Silence
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horrors of war
buried alive ground up with history stained with oil dead on all sides wrapped in red and brown flags and banners shackled by laws and murders pecked by birds like wooden days and endless cast iron nights we drink mother's bloody milk and this drink kills us eternity is like poison for children who have not learned to count in the dark the shadows of officers who will come to you and put you in shackles we will all die as unknown soldiers and unidentified corpses of prisoners because we are all prisoners so many years of chancelleries so many years of freedom and garbage what and who can change in a country where black crows bring corpses of fathers killed in Afghanistan in their beaks to babies' cradles and what does it mean to lose a war and what does it mean to live forever in war these hands can no longer be washed these candles can no longer be extinguished this body in the water can no longer be drowned change this country change this eternity smelling of ropes and necks tomorrow the blood will again become blood that no one will know about during this endless wedding night with death from every tree in this garden the original silence falls you gather this silence in the stump of your palm with fingers frozen to the bone and you collect this silence of the words with fingers frozen to the bone and you collect this silence in the stub and stump of a palm with frozen fingers shot through and through
Mykyta Ryzhykh is from Ukraine, now living in Tromsø, Norway. Nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Touchstone Prize. He is published many times in literary magazines іn Ukrainian and English: Tipton Poetry Journal, Stone Poetry Journal, Neologism Poetry Journal. His book Tombboy will be published in 2026 by Lost Telegram Press.