Akhmatova's Circle Poem by Leialoha Apo Perkins

Akhmatova's Circle

Rating: 2.8


One by one – husband, lovers, friends
Wrote, slicing truths wafer thin
From turds of brute lies – courage
Incised by knives. Every turn
Free handed. Each a gift placed high
In the glacial air. The planed voices
Subtle. Move in plaintiff songs
Toned clearly but softly to despair.
Death - quick as Lysol.

One by one executed, exiled,
Inched forward to suicide
Or madness. Grief came in storms
And in the lulling places, silence.
Survivors met, embracing, there.
Furtive the writing the hiding.
In memory. Like Akhmatova, done
Until no one was left. No one.

POET'S NOTES ABOUT THE POEM
Written and intended to be read as the ninth out of ten poems that are responses to Akhmatova's poems, trans. Kunitz and Hayward, and W. Bruce Lincoln's history of Russian literature.
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Leialoha Apo Perkins

Leialoha Apo Perkins

Lahaina, Maui, Hawai'i, USA
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