Had I Not Grown Suddenly Short Of Breath Poem by Leo Yankevich

Had I not grown suddenly short of breath,
I'd have sung hosannas. But the poor beast
that I found lay martyred beyond its death.

The holy sun was rising in the East,
and I was watering bright illusions
as sweet and as old as Plato and Christ.

Birds in arbours were making allusions
to Eden, and I was bound for a tryst
with a seamstress, with Angel Jones of Mold.

But the writhing and the buzzing woke me
and the foul stink in the mystical gold,
for, breathless, I stopped and wept to behold,
as some dead poet's angry stick poked me,

a fawn in a laughing hyena's hold.