Tag Archives: Writing

GUEST POST // Cavalry by Whitecatgrove

They say: Be afraid. I regard the nettles
with their hard sting. The toothed hawthorn. Brambles
that grab your pantleg and refuse to let go.

Songbirds strafe the mighty hawk, drive him
branch to branch, then out of the sky. A swan
flexes angel wings and breaks a man’s arm.

A pebble does not relent, nor a splinter.
Thorns of a white rose can topple a king.
They say: Be afraid but the maddened doe

lashes with sharp hooves and the hunter goes
hungry. A cavalry of geese arrives
and no nest will be raided by serpents.

by WHITECATGROVE
© All rights reserved 2025

TATI’S TRANSLATIONS // Young Ukrainian Poets: Kateryna Dashevets

Dear Readers, today we present to you the last instalment of our Young Ukrainian Poets feature. We like to believe that over time you have fallen in love with this and have therefore waited for each new post with crippling anticipation. After all, your likes and comments speak for themselves. (Our warmest wishes to Dolly whose comments especially inspired us to keep going!)

It was a fresh new breeze, our feature on young Ukrainian poets, don’t you think? Well, young, but never naïve. The war has changed the lives of all Ukrainians with one terrible, galvanising flick. The ones who yesterday enjoyed life, their first love, their first taste of booze and their first joint, are soldiers today. Our young Ukrainians took up arms and went to war to protect their Motherland from the imperialist fantasies of their crazy neighbouring lunatics. Why? To prove their right to be Ukrainians. To prove their right to simply be.

So, it is the end. But it is also the beginning. We will meet more of them soon, our young Ukrainian poets, in a new feature on unbolt.me. Stay tuned for that, won’t you?

Grecian free verse

After the divorce Hera escaped for a retreat at Argos
Swim in youthful springs, restore thoughts their chastity
Lay on an old sunbed to other women’s splashing
Who were waiting for therapeutic muds
Hiding behind sunglasses
From their housemaids
Hera thought gosh how long ago
My lands weren’t watered with bounteous and heavy rainfall
How long weren’t they fed with heat lightnings, fresh and steady winds didn’t rush
This jackass could only
Turn into a cuckoo
And grope my ass by surprise
He skimped on thunder and lightning for me
Like I skimp on mud for those hens
Quietness is broken with the clank of utensils
The clamour and laugh of soaked guests, eaten by siesta
The sacred bath is being readied for Friday’s party
Somewhere in the west of nature, away from the all-inclusive fuss
Sipping the late sun, like tequila sunrise, under the apple tree
Reclining, Zeus chills
Zeus eats ripe apples
Because this, maybe, is the only thing Hera hasn’t yet found, that he has snaffled
From the list of jointly acquired stuff
In their thousand-year marriage
And Zeus thought of course that he’s a fool and goof
How he skimped on lightning for his woman, how he scrimped on rainfall and spared the thunder
So she fed him with silence
For breakfast lunch but not for dinner
Because before their sleep they feasted with the heaviest concrete tedium
That wasn’t eaten up by erosion
Of the thousand-year Olympic marriage
Well everything’s alright Zeus snorted in his moustache
The real Hera is as she shall be
Loves violently
The Sun is down, and Zeus targets it with an apple core, like the needle of a dart
Getting 50 points, he wins and turns into a cuckoo
And flies to Argos

Давньогрецький верлібр

Після розлучення Гера втекла на ретрит до Аргоса
Скупатися у струмках молодості, повернути думкам незайманість
Лежати на старому топчані під хлюпотіння інших жінок
Які очікували лікувальних грязей
Ховатись за темними окулярами
Від своїх покоївок
Гера думала господи як же давно
Мої землі не зрошувалися щедрою й сильною зливою
Як довго не частувались вони блискавицями, як не гуляли свіжі й стійкі вітри
Він тільки й умів цей телепень
Що перекидуватись зозулею
Й хапати за дупу мене зненацька
Він для мене жалів гріму й блискавки
Як я жалію для тьоток багнюки
Тишу порушує брязкіт начиння
Гомін і сміх змоклих гостей, з’їдених сієстою
Священна купальня готується до п’ятничної вечірки
Десь на природі на заході, далеко від метушні олл-інклюзивів
Ковтаючи пізнє сонце, наче текілу санрайз, під яблунею
Напівлежачи, чілить Зевс
Зевс їсть наливні яблука
Бо це, напевно, єдине, до чого Гера не ще знає, що він дібрався
Зі списку нажитого спільно
У цьому тисячолітньому шлюбі
І Зевс звісно ж думав який він дурак і лох
Як він шкодував блискавиць для своєї жінки, як жалів розливних дощів і скупився на грім
От вона й годувала його мовчанням
На сніданок обід тільки не на вечерю
Бо перед сном вони споживали важкезну бетонну втому
Яку не роз’їла ерозія
Тисячолітнього олімпійського шлюбу
Ну все правильно засміявся собі в вуса Зевс
Гера вона така
Любить жостко
Сонце заходить, і Зевс цілить у нього огризком, як дротиком в дартсі
Вибиваючи 50 очків, він виграє й перекидується зозулею
І летить на Аргос

Original poem by KATERYNA DASHEVETS
Translation by TETIANA ALEKSINA
© All rights reserved 2025

TATI’s & TONY’s DEAD POET TOUR // The Way Her Silky Garments Undulate by Charles Baudelaire

The way her silky garments undulate
It seems she’s dancing as she walks along,
Like serpents that the sacred charmers make
To move in rhythms of their waving wands.

Like desert sands and skies she is as well,
As unconcerned with human misery,
Like the long networks of the ocean’s swells
Unfolding with insensibility.

Her polished eyes are made of charming stones,
And in her essence, where the natures mix
Of holy angel and the ancient sphinx,

Where all is lit with gold, steel, diamonds,
A useless star, it shines eternally,
The sterile woman’s frigid majesty.

by CHARLES BAUDELAIRE (1821-1867)
Public Domain Poetry

GUEST POST // a song for no one listening by Lesbihonest

i feel most like myself with my lipstick smudged
headphones on
wind in my hair like a prayer half said
the sky’s bleeding peaches and cigarette smoke
and i swear
god has been ghosting me again

i light one up with trembling hands
flick the ash like it means something
like im someone
the musics soft
but it drowns out the memory of her laugh
almost

theres no one watching
but i still pose
like the world is a movie
and im the girl who never makes it out of the last scene

smoke drips from my lips like secrets
i will never say out loud
i dont know who im supposed to be
but at golden hour
i almost remember

and i keep dancing with ghosts in the glow of the streetlights
kissing memories i shouldve let go
i wear heartbreak like a starlet
but no one ever shows to the show
sunsets the only thing that stays
so i let it paint me red and gold

by LESBIHONEST
© All rights reserved 2025

TATI’S TRANSLATIONS // Young Ukrainian Poets: Mykola Humeniuk

Literary classics aren’t always created by the greying elder statesmen and women of the writing world. You know the ones. They’re all wise and wrinkly and impassive, and woe betide the scholar who dares mount an honest critique of their bodies of work.

You see, literary classics are also written by upstart youngsters. These youngsters are full of vitality and creativity. They live fully awake and fully aware during these very difficult times. Nothing escapes their notice and they’re unafraid to share what they really think. They walk among us right now, breathing, smiling and crying, loving and hating, experiencing the full range of their humanity without apology.

This series presents names that you won’t find in textbooks or on Wikipedia, but these are the very youngsters who are creating modern Ukrainian literature right now. Trust us, you will want to check them out because it’s only a matter of time before they become household names. When we go back to these writers in two hundred years, we have no doubt that they’ll be mentioned in the same breath as luminaries such as Taras Shevchenko and Lesya Ukrainka.

heart-throat

remember
my rabid hand
fiddled in your dog’s jaws
ragged fingers fondled ticklishly
wickered with dry sinews
the worn nail’s gums

no matter which hand
then filling with saliva
no matter which foam
a pet cytherea crawling out
if now one is left
with four fingers

varenyky or pierogi
the stomach can’t see
a pinky or a thumb
the dog’s stomach won’t remember
maybe should give the other hand
or take away a stubborn heart

let’s count on fingers
won’t give this, and won’t give this
won’t give this, and won’t give that
and this the dog
nom

on your street
kids shaped a song
there lived a four-fingered boy
the fifth one was cut from the leg
the toe was screwed on to the hand
what a weirdo ahahaha

i don’t care
i have a heart in my stomach
and two pinkies
on each hand

серце-гїд

пам’ятаєш
моя скажена рука
борсалась у пащі собаки твоєї
кудлаті пальці лоскітливо гладили
обплітали сухо жилами
стерті ясна нігтів

байдуже яка рука
тоді наливалася слиною
байдуже з якої піни
видибала ручна кіприда
коли тепер зоставсь
чотирипалий

вареники чи pierogi
шлунок не бачить
мізинець чи великий
собачий шлунок не запам’ятає
чи може дати другу руку
аби забрати вперте серце

давай лічить на пальцях
цього не дам й цього не дам
цього не дам і цей не дам
а цей собако
гам

у твоєму дворі
діти пісню склали
був хлопчак чотирипалий
п’ятий зрізали з ноги
прикрутили п’ятий палець
ну й дивак ги-ги ги-ги

мені байдуже
маю в шлунку серце
і по два мізинці
на кожній руці

Original poem by MYKOLA HUMENIUK
Translation by TETIANA ALEKSINA
© All rights reserved 2025