Leo Yankevich » Poems

A Tiny Glow

Wed, 25 Jun 2008 15:28:12 +0000

Without the moon or stars to guide his sight,
without a glint from shanties down below,
he rested on the foggy hill that night,
and begged the heavens for a tiny glow.

Despair turned into dream… a little boat
with fishermen inside in search of faith,
a boat which, neither sinking nor afloat,
now blindly drifted past a drowning wraith.

And he among them, but incapable
of seeing a reflection in the waves,
which lapped against the stormy parable
like hammers beating iron into staves.

But when he woke at dawn his eyes could see
light walking on the dew toward Galilee.

2002
first appeared in Romantics Quarterly, Spring 2003

A Warning to Dissidents

Wed, 25 Jun 2008 15:22:56 +0000

Yes, pretty soon now they’ll be at your door.
They’ve orders and a warrant after all.
It doesn’t matter. You’ll be on the floor,
your wife and children having watched you fall.

Just then you’ll notice fallen scraps and crumbs,
the beauty of your startled wife’s pale feet,
the Celtic Crosses on your daughter’s thumbs,
the food above that you will never eat.

Your thoughts will have become a crimson pond
that flows out of your gagged and bleeding head
until you find yourself afloat, beyond
the reach of billyclubs and flying lead.

2002
first appeared in Chronicles, December 2004

After the Old Masters

admin — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 16:23:50 +0000

The father looks up to the sky or ceiling
(beyond the grey scale of the photograph)
with his son wrapped inside his cradling arms.
An orderly obscures the boy’s midsection,
with silence says he is beyond all healing.
Outside the frame in colour copter strafe
restokes the ire of Taliban gendarmes
who soothe the mother twisted in dejection.
We do not catch a whiff of her pained retching,
catch sight of their clenched fists or hear their words.
We see the father’s sorrow-stricken eyes
in what could almost be a Rembrandt etching,
his pitch black pupils focused heavenwards
to where God’s justice or His mercy lies.

2008
first appeared in Chronicles, 2009

Cracow at Dawn

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 21:43:39 +0000

1.
Beneath the clouds
in the corner of my faithless eyes
seven magpies have stolen away
the morning star.
Glory, glory! The rising sun
crowns the cathedral
in this town stopped still
in awe of blazing malachite.
Reborn are the winged shades
in the rookeries
to haunt dear heaven
with their pained pterodactyl cries.
Reborn are the grey pigeons
on the old market square
quarrelling with their enemies,
the dirty sparrows.

2.
Sancho, my old friend,
is it time to embrace more love,
to sit with the ageing harlots
mid the pews of Saint Anne,
though the heft on our backs
is heavier than the rood,
than the silent sermons
of characters stained in glass?
I’ve two coins in my pocket
as poisonous as lead,
enough for a flask of rum
or Hungarian wine.
Let’s park our gaunt donkey
beneath the Baroque clouds,
then limp back to the inn
for as long as there is time…

1999
from The Unfinished Crusade, 2000

Crow

admin — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 19:35:14 +0000

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
and glimmer of the distant but holy sun
in your misunderstood eyes, your paeans one
with the wind. Yet it was you who, perched on the shoulder
of Jesus, watched him suffer and heard him cry,
and it was you who saw the enormous boulder
moved, and you who saw him enter the sky.

2009
first appeared in London Poetry Review, November 2009

Despair

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 21:49:31 +0000

Alone in the dark, the blood of blackberries
dripping down his shins, the morning star
looking back in the mirror through which he gazes,

moon-eyed and at odds with himself, he presses
his palms, but the nightmare doesn’t stop.
The sky turns and nothing this moment matters.

Not even the cold thorns of the blind wind
blowing hellward, not even the poisoned rainbow
that lights his prayers can give meaning to doubt.

The sullen belladonna that pricks his mind
will not comfort him in this final hour
and no guardian angel will come to touch his brow.

1999
from The Unfinished Crusade, 2000

Don Quixote

Sun, 05 Oct 2008 05:00:58 +0000

Suddenly, I am astride a donkey
with Sancho Panza. As usual, my head
is in the clouds. And I am stubborn, stupid
as always. Please forgive my making so
much noise when I send dreams to tap against
your window-pane. I’ve come prepared this time.

When you say that you never loved me,
I kiss your feet. When you say that you fear me,
I kiss your knees, your pale and precious knees.
By this time you expect me to have brought
a single rose, reflecting northern skies.
But no, I’ve brought the best Swiss Chocolate,

rife with exotic fruit and hazelnuts.
You turn your face away, embarrassed to
have been acquainted with my person. So
I settle for the shadow of your neck.
Then I move down and kiss your noble arms,
which tower like two queens above a servant.

I kiss your belly, and I kiss your hips.
Then, mercifully, you bend your high brow,
allowing me to taste your angry lips.
And before I understand that this is dream,
I kneel to do what only I do best
in the valley where undying love was born.

2006

Ezra Pound Enters the Tent

Wed, 25 Jun 2008 15:34:52 +0000

No, this is not a station in the metro,
this is an open cage outside of Pisa.
Ezra Pound now sits inside of it,
his beard a burning bush of grief made new.
Gazing at the moon, and looking retro,
the better craftsman grins to bars, and sees a
night of stars implode, his touched eyes lit
and posed for labour. If not he, then who
will scribble truth into a timeless croon?
Twenty-five days will pass before the good
guys offer him a tent, his face now wood,
his psyche worn by rain and sun and moon.
He leaves the cage, and is assisted in,
his mouth ajar, his grin not quite a grin.

2006
first appeared in Contemporary Sonnet, May 2007

Grey Oak

Wed, 25 Jun 2008 20:46:20 +0000

I turn the stony corner
where the graveyard begins.
Today I am a mourner.

Crows circle garbage bins
beyond the iron gate;
two magpies poach hairpins;

a sparrow comes too late,
then flees the treasure chest.
I move on, and I wait.

It is here she will rest
beneath the silt and sand,
her headstone facing west.

And still, I can’t withstand
the power of my grief.
A tree can’t understand
the falling of its leaf.

2007
first published in The Chimaera, Autumn 2007

Manichaeans

admin — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 17:29:07 +0000

Indistinguishable from the dark, a rat
crawls through debris. Above, aloof and pale,
the moon shines on all the heavens and hells
of the city, shines on the good and bad

alike, more intimately than the sun.
Two pounds of dung sit in our bodies’ bowels,
waiting to be released. The sweat on our brows,
the warm saliva on our twisted tongues

shall be purified in estuaries,
merge with the thoughts of seals and otters.
Our sperm and eggs become sons and daughters,
but what of the husks of all our worries,

of our falling lungs and aching gallstones,
of the scabs from our wounds, of our bad blood?
We prefer abstractions, words like: love
and redemption; hate the meat on our bones,

gag at the worms that cleanse us, yield to blight.
We are purists at heart. But, if only
it would stop pounding, if only we could be
fleshless, if only we could be like light.

1994
first published in The Tennessee Quarterly, 1997