POEM: SLOBODAN PRALJAK

by Leo Yankevich

       He died like Socrates,
 like Hermann Göring in his cell,
       tall and white-bearded, knees
       unshaking as scorn fell
       from his mouth, hemlock downed
 as if a shot of slivovitz,
       eyes turned upwards, head crowned
       by fallen Croats in pits.
       In Mostar, church bells toll
 and candles form a citadel.
       Praljak played his role,
       one few could play as well.

30 November 2017 

TRUMP: A POEM

by Leo Yankevich

He was our boy back in '16,

but then he tomahawked Assad.

Now, cucked, we want to vent our spleen

at this man who is just a bawd.

POEM: HERE COMES A COMMIE

by Leo Yankevich

                                        He’s Che Guevara
                    underneath his red beret.
                                        He’s Leon Trotsky
                    with his belly full of bagels,

                                        this man, this very
                    sensitive man, so finely bred
                                        on Marx and Marcuse,
                    who sits over cups of steaming

                                        cappuccino,
                    butt-hole tight from doing kegels,
                                        mouth sore from nights
                    spent moaning, from days spent dreaming

                                        of equality
                    for every woman, black, and gay,
                                        and all the ghetto
                    commissars inside his head.

POEM: DO NOT SHED TEARS FOR THE DROWNED BOYS

by Leo Yankevich

Do not shed tears for the drowned boys
like flotsam on the Turkish shores.
Free from their fathers’ stupidity,
their wings bear the Trojan horse
to the ruins of antiquity
and to the altruistic Norse.