Навіщо. What For

To Artem, a sniper at "Karpatska Sich" Battalion

He's a sniper, he is sixteen, he's been at the war a year.

He's talking quietly but you hear him as a cry.

He's changed his battalion, his location, his call sign:

He was "Clean" but decided to become "Dirty".

So how can we shout at the future in despair:

What is this life when a child is at war?

And where are his school. His aren't a, and trade unions

When the gun's butt is against his yet unshaven cheek?

His father is dead, he was at war in Afghanistan.

Not to believe enemies he told his son.

He took his son's hand and brought him to a shooting range;

He told his son: You will need it for your fight.

And this enough. I really don't now want to write

That the boy has serious grown-up eyes.

And he looks away when he's talking about the battle

From which his frontline friend had not come out.

This is true, but the words are banal and trite,

Same as the question: "Have you killed?"

So we are silent, we are eating candy, and from the radio

Someone shouts about trajectory - What's trajectory?

23 April 2015