Leo Yankevich Poems

A boy of thirteen wears the pitch black pants
of German scouts. Some women look with glee
and try to drown his cries. They curse in chants.
They’re Jewish guards from State Security
...

Through woolen tresses of her limp red hair,
will she conjure ghosts to pry the locks? —
He wonders as he climbs the creaking stair
to lay her in an attic storage box.
...

Crow, the doves descending on the square
have sullied your name, cooed gossip to wealthy tourists,
their gullets stuffed with handouts, while you soar
over the oaks with dreaming clouds, with the glare
...

'The Emperor of the Universe of pain
jutted his upper chest above the ice...'
—Dante Alighieri, The Inferno
...

From nothingness the poems came to me,
warm and sensual as cats, their claws
digging deep into my ageing shins.
But when I looked into their bright green eyes,
...

Here the shades of rust are manifold.
The rails resemble velvet, thick and plush.
A dark grease from the time of the last Tsar
rests deep within the wood of sunken ties.
...

(Poland,1989)

Grey clouds in early May,
a hint or threat of rain.
...

Drunk on clouds and yesterday’s rain,
his hollow eyes would hate the stars
and his hat shelter him from pain
to the whirr of distant passing cars,
...

I’d pass it on the mission trail—
            half-decomposed, green burr-like eyes
beyond my thoughts or pity, tail
            curled into questions only flies
...

Petalled with rust beneath a sky of slag,
the bridge expands into infinite haze.
Below it, the meaning of all my days:
thistled lots, brambled voids where time lags
...