Vasyl Makhno
Vasyl Makhno Poems
After my third beer,
smoke rings all around
a long-haired sculptor,
...
each morning the jewish bakeries open up while it's still dark
the first thing that runs up to you - quick as a fox -
is the scent of cinnamon - beaten eggs with sugar -
to the brick synagogues - and this is the beginning of winter
...
Every rainbow drinks water - and fish fly in the wind.
Deep oceans of the world - black hole - dust of thought -
fish slip from our hands - in return for five loaves of breads,
in return for a sorrowful glance pale as a bleached sail.
...
For Ivan Drach
Like a heavy door - you close the Millennium
the snow of the past flies after us
like stones. And only the hills and the foxes
...
this local landscape - like a hawk -
in gray gloom; a diary of words
composed by the alphabet of language; the rest:
making coffee - jotting down expenses
...
For Vitalii Haida
Saint-John Perse's Ocean is the intention of dark lines
which have woven together into a hieroglyph of the name
of the river that flows into the pit of loneliness
...
the snow will arrive like a fox in a dream
white itself and the fox white
- and a fish in grain -
...
Vasyl Makhno Biography
Vasyl Makhno is a Ukrainian poet in New York, not an outsider there any more, but a grateful observer. In his own words, the move to the United States, where he has been living for five years now, happened rather unexpectedly. It doesn’t appear to be the case that he fled from any place or hurried to any particular destination. Perhaps it was this kind of ‘aimless’ emigration that saved Makhno the poet. His New York poetry proves that a Ukrainian poet abroad can not only exist, but also write. And write well at that. Makhno was born in the town of Chortkiv in the Ternopil region. His life began in a manner completely typical for a Ukrainian poet: interest in literature in secondary school, then study at the pedagogical institute in Ternopil, then graduate school. In 1995, he defended his doctoral dissertation on the topic of ‘The Artistic World of Bohdan-Ihor Antonych’, published as a book in 1999. The love of this Ukrainian poet for Antonych was also a rather typical phenomenon: almost every Ukrainian poet, especially of the younger generation, has acknowledged a debt to him. For that reason, Antonych and the Modernist tradition in general – both Ukrainian and global – are more than apparent in his work.)
The Best Poem Of Vasyl Makhno
At A Bar Called GÖSSER
After my third beer,
smoke rings all around
a long-haired sculptor,
complains about the golden shadows of women.
Rivers of talk foam and creep
around this glassy shore,
flow in golden drops
on this dirty table.
There are certain voices I remember.
A torso lean as an orchard in spring
with smells of humid darkness,
sticky blood of pines,
every man's home,
bodies of desirable women.
That woman standing in the window
swaying in the foam of my bitter beer:
Aphrodite of the tavern.
Has it already come back?
: the warm words
: the bitter beer
: the rough lines of that horrible body?
Translation: Kristina Lucenko
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