POETRY
PROSE
I bring you, Lord, a burnt soul, Shot by bullets, crippled by a brother, Spoiled by tanks, abandoned by Jews, Washed with tears, marked by fields, But not doomed.
God, let us be tall in our dreams, In love - prudent, in truth - prophets, In battle - fair, in speech - deep, In anger - sober, in goals - with a hundred steps, But not cruel.
Don't let it become stale and indifferent, Because we have already woken up, we will make up for it! And the soul that wanders through ravines, puddles, And the land that we recklessly plow, Sow, God, roses...
"And Abraham said: Maybe at least ten will be found there? And the Lord answered: I will not destroy even for the sake of ten!" (Genesis 18:32)
God, maybe in this plagued land are there still a handful of righteous people left? We have sinned. We got together, divided into groups, we were crazy to ourselves...
Lord! And if there are only five dozen of them? You will not destroy them together with those sinners? Yes, we thought only for ourselves, principalities and fortunes... You, Sodom, were ready to forgive without mentioning... Are we worse?
God, maybe there aren't that many of them? Maybe they fell asleep, exhausted by the struggle for the truth... Maybe in Europe, on earnings, a foreigner holds, Do they work for another farm in the Moabite fields?
Wait, Lord, do not punish the prodigal land... I will go and look for these righteous people. I call on the Ukrainian steppes, I will ask on the streets Don't punish... I beg...
Only... Do I recognize it?
Maybe there are even less of them. Well... let's say... ten... Everyone else got sick of lies and cunning, They caress themselves, their stomach and passions, And they are building their Babylonian kingdom...
Do not punish, Lord... We traded you an orphan, A widow... Zhurby... By myself...
I will take a lantern from Diogenes, walk through the alleys, squares, Maidans, gray zones, Chernobyl thickets, I will look into the petrified faces of passers-by and I will look for the righteous... Or... at least similar ones...
We have been slaves for so long. We are drunk with freedom. More than once they sold their country, their honor, their language, we fought, we won, we raised holy kleinods, went forward, and... tripped over themselves again...
Do not punish, Merciful... Remind us of the Easter mystery. You once forgave Nineveh...
There is still a name, but the city is gone... Buildings supported the sky with ribs... Smoke from fires obscures the sun and the silence is cut by the roar of the yasa.
The streets are still turning gray with asphalt, and there are no more people on the streets... The deadly shadow of mute hopelessness the dead city embraces...
A spark still warms life in the cellars. Half-human half-dead wax face... The ruins are blackened with a predatory point like a towel tattered with napalm.
There is still a name — on maps and in the news, on the first columns in bold format, and the city dies in the house, having gone through a hell of millions of volts.
Raped, torn to pieces, killed at close range by an enemy tank... The Ukrainian city writhed crucified, Beelzebub smiled evilly.
And God was silent, and the world was speechless with horror. And the wind drove the ashes somewhere into the ravine... A fresh plate was white with leprosy in every block and yard...
But there is a name, which means there is hope. The living hold memories like swords. The resurrected city will turn green again, and sleep peacefully at night.
Guns will be dreaming for a long time, a bitter, painful sting will remain... But there will be a son, and there will be a young mother, and there will be a city baptized by fire.
Oh, how inspired she danced! The king clapped his hands heartily. She launched her feminine charms — And the starry time for her has come.
And Herod liked the girl! He was generous, truly like a king. "Half-kingdom of ladies!" - It's not enough. "Ask for what you want!" - Indeed, a gift of fate.
But what? Just don't make it cheaper. Thoughts are scattered from happiness... To the mother - she knows what to ask for, She will open any locks.
She knows the services and prices well, He will achieve his goal, even if Rome burns down. She will go over heads, through walls, And the prey will not fall from its claws.
So what to ask for: gold or land? Ah, how many fabulous dreams are in the head! ... Dark eyes squinted ominously: "Ask for Ivan's head!"
The king fell silent after hearing the strange speech. The nobles were surprised. But he is faithful to the royal word - And the severed head was brought...
What kind of rage should one have in one's soul And kindle such a sinful lust, So that, forgetting gold and palaces, Prophetic head in the half-kingdom will appreciate!
It is not surprising to see something like this: A prophet among the people is the same as in war. At all times, in dinars or hryvnias, Prophetic heads have always been valued.
***
Life has always been difficult. You are like a genie in a corked bottle. And that bottle is in an endless sea of problems... And for the sake of fate, you will not become a blacksmith...
It is difficult to live without talent, It's hard to live a lazy person. Don't envy the sugarless And it is not easy for a capricious person. It's hard to live in slavery, But not with honey and with freedom. It is difficult in monarchies-counties, Needless to say, in a dictatorship. It's hard for a married man to live It is twice as difficult for a bachelor. Do not envy the rich man Well, the poor man is always crying...
But in all generations and eras, And to kings, and slaves, and buffoons, Those to whom all roads are crushed, And to whom they are paved with gold, Or mud, or silky grass, The most difficult always was to live on conscience
Under the thirsty sky the silence of God hung, as if in a gelatinous fog frozen cranberry screams.
The son cried out to the Father in the voice of an abandoned child, rejected by the earth and not accepted by heaven he was lost in the silence.
The sky was silent Calvary was silent, friends were silent Saints and sinners were silent...
The grave was silent at the foot of the shameful mountain...
But then the resurrection morning spoke. Loud. Authoritatively. It is possible to win.
...On the Calvary of my heart, on Golgotha of my people, in the cemetery of our hopes the silence of God froze.
Prayers are like smoke in bad weather, destinies creep and mothers' pleas get lost in the fog of pessimism.
"God, our God, why have You forsaken us?"
The sky is silent the truth is silent justice is silent...
But I know one thing: after the silence of God завжди настає Resurrection morning.
A difficult fate befell Ukraine: Mongols, yoke, liberation battles, Foreign princes, traitors to themselves, And black clouds plow the blue sky.
The song of the cranberry mournfully cries: There is no talent in his country. Ukrainians are going to the gray valley, On the way, taking memories of the heat.
Tossed up like that gray cuckoo In foreign nests of child exiles. They went to look for happiness in people, Because having a daughter and a son will not warm you.
Foreign countries enrich themselves, Non-native land is irrigated by sweat. And bent crosses grow, Sprinkled with a Ukrainian tear.
Roots are biting into someone else's soil. Already young greenery is the morning of the meeting. She will already throw off the pain from her shoulder, And the old seed will grow with new life.
Is it good here? Is it easy? Isn't it bitter? But to get used to a sick soul? Even though we trample our native aphids, We are emigrants everywhere, we are only guests.
We will die everywhere. There will be no fluff anywhere Wet land. She is a stranger to us. It is a sinful limit for the body, After which we need to lift our spirits.
We are emigrants. Fate scatters All over the world of exiles of the earth. I work hard with the sweat of my brow And we raise our eyes to the sky, to eternity.
We are citizens of an eternal country, What a star shines for us from afar. We are emigrants. This is a foreign land. And there - the Father is waiting for us... As a daughter and a son...
***
I am sitting on the pyre of hopes and expectations, I rake the ashes into my scorched palms. The soul burns with pain and sighs And the loss beats doom in the temple.
As my own fate, I will clear the dust — Everything burned: the future and the past. I dried up all over, became like a dream, And feelings helplessly fell asleep.
Ash flows through the fingers like water, I'm sifting through the memories. Only a tear, like a poor orphan, Fell into the ground with the sincerity of a child.
And she wet the fire, and on it The ground was broken by impotence and debauchery. And a miracle happened - out of the dust of hopelessness A shoot broke through. Leaves like hands
He touched his face with his palms. And the ashes were consoled in the spring. And the warm look of the good Father I saw how clear the sky was above me.
Life flourished and blossomed all around Over the fact that the waves were still ashes. And the ashes sprouted wildly Seeds of faith, courage and peace.
In the fire, bulat is tempered for twists, Oak trees strengthen their roots in storms. My soul is courageous in the winds, And spring grows in the course of autumn.
And the sky will abundantly return the loss The growth of faith, wisdom and strength. Let everything sinful and earthly burn, Let the winds fill the sails.
I will disperse the ashes of despair and pity - Let him become a fertilizer for faith. And I will shed tears of loss in gratitude, Which the Lord gives us without measure.
"The ashes of Claas knock on my heart" (Charles de Coster)
"We remember!" "I remember!" The tense rhythm of white stanzas... A cold blanket envelops the snow Fields of Ukrainian Golgothas...
"I remember..." Sorry, Ukraine I can't say those words... Because I remember fields of white foam And full of parental care.
I remember the scrambled eggs A jug of milk, pies. Like on New Year's orange night Snow was staring into the window.
I am with my family in a rich man's house A rich evening awaited And gifts from mom and dad... I remember… I always remembered...
Only the ashes hit his chest: "Mom, give me bread..." - "No..." The amplitude curve rested in the sky Human pain... Winter...
"We remember!" "I remember!" Candles... And - the mundaneness of conversations... sorry my people Sorry, native land, That I tread lightly today To the ashes of Ukrainian Golgothas.
"To live, you need sunshine, freedom and flowers" (Hans Christian Andersen)
There are barricades here. Tires and cobblestones. Sandbags, iron-rusty forest. Like an old war film History called for an encore.
Here freedom was born in the flame Yesterday she walked proudly to her full height. Here is a free tribe, young and beardless, The future of the city was forged in the fire.
And now it's spring. And barricades. And crowds of people — alive and well. Museum of freedom, courage and - betrayal... And memories of "our" and "those"...
The house stands black and dead, In the empty windows - a burnt cry... Yesterday's hell is now green And the cloves reddened in the flame.
It's like saying: the poor and the rich They came from Donetsk, Kyiv, the Carpathians... Flowery carpet on dirty asphalt Ustocrat is more expensive than Persian.
There was no place for the flowers to lie down. And people carried them, carried, carried... Maidan, which was doomed to burn, He rose like a phoenix with flowers from the mist.
Millions of flowers. Like sheaves. In the knee Heartfelt "thank you" and painful "sorry". They have mothers' tears and a child's smile, And the gratitude of the ruined centuries.
The square blossomed. In the flowers of the barricade. The lamps are quietly shedding tears... If you could give advice in this hell, Even after hell, we will remain human.
Just don't forget, don't trample It is a sea of flowers in the ashes of barricades. They ask, and we have to answer And for Khrushchev and for the cherry orchard,
For the native land, for the father and for the son, That sprinkled the peaceful land with blood, For the flowers laid by Ukraine On the Maidan smelling of will.
What do you dream at night, soldier In that glassy war, When tomorrow you go to die, Where is "Hradi" roaring overhead?
Mother will come to the roar of hell And will cover dreams with a blanket... In a dugout on a wet bar You can hear the hum of peaceful forests.
A daughter dreams of gilded braids. The son takes his first steps... And pears that hang until frost, The warm comfort of native walls.
Peaceful sky, father's well, And the beloved runs through the grass... There is a war here, there are battles, but how do you sleep! And the hour will pass like a moment.
But how to return from hell, To rest in peaceful dreams, Everything will be a bitter memory This is your war yesterday.
A clean blanket will smell of smoke, And every night you will go into battle... And in the morning, the scars will fade The thought will wake up: "Am I still alive?"
They will wake up "Hradi" with sharp cheers. And the beloved is not sleeping, she is sad... And at night he will be shot That glass alien war...
"In the beginning was the Word... through Him all things arose..." (Gospel of John 1:3)
God laid the Word as the foundation of the universe. The stars grew in the cradle of the Word. From the ruins of chaos in the fog of the primeval ages Fractal harmonies were formed.
And matter woke up from sleep, Galaxies lined up by rank. Comets in the constellations of the first furrow They paved the virgin space.
And God spoke the Word - and the earth blossomed, The heavens turned blue from the Word. And the first breeze, blowing from afar, Orlam checked the strength of the wings.
Man from dust came to life from the Word And the Spirit of God dwelt in the earthly breast. And a river flowed from a living source - River of life and embodied miracle.
And the day gilded Adam's bright face, And the first Word under the vault of heaven The first man heard from the Father: «Благословляю!»
The poor man's barn was leaning. The old men creaked at the door. The distant din of the city fearfully passed by in the corner. The Holy Family prayed over their son after dinner. The donkeys to the left of the manger all huddled together.
And the hay smelled like a field. The sheep were sleeping in the fold. And in the nursery, the new resident watched his first dreams. He was so small. Along the clay side His little legs haven't taken a step yet.
He smiled questioningly, his eyes trembled slightly, Like a sleepy lamb sleeping by the manger. They appeared together at one o'clock in the morning Just in that pen where the old donkey was sleeping.
The little lamb was dozing, innocent and docile, He did not know what awaited him in the future. He did not know how fate would cruelly throw him, What passes are high and steep.