my poetry in English

I'm very greatful to Nina Murray, Roman Ivashkiv and Natasha Kovaliova for doing the translation of my texts into English. Here are some of them:

Verbal Jazz

inside Keiko Matsui's fingers make sounds ring

outside the window the rustle of rain

a May kind of rain fresh and untamed

you hung up--for the first time

today

and I still had things to say

I rubbed mascara across my face

and listened to the rain because what

could be more important

than the whisper of something alive

against something dead

while the time runs its course

its current washes my ocean's atolls

and the rain never asking permission of May

sweeps the small blooms of chesnuts

all the way to the thresholds of heaven

I think I may have cried with the pain

and you simply put the phone down

not a word from the sky

Translated from Ukrainian by Nina Murray

***

Every autumn

I buy a new over-the-shoulder bag

but somehow

the contents remain the same:

September’s hankies,

crumpled notes,

a worn address book,

a teacher’s red pen,

the cell

my green wallet

thick with thin air,

scribbles on an envelope like a treasure map,

a bit of sad of sadness,

a few jokes,

a jar of memory preserves,

a book in the Latin alphabet,

thoughts in Cyrillic,

a pocket rain poncho

painted with poppies.

As always—a mess,

typical

for every thing that contains

a woman’s soul.

I don’t know what to do with my hands.

It’s autumn.

Translated from Ukrainian by Nina Murray