POETS IN TEARS

The true extent of the horror is hard to uncover.

The true existence of the hellhole is hard to uncover.

 

Telliing as her eyes water.

She fled Mariupol just two weeks ago.

With the help of her daughter.

 

“Dead bodies everywhere.

People were lying near every house.

No one took them away.”

 

Telliing as her eyes water.

“Everything is lost for everyone.

Hopelessness. Fear. Pain.”

 

Tears begin to stream down her face.

“Almost every family has lost someone close to them.”

“No one has taken out the rubbish since the beginning of the war.”

 

“We drained and drank water from the boiler.

From heating systems.

Later, from a destroyed swimming pool.”

 

 

The true extent of the horror is hard to uncover.

The true existence of the hellhole is hard to uncover.

 

 

She reunited in Kyiv with her daughter.

A year ago she moved to the capital.

She told her mother a possible escape route.

 

Telling with anger and sadness.

Since the war, she’d been trying to rebuild her family.

“In fact, ‘orcs’ have destroyed three generations.”

 

Telling with anger and sadness.

Not only did ‘orcs’ destroy her family home.

‘Orcs’ killed her grandmother.

 

Telling with anger and sadness.

Twenty people she knew personally had been killed.

But the death of her beloved grandma is the hardest to bear.

 

 

The true extent of the horror is hard to uncover.

The true existence of the hellhole is hard to uncover.

 

 

With her mother and her.

But a line missing in the record.

He is the husband of her beloved grandma.

 

“I’m sorry, I can’t talk because the tears are coming.”

Puttting his head in his hands and covering his face.

A photo of his wedding day in Mariupol in 1970.

 

One of the very few things his family still possess.

His face is drained of all remaining colour.

“What ‘orcs’ have done can never be forgiven.”

 

 

The true extent of the horror is hard to uncover.

The true existence of the hellhole is hard to uncover.

 

*Because I read “Ukraine war: ‘Almost every family has lost someone close to them’” by Nick Beake, Kyiv on 15 Jun 2022, on the BBC News, and also “Why are Ukrainians calling Russians ‘orcs’?” by James FitzGerald on 30 April 2022, on the BBC news.
So, I wrote this poem as a story of Yuliya, her daughter Anastasiya, her father Mykola and his wife of 52 years Valentyna.
Please read the original story on the BBC news:

Ukraine war: ‘Almost every family has lost someone close to them’ – BBC News

 

**My friend shows you this poem also on the Ukrainian website for their children and others!

Kurama (Japan). «Poets in tears» — a poem about war in Ukraine 2022 – Мала Сторінка (storinka.org)

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