TWO NEW POEMS FOR UKRAINE
Image by ahmadreza heidaripoor, https://pixabay.com/
CHARLIE GRACIE
No need to ask
No need to ask if they’re just like us, the Ukrainians.
They’re the same for sure as the Iraqis, crushed
by the bombs of Blair and Bush.
The same as the citizens of Leningrad, freezing
within the steel grip of Hitler, the same
as the millions in Nazi camps and ghettos.
They’re just the same as Indians fleeing Amin
for England’s safety, as unarmed Catholics in Derry
gunned down by British guns.
They’re the same as the Lions led by Donkeys
to the mud of Bougainville, their mothers left
to mourn their beautiful dead, the same as
Russian mothers and Maori mothers and Uyghur mothers.
Ukrainians dead are the same dead as Africans
squeezed into hulls, bound for plantations.
All for the rand or the dollar or the rouble
and the hard-ons the men in charge will get.
No need to ask first appeared on the Poet’s Republic site as part of their ‘In war & peace’ project.
Charlie Gracie is a poet and writer from Baillieston, Glasgow. He now lives on the edge of the Trossachs, north of Stirling. Charlie’s poetry and short fiction have been published in a number of journals and anthologies including New Writing Scotland, Gutter, Chapman, Northwords Now, Cutting Teeth, Pushing Out the Boat and Poetry Scotland.
His novel To Live With What You Are was published by Postbox Press, the literary fiction imprint of Red Squirrel Press, in 2019. It was long listed for the Bath Novel Award that year. He has been listed for a number or literary prizes, including the Bridport Short Story and Poetry Prizes, Cambridge Short Story Prize, Bath Novel award and Fish Poetry Prize.
His first full collection of poetry, Good Morning, was published by Diehard Publishing in September 2010 as
part of the beautiful metallic hardback series, hand-crafted by his publisher Sally Evans and her husband, the book-binder Ian King. A paperback version was printed in 2011 and reprinted in 2015.
His second collection, Tales from the Dartry Mountains, was published by Diehard, in 2020. Before the 2020 COVID lockdown, he had launches at the Allingham Arts Festival in Ballyshannon, County Donegal; the Scottish Writers’ Centre at Centre for Contemporary Arts, Glasgow; and Highland Lit, Inverness.
NAJI ALMURISI
Ukraine will never bow
Ukraine
A color of wheat
And a color of sky
A face of the sun
And the moonlight
Voices of winds
Voices of sparrows
Ukraine
Was overflowing with love
And now is overflowing with blood
Was drawing smiles
And now is drawing the tears
Was planting the delight
And now is planting the sorrows
Pirates of evil
Destroying everything beautiful
They are extracting souls of innocents
Crushing children mercilessly
They are substituting wheat fields by mines fields
They are replacing sparrows voices by voices of guns and rockets
They are replacing voices of winds by voices of warplanes
Between War and Peace
Ukraine
Steadfastness
Resistance
The victory is coming
NO Surrender
U K R A I N E
WILL NEVER BOW
Naji Almurisi is a poet who contributed to Dove Tales’ first anthology. In fact we named it after his poem, A Kind of Stupidity.
He studied Economics and Managment at Al-Mustansiriya University in the College of Management and Economics.
He studied Financial Management at Maastricht School of Management and was a financial manager at the Ministry of Finance in Yemen
He lives in Sanaa, Yemen
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