Orchestral Experiment Sami Silk
In a lab of brass, woodwind, strings, percussion, I stand apart, the conductor and composer of this orchestral experiment. There’s the creak of a printer spitting out consent forms And the chchch chhhhhh of a clacking keyboard as I sift through gaps in raw data. These mundane tasks surround me with echoes, A drum steadily beating out crisp quarter notes in 4/4. From beyond the glass box that holds the audience above The pit of my little observation room; A swishhh of book pages turning Or the muted thud of a fingertip tapping on a kindle. Placed carefully atop the bridges of audience noses, My glasses lay like fantastical masks at a masquerade ball. A silent symphony of crracks and brrrings and rummbbles Oozes out from the almost sealed door of my observational pit And in return, the faint ringing of a hummm Slithers towards my computer, Crying for its mother– But the cameras inside those masquerade masks Are still delicately balanced on a grad student’s nose. Suddenly– The timer goes off Me, waving my hands with passionate madness As I conduct this xylophone to decrescendo. With the echoing pound pound pound of a standing ovation, The audience beams proudly as the curtains of this experiment close.
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Kate Berges