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Characters

What happens to the characters from tales
we know and love, when books are set aside
on shelf or bedside chair and, weary-eyed,
we tumble into sleep’s narcotic dales?
Do those protagonists, let loose to act,
lead other lives they might choose to have led
were they not author’s puppets but instead
real beings freed from literary pact?
And if they do, are their lives brave and bold
or unimpressive lives much like our own?
Might they regret becoming flesh and bone?
Would they grow bored as routine days unfold,
take holidays, in winter feel the cold,
and like ourselves, reluctantly grow old?

Richard Fleming

If you have any thoughts on this poem, 
Richard Fleming would be pleased to hear them.


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