Tag Archives: Writings

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

et tu, amphora?

they said that i ought to be ready
conserve water for a rainy day
so i held my amphora steady
plunged the neck into the sauna bay

they said that i ought to be ready
conserve darkness for a blacker day
so i held my amphora steady
drew into the neck every bit of grey

they said that i ought to be ready
conserve the hours for a longer day
so i held my amphora steady
fed the neck final gasps of blood spray

what’s wetter, bleaker & more drawn out
than the death rattle of julius caesar
i’m really going to savour this
no one needs to crown another old geezer

by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2024

wormwood prayer

left behind
made level with the ground
this here is the zone of alienation
where our fleece was seared away
down to tender demon skin by
the afterburn

never were we made faithful
in your estimation
threaded instead down to the bone by
a tension of splayed tendons
hung out for worm & shame as
an afterthought

innocence is overrated
we guilty revere nothing
yet somehow still we yearn to fly

made to unspool here for why
have you ever feigned to care
fain have we not followed you true
& so our anima taps another vein
to scry beyond the sky for when
providence might let our carcass die

left behind so
make room for we in our dead life
afterburn so
torched earth abide our scattered bones
an afterthought so
let’s be real, call it empathy on fire

innocence is overrated
we guilty revere nothing
yet somehow we will learn to fly

by TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2024

TATI’s AND TONY’s DEAD POET TOUR // Hateful is the Dark-Blue Sky by Alfred Lord Tennyson

Hateful is the dark-blue sky,
Vaulted o’er the dark-blue sea.
Death is the end of life; ah, why
Should life all labor be?
Let us alone. Time driveth onward fast,
And in a little while our lips are dumb.
Let us alone. What is it that will last?
And things are taken from us, and become
Portions and parcels of the dreadful past.
Let us alone. What pleasure can we have
To war with evil? Is there any peace
In ever climbing up the climbing wave?
All things have rest, and ripen toward the grave
In silence, ripen, fall, and cease:
Give us long rest or death, dark death, or dreamful ease.

by ALFRED LORD TENNYSON (1809-1892)
Public Domain Poetry