which was awarded the Vassily Simonenko Prize, and Apricots of Donbas (2015). She is also the recipient of the International Slavic Award for Poetry (2013). Her book in English is forthcoming this year by Lost Horse Press. She lives in Kiev.