It was a small poets' club in Sydney,
Where local bards were wont to meet.
We'd come to hear the famed poet
Who has that night agreed to speak.
He spoke of love and hope and kindness,
Of conversation, the end of war.
An old woman, bent with sadness
Stretched up to whisper "Babi Yar."
He's tall. The poets seemed to
Be clustered around his feet.
Our eyes met; I mouthed "American"
And Yevtushenko reached across and kissed my cheek
Y
Yggdrasil
younglings
yobbishly
yohimbine
yammering yardsticks
year-round
yuppifying
yuppifies
yokefellow
yarborough
yellowtail Ypsilanti
yearningly
yellowback
yarmulkas
Yevtushenko
Yellowstone yachtswoman
yellowfin
yellowing
yearlings
yodellers
yearnings
yachtsmen yesterdays
yearbooks
yachtsman
youngberry
yarramans
yellowhead
yeastiest yardstick
yieldingly
youngling
yogyakarta
yoghourts
Yugoslavia yodelling
Youngstown
yarmulkes
yataghans
yawningly
yellowish
youthfully cowardly
yellowness
youngsters
yeastlike
youngness
Yiddish
yardmaster
yuppiedom youngster
Yaroslavl
Yellowknife
yellowcake
Yugoslavian
yuppified
Yorkshire
yellowest
yattering
yellowlegs
yesterdays
yeastiness
ytterbium
yesteryear
yardbirds
YouTubing
yellowwood
yellow-belly
Yucatan
yourselves
yabbering
Y words?
8/11/20
written word by James Edward Lee Sr. 2020 ©
(a tribute to Yevgeny Yevtushenko)
In haste
I read your envy for the upteenth time
And imagine
I could have been the boy
You were not
Whom you wanted to be
I suppose I had the characters
Of the boy you never could become
While I was a boy
Everyone lives his life
Differently
But then
Trouble is
Like you
I keep falling in and out of love
I failed to become
The boy who lived somewhere
In your wish
On the contrary
Something is going on, I know it,
Old friend doesn't come, he is annoyed,
And in a little fuss of days
wrong people come to see my place.
Somewhere he's walking with wrong someone,
He knows, it's true, but all is done now.
For what our feud, who can explain?..
We both are suffering of pain.
It's going on, I know it really,
wrong woman come to take my feeling,
She puts her arms on shoulders, yes,
She steals me from some other lass.
For sake of god, somebody, tell me:
Who'll give his shoulders for this lass?..
I'm stolen from her, and she shall be
stealing to be avenged, I guess.
It will be later, she will answer,
She will be fighting with herself,
And without thoughts like some romancer
she will accept somebody else.
How many nervous and so frail,
so needless ties, friendships these fails!
I feel I'm getting mad, oh, wrath!
Oh, please, somebody, come, all falls,
Tell those strange people, that's enough!
And stop disunity of souls.
1957
P.S. This is my translation of poem by Yevgeny Yevtushenko
You are blameless to not swim,
Where water is ingenuously cool,
Too cool for fish to frolic,
Whoever heard of a Procrustean waterbed?
I am taking swimming lessons at the J.C.C.,
From Pasternak and Yevtushenko.
Cool water with cool air generates no breeze,
Calm as a dish.
The pen is mightier than the sword,
And even works as a good oar,
When there is no wind,
And sails luff.
© Chaim Wilson