On Reading Akhmatova
On Reading Akhmatova
by
Rick Folker
Kansas City, MO
...delighted in deliriums,
In singing about tombs.
I distributed misfortunes…
… But I am not allowed to forget
The taste of the tears of yesterday.
- Anna Akhmatova
“The Last One”
Awake in my darkened room
Another nightmare of doom
Entombed in this nothingness
Life has become a series of shades
Passing by my window on a heavy
August night - Friends long dead
Whisper,
“Hey man, you should have bowed
Out gracefully … we did”.
Survivor's guilt covers me
like a shroud
Their deaths leave me hollowed;
Dessicated like late autumn leaves
...
The stifling heat is burying me beneath
My last gasps of relevance, remembrance,
And sanity,
I live; they sleep.
I in this lonely room,
they in the distance
Of their deep
Now the pathos of age and dead end paths
Beckon me; those former friends
Those shades I flee
Against my earnest, ardent screams
Escape my desperate silent plea
for dignity, forgetfulness, and
longevity
I shall not dream again tonight
I hope; I pray
Of those I loved;
Of those I lost to AIDS
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