Take vantage,
heavy eyes,
not to behold
This shameful lodging.
Fortune, good night:
smile once more;
turn thy wheel!
turn thy wheel!
Life’s challenges don’t stop.
When war arrives.
All she wants.
Is time to recover.
All she wants.
Is time to recover.
From her cancer surgery.
Instead, the 53-year-old.
Instead, the 53-year-old.
And her husband, 59.
Had to flee their home.
In Oleksandrivka.
The ‘orcs’ were only.
7.5km away and.
The shelling became intense.
The shelling became intense.
And ‘vorse I may be yet:
the worst is not
So long as we can say
‘This is the worst.’
Their postwoman was killed.
In an ‘orcs’ bombardment.
And the school principal too.
“There was a strike.”
“- a missile hit.
The neighbouring house.
And the blast wave smashed.
Our roof tiles.”
“Blew out the doors, the windows.
The gates, the fence.
We had just left.
And two days later it hit.”
“If we had been there.
We would have died.”
She explains.
“If we had been there.”
And ‘vorse I may be yet:
the worst is not
So long as we can say
‘This is the worst.’
Now they are living, temporarily.
In a borrowed house.
In Sviatohirsk.
It isn’t much better.
You can hear shelling outside.
The front line edges.
Closer every day.
But it will have to do.
And ‘vorse I may be yet:
the worst is not
So long as we can say
‘This is the worst.’
They have nowhere else to go.
“Yes, we will have to move.
Farther away somewhere.
But we don’t know how or where.”
She says in a room.
Crowded with their belongings.
Still waiting.
To be unpacked.
Their life savings have gone.
On her hospital bills.
And now they are.
Out of options.
And ‘vorse I may be yet:
the worst is not
So long as we can say
‘This is the worst.’
On Tuesday.
They left the town.
To collect her test results.
The news was good.
And she won’t have to.
Undergo chemotherapy.
“We were happy.
We felt like we were flying on wings.”
Take vantage,
heavy eyes,
not to behold
This shameful lodging.
Fortune, good night:
smile once more;
turn thy wheel!
turn thy wheel!
But while they were gone.
‘Orcs’ bombed.
The nearby town of Yarova.
4km away.
It was just before 11am.
And older people.
Had left their homes and.
Gathered to collect their pensions.
Some 24 were killed.
And 19 wounded.
In one of the deadliest strikes.
On civilians in the war so far.
And ‘vorse I may be yet:
the worst is not
So long as we can say
‘This is the worst.’
On Telegram, the head of.
The Donetsk administration.
Decried the attack.
“This is not warfare.”
“– this is pure terrorism.”
“I urge everyone.
Take care of yourselves.
Evacuate to safer regions of Ukraine!”
Take vantage,
heavy eyes,
not to behold
This shameful lodging.
Fortune, good night:
smile once more;
turn thy wheel!
turn thy wheel!
*Because I read “As Russian army inches closer, Ukrainians must decide to stay or go” by Quentin Sommerville on 13 Sep 2025, and also “Why are Ukrainians calling Russians ‘orcs’?” by James FitzGerald on 30 Apr 2022, on the BBC news.
So, I wrote this poem, as a story of Olha and Oleksander, led by ‘KING LEAR’ written by William Shakespeare, you know.
Please read the original story on the BBC news:
As Russian forces advance, Ukrainians in Donbas must choose to stay or go
