Serhiy Zhadan
translated from the Ukrainian by John Hennessy and Ostap Kin
“There’s too much politics in everything, just too much”
There’s too much politics in everything, just too much.
Life doesn’t need that many amendments.
Poets push politics into life
like a fist into a boxing glove.
As gentle readers complain:
politics again, they’re writing about it again.
There’s too much politics in everything, readers complain,
let’s talk about the sky above the city.
Such a beautiful high sky this year.
Let’s talk about how it reflects
in a woman’s eye.
Good, let’s talk about the sky in a woman’s eye.
A dead woman’s eye, which in the morning
reflects migratory birds,
and at night reflects the northern constellations.
It’s red from the hot early evening,
it has rainbows from morning rains,
the eye that watches from the perspective of death—
let’s talk about it.
Or let’s talk about the future.
In the future there will be a high gorgeous sky.
Our children will be stronger than we are.
Why don’t poets talk about the fierce
carelessness of children?
That’s how it is—our children know well the value of citizenship.
Now our children, given the choice between trust and safety,
will always opt for a dry shelter.
Why don’t poets talk to them?
Why are poets better on corpses?
Why are they better at justifying
the helplessness of grown ups?
Let’s talk with those who at least survived.
Since we didn’t manage to come to terms with the dead.
Since we didn’t have the chance to argue with the hanged or choked.
How can we talk about politics in a country
whose own language hurts the gums?
The most accessible manifesto is the sliced meat
laid out in markets every morning like newspapers.
The most convincing rhyme is the monotonous
machine gun fire which finishes off
wounded animals.
Everyone was warned.
Everyone knew the conditions of the agreement.
Everyone knew they would have to pay a high price.
Say now that you have had enough of politics.
Talk about sunny horizons.
The last snow melts.
The most terrifying books are being written.
The country, like a river, returns to its banks,
deepens its channel,
painfully comes to accommodate navigation.