Still

How do paintings feel so strange and alive?

Out-living their creators as they strive to survive.

We – stare and wonder with hearts corrupt

Almost expecting a change with movements abrupt.

Expecting smoke from a chimney

A foot out the door

Movement through a window

Or steps on the floor

A lonely house in the distance

Covered in rain as it softly begins to pour.

I’ve nearly scene a person adjust themselves in a chair

Witnessed a woman brush back her forever, falling, hair.

I swear I’ve seen a man blink his eyes to see

And heard them both whisper and plea, “please rescue me.”

Strange thought to beget in a fragile human mind,

Trapped in its own frame away from the answers it tries to find.

How can an artist create such a Thing?

A photograph in this world created from a dream,

The memory of a bird and the song it is meant to sing,

Or is it the recording of a voice, fragile in its scream.

There is the absence of the creator in the image of their art.

Mixed with the feeling of power come bleeding from their heart.

O.R. B.