#3 - Enmeshed

Fay Roberts’s first sonnet this year is inspired by Maya Deren and Alexander Hammid’s short, surrealist, USAmerican movie, Meshes of the Afternoon (1943), written by Maya Deren, and starring Maya Deren and Alexander Hammid:

She runs and runs, but never hopes to catch
the chiffon billowing, the mirrored stare.
She rises, clambers, thinks she’s met her match.
(But who’s to say, in this dim place, what’s fair?)

It’s soft and hard, she’s bright and dark, alone?
The key’s inside, and gravity’s a glitch.
Acknowledge nodding roses, keys, and clones...
Is this prediction? Time to flip the switch.

Now tread each texture down, don’t run in place –
the sea’s a sighing echo of the land...
We rise to find the only speaking face;
this is no accident, but was it planned?

Was she possessed? What did the dream portend?
And who’s the one who’s dreaming, in the end?

still of the movie, from of the review on THE CINEMATOGRAPH

If you have access to the Internet Archive, you can watch the 0:14 long, mostly wordless movie here. Content warnings include: implied violence, unreality, blood, nightmares. Let us know what you thought if you’ve seen it!