Maksym Kryvtsov, ‘My head rolls from tree to tree’

trans. by 
Helena Kernan
 and 
Larissa Babij

***

My head rolls from tree to tree
like tumbleweed
or a ball
my severed hands
will sprout in spring as violets
my legs
will be pulled apart by cats and dogs
my blood
will stain the world a new shade of red
Pantone Human Blood
my bones
will reach into the earth
forming a skeletal frame
my bullet-riddled rifle
will rust
poor thing
my spare clothes and kit
will go to the new recruits
if only spring would hurry up
so I can finally
bloom
as a violet.

 

Translated by Helena Kernan and Larissa Babij. First posted by the author on his Facebook page on January 5, 2024, republished on: https://www.voice-of-soldiers-heart.org.ua

Cover Image for Legacies of Chornobyl

Legacies of Chornobyl

The explosion that destroyed the Chornobyl nuclear power plant on 26 April 1986 also reshaped political, ecological, and cultural landscapes around the world. This issue of the London Ukrainian Review marks the fortieth anniversary of the disaster and examines its evolving global impacts.

Sasha Dovzhyk
Cover Image for Nuclear Roulette: Serhii Plokhy in Conversation

Nuclear Roulette: Serhii Plokhy in Conversation

Author of The Nuclear Age, historian Serhii Plokhy, discusses how Chornobyl catalysed Ukrainian independence and reveals the nuclear industry’s structural vulnerabilities. The conversation explores how nuclear disasters transform politics across decades and geographies with a focus on the weaponisation of civilian nuclear infrastructure during Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Sasha Dovzhyk