Poetry from Mykyta Ryzhykh

And we drink vodka

People yoked in the field until old age

Like buffalo

Like horses

Instead of buffalo

Instead of horses

Harder than being a buffalo

Harder than being a horse

Tilling the soil is like digging a hole for their own coffin

People yoked in someone else’s field in their own village

Here in this field the villagers get their own death instead of fruit

Century after century

Serfdom

Stone by stone

They say that the whites exploited the blacks, forcing them to work until exhaustion and death

They say that the blacks were slaves in the hands of foreign white rulers

But what is it like to be a peasant and a slave in the hands of your own rulers

White peasant serfs put to work for other white people who pretend that they are not serfs and not peasants

Century after century

Serfdom

Stone by stone

What is night? This is the time when you can steal the harvest from your own field secretly while the owner is not looking

Owners generally do not see many things

At that time, blind peasants work and twice-blind soldiers die

But the peasants, still harnessed to the yoke, dug like madmen

A coffin? A ditch? No, they dug carrots, potatoes, collected wheat and oats, and along with them they got diseases and death

And what could naked, hungry peasants do against people with machine guns and smiles made of knives?

Century after century

Serfdom

Stone by stone

This is a vicious circle

This is a circle that even Dante couldn’t get to

This wheat grew on the bones of someone’s grandmothers

This oats are soaked in the blood of someone’s grandfathers

The future has the wrong door

The future hasn’t come

This wheat grew instead of someone’s hair

This oats ripened instead of someone’s blush

Century after century

Serfdom

Stone by stone

And we, half-drunk, with friends, vomit standing on this field

We spit out pieces of undigested food

And we drink until we forget because we can’t help but drink

And we die because we can’t help but die

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