Gone! and they return no more,
But they leave a light in the heart;
The murmur of waves that kiss a shore
Will never, I know, depart.
Gone! yet with us still they stay,
And their memories throb through life;
The music that hushes or stirs to-day,
Is toned by their calm or strife.
Gone! and yet they never go!
We kneel at the shrine of time:
‘Tis a mystery no man may know,
Nor tell in a poet’s rhyme.
by ABRAM JOSEPH RYAN (1839-1886)
Public Domain Poetry
Lay down, lay down, antlers fallen from
the crown. A king falls, a doe dies, and wise
the mouse who makes his house in the moss!
O the cost of this solitary life —
paid out in blood and mountaintops, the coin
of misunderstandings. The warbler
cannot understand the mockingbird’s
almost-speech. I’m tired. I’m talking in code.
The deer’s wild heart beats its mighty last.
This too shall pass. The vultures crack the bones.
by WHITECATGROVE
© All rights reserved 2025
fie, oh fie for shame
god neglects to dry the tears
of fae, fie for shame
fain would fae grow tall
with all that dotage entail
when time doth reap all
the envigored life assail
turneth youth to rufous grail
fie, oh fie for shame
that void would swallow all tears
of fae, fie we fall
by TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2024
don’t consider every poet a messiah
but, rather, a pretty sounding liar
the snivelling, hysterical jeremiah
was one such example
don’t consider every poet a liar
but, rather, a pathetic pariah
who’ll burn in the almighty’s holy fire
fuelled by his urine sample
don’t consider every poet a pariah
but, rather, a copious arse licking choir
worshipping elites with sexual desire
thirty pieces of silver will be ample
by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2024
Down through the ages, Russia has tried to kill the Ukrainian identity. They have done everything to present Ukraine as the rural outskirts of the ‘great, educated and advanced’ Russian empire. But the ones who proclaimed themselves enlighteners were merely butchers, murderers. They did everything they could to erase Ukrainian culture, traditions, and even the Ukrainian language itself.
And they are still doing this, even now, literally. During the last eleven years of war, Russia has killed hundreds of people of literature. Writers, poets, translators, editors, publishers and librarians. Ukrainian men and women. As you read these words, others are left to disappear in an unread draft forever.
There is a project called ‘Nedopysani‘ (‘Unfinished‘ in English). It’s a memorial site for people of literature who will never be able to put that final dot in their notebook, who will never be able to take into their hands their first published book. And so, this is our hard and painful mission. This is what we must do for them. It is inevitable.
Today, we present the first instalment of our new translation series, ‘Words Live On’. We have done our best, and we hope that it will speak to our Dear Readers in a way that cold, clinical war statistics cannot.
Glory to Ukraine! To our heroes — glory!
we all will die
so it seems, that life has no meaning.
all meaning is in us, in a human head.
we set the vector of meaning on our own.
that’s why we invented a god.
based in
our image and after our likeness.
by ourselves
in ourselves
but i assure you
living – mandatory
ми всі помрем
і схоже, що у житті нема сенсу.
усі сенси у нас, в людській голові.
ми самі задаєм вектор смислу.
тому і придумали бога.
на основі
образу і подобі.
самі по собі
з себе
але запевняю
жити – треба
Original poem by HENNADII HAVRYLIV
Translation by TETIANA ALEKSINA
© All rights reserved 2025
unbolt me 