Ticket to Dream
.
Every second-hand store resembles a large airplane,
where passengers from Western Europe
are trying hard to play Eastern Europeans
with endless discussions of politics,
with posters “For our freedom and yours,”
with fatigue caused by poor nutrition,
with a choking smell of poverty
that unmistakably marks a foreigner
always fearing to state the incorrect purpose of the visit.
In fact, all dreams were made in China
so we could afford the ticket.
.
кожен секонд-хенд схожий на великий літак
в якому пасажири з Західної Європи
корчать з себе східноєвропейців
з вічними розмовами про політику
з плакатами «за нашу і вашу свободу»
з втомою від поганого харчування
з задушливим запахом бідності
за яким в тобі безпомилково впізнають іноземця
що завжди боїться назвати неправильну мету візиту
насправді всі мрії виготовлені в Китаї
щоб у нас вистачило грошей на квиток
.
The Land of Fear
.
You cut your hair sickly short as if
preparing your head for something dreadful.
Something more dreadful than life, death, war,
or things you could never even imagine,
more dreadful than things you could never recall anymore.
There is no place to hide in this land of fear,
neither a shelter nor a crack
nor a corner of the memory’s labyrinth.
This is how a tired Minotaur awaits Theseus
on a perfectly shaped ancient Greek vase.
.
робиш собі хворобливо коротку зачіску
ніби готуєш голову до чогось страшного
страшнішого за життя за смерть за війну
за все що ти навіть не міг собі уявити
за все що ти вже ніколи згадати не зможеш
бо в цій країні страху нема де сховатися
в жодному укритті в жодній шпарині
в жодному закутку лабіринту пам’яті
так втомлений Мінотавр очікує на Тезея
на давньогрецькій вазі досконалої форми
.
Iya Kiva, a Ukrainian poet, translator, journalist, and member of Pen Ukraine, is currently a refugee from Donetsk due to the Russian-Ukrainian war. She is the author of two poetry collections Farther from Heaven (2018), The First Page of Winter (2019), and We will awaken as others: discussions with contemporary Belarus authors about the past, the present, and the future of Belarus (2021), a book of interviews with Belarusian writers about the protests in Belarus. Her poems have been translated into more than 25 languages. She has received numerous literary awards in Ukraine, including the LitAkcent Award, the Nestor the Chronicler Award, Metaphora Translator’s Award.
Yuliya Musakovska was born in 1982 in Lviv, Ukraine. She is an award-winning poet, translator, and member of PEN Ukraine. She is the author of five poetry collections in Ukrainian, The God of Freedom (2021), Men, Women and Children (2015), Hunting the Silence (2014), Masks (2011), Exhaling, Inhaling (2010). Her poems have been translated into many languages, such as English, German, Spanish, Italian, Polish, Lithuanian, Chinese, Hebrew, etc. A translator of contemporary Ukrainian poetry into English, she has received numerous literary awards in Ukraine, including Krok Publishing House’s DICTUM Prize, the Smoloskyp Poetry Prize, and the Ostroh Academy Vytoky Award.
