"Here they are - simple folk...", by Anna Revyakina (my translation from Russian)

Here they are - simple folk, bulk oxen of powers.

The type of people, who see all in opposite colors.

For simple folk, this world consists

Of the bad and the good. The world was taken away

From this boy, who received a dog tag with a number,

And was sent to conquer the city of furnace fires.

In the city of furnace fires, war will make him a bird.

Back in the capital, his name will scarcely be heard.

Thousands of names and faces merge to add to God's features.

Hell is calculable. Don't play blind and speechless.

Come and see the hundreds of boys in army brogues,

Strewn lifeless along the sides of dusty roads.

Come and see their mothers, in grief-born madness,

Seeing the culprit in every second miner.

No - in each and every miner! There's no grace;

You know, we're all mute links of this single chain,

Wandering silent, crying from fear at nights,

In each of us, a boy painfully dies;

A boy, whom God will judge with chill ardour

For lifting arms in order to kill ones brother.



(August 2014)