SurVision Magazine
An
international online magazine that
publishes Surrealist poetry
in English.
Issue Six
VICTORIA CHERNIAKHIVSKA
Love
he broke a twig off me
as if I were a lilac in the botanic garden
he took me away for the night –
and something incomprehensible emerged between us
promptly becoming very clear, as we saw eye to eye,
and my cuppa tasted of cinnamon for the whole month,
and so I wonder whether I was guilty
or it was love resembling a twenty-seat minibus,
with room for another ten standing.
Until the Last Moment
he raises his knees high,
sometimes he stoops, and it suits him fine,
I'm used to it;
my conscience has been reproaching me for two weeks
for wearing blue shoes and not the orange ones
seats in the metro train have somehow become warmer,
the trusting glass is still afraid of being touched,
the number of elderly people has diminished,
the number of the autumn ones has gone up...
in the distance, a cat wanders alone
around the neighbouring house.
On My Own
I lived by myself.
One eye was crying; the other laughing.
One hand stroked; the other crumpled.
One foot confident; the other cautious.
One lip stiff; the other bitten.
A man loved me; I loved another.
One of my hearts broke; the other withered.
Translated from the Ukrainian by Anatoly Kudryavitsky
Victoria Cherniakhivska lives in Kyiv. She studied journalism at the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, and began writing poetry in 2003. Since then she has published a number of poems in the leading Ukrainian literary periodicals, and hosted poetry readings at the university. In 2008, a collection of her poems entitled Me, You, He, and She has been published by Mauser Press. She is also a visual artist and a book illustrator.
