Ilya Kaminsky Poems

Such is the story made of stubbornness and a little air,
a story sung by those who danced before the Lord in quiet.
Who whirled and leapt. Giving voice to consonants that rise
...

Don't forget this: Men who live in this time remember the price of each bottle of vodka. Sunlight on the canal outside the train-station. With the neighbor's ladder,
...

"You must speak not only of great devastation
but of women kissing in the yellow grass!"

I heard this not from a great philosopher
but from my brother Tony
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Through Vasenka: a herd of boys runs. With their icy hands they haul a policeman and for an apple a look they display the man on the asphalt.
...

I look at you, Alfonso
and say

to the late
caterpillars
...

I am not a poet, Sonya I inspect
the fragrant feet of younger ladies—

While deafness hums as a little motor
I watch her stand in the shower
...

I remember Tony arguing in front of his mirrors, the soldiers
were painting the trees, Tony sat

on the floor of white hair, and all the trees were
...

Running down Vasenka street my clothes in a pillowcase
I was looking for a man who looks exactly like me
so I could give him my Sonya, my name, my clothes.
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Dr. Alfonso Barabinsky wants
to go outside
I hold him down with my smaller body.
He walks, runs from his shoes to my kitchen.
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I watch loud animal bones in their faces & I can smell the earth.
Our boys want a public killing in a sunlit piazza
They drag a young policeman, a sign in his arms swaying
...