5 Poems by Mykyta Ryzhykh
Love
1
to love you like a magnolia
to love you more than a magnolia
to love you instead of a magnolia
2
on both shores only you
but i am not a ship not a sea and
no longer a man
3
yes you are magnolia
float away
previously published in Trampoline
~~
Flight beyond the edge of a notebook page
1
Fear of heights
Fear of silence
Fear of birds
Keep these wings and fly
2
Strange birds descend from the branches
Onto the fire and the fire subsides
I, too, was once this bird
Erase me from the A4 sheet
Erase me from this non-existent sky
Of love
3
We will all die when the blackfish approaches
We will all die, and the blackfish will remain in our place and after us
The leaden ridges of cities will be covered with eternal snow
Lame hunchbacks will crawl out of the womb of history
They will drink our blood, embodied in the ocean
They will drink and become drunk
Our blood will be drained
The iron clouds melted
The blood clouds melted
Vomition mixed with soldiers in a comic book comes true
Previously published in The Gorko Gazette
~~
Any building I would start to build here turns into a prison
Maybe the problem is in the place itself,
in the cement and materials? Or maybe
it’s that I cannot distinguish between
the words house and building? Is the sky
really cruelly sharpened by birds?
Or is the problem that the planet and all
the roads are cruelly rounded and you are
forever forced to return back? In the end,
maybe the problem is that between two rivers
of loneliness, a cemetery covers with moss
and silence continues to grow. Or that I remember
too many names and have no right to forget.
Maybe it’s true, I do not remember the last
time I was happy, and the clock is like water
in one of two bitter rivers. Or maybe the problem
is me. And where all the postal birds have gone
from my eyelashes?
previously published in The Inflectionist Review
~~
What flows from the second hand of the clock
I say party but involuntarily I pronounce death
In each fold of the official flag lives a hungry belly
In each note of the official anthem lives a combat concussion
In each color of the official coat of arms are absorbed blood
I say sunrise but while I look at the sky it begins to get dark
In every official speech I hear the noise of a chainsaw in a dying garden
In each raised hand I seem to hear a cut vein on a tree branch
In each formulation the crunch of leaves or bones underfoot in autumn seeps through
I say stone but this stone like a fist means silence in the wind
The palm involuntarily opens like a flower dew falls from above and a bird flies in to drink from my hands
An iron crippled shot down bird drinks blood from my hands
I say bird but I mean the dead daughter of other people’s parents
In each feather there is a mysterious minty pain
In each sip the emptiness comes to life which we swam before than we were born
In each breath the fish wheezes which we were in our mother’s belly
I say fish and I mean the drowned silence in the form of which we came into this world as a stone
This world stole us at birth and brought us to its home
Now all the drowned have overcome their fear of swimming
And the blood like time flows from the second hand of a clock
previously published in The Inflectionist Review
~~
It was me
The river does not talk to the stone. I am silent together with the stone about the shadows and how their bodies, burdened with sound and smell, are reflected in these shadows. The stone does not argue, the stone does not understand, the stone will endure everything like a candle until the last trembling fiery drop. The shadows of birds cannot be confused with the shadows of buildings or animals. The shadows of people can be confused with anything from emptiness to a statue. The dead and newborns are also statues and their form (before and after) is unchanged. The stone wall of the house turns into ruins and bricks and stones again find humility. Moss will tell everything about a tear because all the tears of the world are just one drop in a stone sea screaming into silence. Shadows and roots drown in water (or in the shadow?) with cut-off hands. Monkeys sit on branches. Monkeys fall into cages. Monkeys don’t call their home a prison. People drown with their bodies cut off. People drown in themselves. They drown in their own crowd. And the river regains its shore. Dawn of dew. On the embankment, the dew has blossomed. God drowned us with the blood of the killed and wounded. God sharpened the knife. At night, a stranger stuck the knife into my back. Above the head of the stone sky, distant stars burn. And above my stone head drowned in the sky, the cosmos burns. I set it all on fire.
previously published in The Inflectionist Review
Copyright © 2026 Mykyta Ryzhykh
All Rights Reserved
#birds #death #fear #fish #love #prison #river #stone
