A static hiss
Jars me awake
From the hijacked scene
Which keeps playing
Of that life long passed
Missing color
With its laugh tracks on
Causing shame

And somehow unseen
By my wife
While these images flash
When she’s sleeping
Just besides our set
Soon disrupted
Showing sitcoms now
Never aired

But debuting tonight
As I feared
Having program blocks
Stuck in limbo
Still repeating each line
Never funny
Seeming so damn fake
That they hurt

Catching analog dreams
All alone
Watching faces blurred
Speak their horrors
Of those memories real
Needing filters
Yet experienced now
Once again

Wishing jokes they told
Weren’t true
Across fading sets
Too nostalgic
Where colors stay washed
Behind lenses
Letting decades long gone
Become ghosts

Grieving happiness
Lost over time
Starring better selves once
Than our present
Beneath monochrome grins
Growing scary
Only TV land
Ever knows.

• J. Pigno