By Joseph Fries, Saxifrage 34 Contributor

 

I sometimes feel

like an old silent moving picture,

words flashing on the screen and

occasionally faint splotches of color

painted onto film, flaking away

and, leaving it all bare,

running through to the fin.

the lady, gloriously out of focus,

moving lips with nothing to say,

smooth and clean and white,

Waiting to be rescued and

brought back to love and laughter

which are, perhaps, too late,

for the next film is about to begin:

 

 

the world revolves in shades of grey

round and round, quiet, still, with

a faint piano tinkling tunes, notes, scales,

spreading, amoeba-like, into silence

to reveal, what? I know not,

how can I say? Too many questions

All the wrong answers. Am I, like

walking in a waking dream of shadow,

and stumbling over patches of light,

fettered in a washed-out world?

carried away into the sleeping night,

hollow with too many questions

and given all the wrong answers,

the piano stops playing at the end.

 

About the Author:

Joseph Fries attended Pacific Lutheran University from 2004–2008, studying French and English. He later received an MFA in poetry from Saint Mary’s College of California. He may or may not have written an alliterative heroic crown of sonnets about a Viking teddy bear, and hopes that everyone will continue to split rocks!

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