Silence
Akhmatova’s silence
Burning her words
Tsvetayeva’s silent rope
The silence of poets
And those not poets
Wherever black crepe is hung
The silence of being
Heavy beyond hearing
The silence of mirrors
And walls without doors
The silence within silence
That hurries past knowing
Celan silent in the Seine
Lorca’s silent blood
Vallejo’s silence sobbing
Trakl’s silent flow
Beethoven’s silent moat
The silence drowning words
And the hypocrite silence
Of the bourgeois
Who genuflects in silence
To idols of silent dust
A silence so amazing
Even silent when he speaks
The coward’s riskless silence
Silent as held breath
The silence of backs turning
Complicity’s silence burning
And the silence of the traitors
Who slew the silent dead
And the huddled silent boxes
In suburbs soft as bread
As silent as the ashes
That fill the silent air
And silent acquiescence
As silent as forgetting
10/30/96, 2/9-2/14/97, 2/8/98, 5/27/98
Copyright 1998 by Maurice Leiter
Posted with permission.
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