Poetry is not here

by Stephen Komarnyckyj

                                                                       I am only the sound mirror

Held above fastnesses of gorse         it creeps

An army of living wire                  snaking round England's throat

The guards are already here               patrolling the shore

The torch, a sabre                            through the soft flesh of night

Though there are no boats on the channel                only the moon leaving a wake

Oh Tsyotsya I think of your lost, first footstep         on English tarmac

How they sent for a Russian interpreter                   at Gatwick you would not speak

                                       Silence the most eloquent rhetoric

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Stephen Komarnyckyj's literary translations and poems have appeared in Index on Censorship, Modern Poetry in Translation and many other journals. He is the holder of three PEN awards and a highly regarded English language poet whose work has been described as articulating "what it means to be human" (Sean Street). He runs Kalyna Language Press which publishes his own poetry and translations and has taught at The Poetry School and translated a series of Ukrainian poets and their blogs for The Poetry School site under the title "Stanzas for Ukraine"