Poetry from Mykyta Ryzhykh

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Why do people die as volume and not as emptiness? Why doesn't your dead body disappear when you're gone?

Why does the cemetery boast of its crosses and flowers cannot live without a mourning ribbon?

Agony is a very simple word. The word death is an even simpler word. It is better to remain silent like proud trees. It is better to drink silence like birds. It's better to move through the air like words. It's better not to live in a cage.

On a cast-iron evening, death knocked on the bird's temple with metallic softness instead of fingers.

The night never ends anywhere. There are only two of us: me and death. I am always alone. Conscious death does not exist: however, as well as conscious life.

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Baby rabbits breathe without air
Baby rabbits don't breathe without their mother
Baby rabbits don't breathe when separated from their mother

Our banner is a torn uterus and a black vagina
Our anthem is dresses for daughters and guns for sons
Our home is death temporarily passing by
Our home is grass our home is bloody glass

Sour cream animals freeze outside the belly
Tin animals freeze without feeling warm
Each of us is a rabbit driven into a cage of life

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the cast-iron frogs 
in the wooden pond hardened at the
beginning of winter

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the green wall of the garden 
is thrown open

sick hands reach 
for the dead foliage

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the forest is silence for the deaf
the forest is a cry for the wild
winter comes for everyone the same

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the hand of the tree trembles in the wind
autumn will not give alms to anyone

no one was born in the cemetery except grass

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the staircase on which the baby goes to the coffin constantly staggers

who will fire the tax on air and thoughts?
when the lights are off, we swallow black snowflakes

the child approaches his parents and whispers like a baby from the icon
no one will rise again nobody

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rabbits knock on the heart
knock knock knock it's a carpenter

a coffin appears from under the table
we are all born stolen

scarabs of minutes are bursting at the seams
crunchy leaves sigh underfoot

what should we do?

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gray sky peeking through the windows
if autumn were a person
she would hang herself

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Saliva of time
The future is a spit

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butterflies without a net
trees without rustling
summer is the song of calm

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satiated water drips from the sky
autumn bison dissolves in falling leaves

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remnants of sweat on the lips
a kiss is a bodily thirst
summer licks us with boiling water

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spring thunder has receded
morning shelling began

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display case with pork chop
refrigerator with human meat
long-awaited meet

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nothing belongs to man 
except old age

autumn oak tree boasts 
fallen leaves

Reprint by Coalition for digital narratives

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the poet is a lamb drinking water
the wolf is a poem that eats us

poems drown with us in sugar water
the river of time moves towards uncertainty

Reprint by Setu

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the dead hare is forever
related to the grass

snow covers everything
with a blanket

Reprint by Setu

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for the first and last time
I’m dying and you still don’t love me

the city is divided into two parts:

in the first part you kiss lovers and hang out with friends
in the second part there is a cemetery

Reprint by Setu