Welcome to “Poetry at The Arts Fuse.” A new poem every Thursday

4 poems from “Special Operation,” Ukraine
“We have to destroy the idea of Ukrainian identity…. .the easiest and shortest way to do that is by war and repression”
—Sergei Baryshnikov, member of the Donetsk National Republic Parliament

Don’t Worry

As Russia’s first battalions attack Kharkiv,
her older sister calls from her home in Moscow.
“Don’t worry, Putin says this is his ‘Special Operation’—
it’s only military targets.”

“Good,” she says. “So please ask him
“why his Operation’s missile struck
your niece’s kindergarten.”

Christmas in Kharkiv,

Children search the heavens
for marauding drones, streaking missiles.

Families without Christmas cheer
huddle in basements, in shelters,

sing hymns, pray:
“Peace on earth, goodwill to men.”

Tables set, feasts laid out
in basements, in shelters,

camo jackets draped over
the backs of empty chairs

set for those at the front, for the fallen.
There are no holidays in the trenches.

Kharkiv rings in the New Year with
sirens and explosions.

Fresh Recruits: Wagner Brigade
“Wherever a Russian soldier steps foot, that’s ours.”—Vladimir Putin

They exchange:
prison uniforms for flak jackets,
shovels for assault rifles,
pick axes for bayonets
walled courtyard for crater-pocked fields.

They’re paroled from barred cells to trenches:
starry sky overhead
and predator drones with night vision.

*

“They come in waves”/ storming trenches.
“They come in waves,”/ overwhelming defenders.
“They come in waves.” / charging across the fields littered with corpses
headlong into the meat grinder.

*
When their assault succeeds,
and they occupy the enemy’s trenches,
next to the dead they find cups of tea
still warm.

Duty
“The Bodies are all buried now/ Or rotted where they lay.”
–Keith Wilson, Graves Registry

He ventures into battlefields
(moonless nights, rainy days, fog shrouds)
he ventures into battlefields
to retrieve bodies
“We must remember,” he says,
“that even the dead have rights.”

enemy soldiers
covered with frost
enemy soldiers
in fields pocked with craters,
enemy soldiers
sprawled on blasted tanks,
stinking corpses stacked up in trenches,
those in winter uniform top of the pile
those in summer camo underneath
“It’s important for me to bring them all home”—
even his enemies.

No Christmas truce this war,
no hugs exchanged in fellowship,
no brandy traded for schnapps. Here
the transactions are in corpses, their countrymen for his—
solace for grieving mothers? Solace for weeping wives?
“We are humans,” he says,
“and we must remember to remain human.”

Mark Pawlak is the author of ten poetry collections, most recently Away Away (Arrowsmith Press, 2024), and the memoir My Deniversity: Knowing Denise Levertov (MadHat Press, 2021)

Note: Hey poets! We seek submissions of excellent poetry from across the length and breadth of contemporary poetics. See submission guidelines here. The arbiter of the feature is the magazine’s poetry editor, John Mulrooney.

— Arts Fuse editor Bill Marx