“We have to destroy the idea of Ukrainian identity…. .the easiest and
shortest way to do that is by war and repression”
—Sergei Baryshnikov, Donetsk National Republic Parliament member
Prologue: Don’t Worry
As Russia’s first battalions attack Kharkiv,
her older sister calls from her home in Moscow.
“Don’t worry, Putin says this is his ‘Special Operation’—
it’s only military targets.”
“Good,” she says. “So please ask him
“why his Operation’s missile struck
your niece’s kindergarten.”
Primer
Babusya, beware!
It is no bumblebee
hovering above your house.
This sting is lethal.
*
On the horizon, a flock
approaches swiftly from the east:
Sound the alarm!
Take shelter!
*
Wailing sirens, screaming:
missile! incoming!
Pray the warnings
never come too late.
*
Darkness descends:
you survived another day, Babusya!
Darkness descends:
a new opportunity to die in your sleep!
Collateral Damage
“Others can now identify the type and caliber of weapon from its mere sound. But …we were just beginning to discover the meaning of war.”
—Victoria Amelina, Homo Oblivious
On the way home with a few provisions,
still clutching his plastic bag,
face down on the sidewalk
in a pool of blood.
Special Delivery: From Russia with Love
Cost: $3 million.
Weight: 4.5 tons.
Range: 500 kilometers.
Speed: 2000 kilometers per second.
Accuracy: 5 meter radius.
Payload: cluster bomb, fuel-air explosive, or bunker-buster.
Inscription (hand painted): “For the children.”
“The strike on Kramatorsk was a real beauty.”
—Colonel General Andry Karapolov on Russian TV:
“I bow my head to those who planned it.
Not a blow but a song.
My old military heart rejoices.”
Casualties: 63 killed (including 9 children),
150 injured (including 35 children).
Reaper
“…worm-ridden earth will fill my mouth and eyes
and roots will pierce through my body.”
—Miklos Radnoti, “War Diary” (Tr. Gina Gönczi)
Row upon row
Shoulder high sunflowers
Row upon row
bowed heads heavy
Row upon row
with unharvested seeds:
Who worked these fields?
A different reaper.
2.
Wooden crosses
on mounds of earth
in neatly spaced rows
far as the eye can see:
regimented in death
where in life chaos reigned.
Fresh Recruits
They exchange:
prison uniforms for flak jackets,
shovels for assault rifles,
pick axes for bayonets
walled courtyard for crater-pocked fields.
They’re paroled from barred cells to trenches:
starry sky overhead
and predator drones with night vision.
“They come in waves”/ storming trenches.
“They come in waves,”/ overwhelming defenders.
“They come in waves.” / charging across fields littered with corpses
headlong into the meat grinder.
When their assault succeeds
and they occupy the enemy’s trenches,
next to the dead they find cups of tea
still warm.
Bloodland
Gravediggers excavate yawning pits
to inter the bodies left behind
by the retreating enemy.
They take care
not to disturb the bones
of those massacred in previous wars.
Photograph
Z–Russian military symbol for victory.
Not a single house or barn was left standing
after the Russians retreated:
branches snapped, trees stripped of leaves…
Surviving villagers who come out of hiding encounter
the results of the carnage: corpses
amid the rubble of flattened buildings and charred cars,
not only their neighbors and defenders,
but enemy soldiers, too,
the ones their comrades—fleeing in haste—left behind.
These, the villagers gathered up for a photograph
first arranging them in the shape of a Z.
Gift
Don’t be surprised, Babusya,
to find the homestead you had to flee
illuminated now:
moonlight through holes in the roof.
Come summer, the shattered door, burst windows,
shell pocked walls
will provide ventilation.
And your garden plot, Babusya,
won’t need digging: already cratered, trenched,
it’s well prepared for spring planting.
And, Babusya, don’t be surprised by the gift
the retreating Russians left at your front gate:
that charred T4 tank signed with a Z.
”Bombweed”
“Blitzed areas of London brimmed with pink swaths of rosebay willow herb, ‘bombweed’ as it was nicknamed.”—The New York Times
Just like London after the Blitz,
when winter gave way
to sunlit spring,
so one day in Kharkiv,
wildflowers will bloom
among the rubble.
And yet, and yet,
years after this war has ended,
survivors will still tremble
at the flash and bang of bottle rockets
commemorating heroic victories.
Mark Pawlak is the author of ten poetry collections, most recently Away Away (Arrowsmith Press, 2024), and the memoir My Deniversity: Knowing Denise Levertov (MadHat Press, 2021). His poems have been translated into German, Japanese, Polish, and Spanish, and have been performed at Teatr Polski in Warsaw. In English, his poems and prose have appeared widely in anthologies such as The Best American Poetry and Blood to Remember: American Poets on the Holocaust, among many other places.