Thursday, July 8, 2010

TALK

Seated one night at the wireless, weary and ill at ease
(The fire was out, and the fireless room had begun to freeze),
I gave a twitch to the needle, I pressed the button for "wave",
And voices started to wheedle voices started to Rave
I pottered from Rome to Warsaw, I twiddled from Russ to Finn,
And, steering a zig-zag course, saw The moon come up in Berlin,
I sauntered from Prague to Oslo, I lingered in old Midrid-
And heard, wherever I was low consonants grate and skid.
I twiddled the "Vol..controller" I twiddled two knobs as one,
And waves from seas that were polar Joined waves from seas
in the sun;
And rivers which rolled from Florance In waves which broke at
the crest met Moscow's thundering torrents
And trickled to budapest.
Whenever I stayed the needle, However remote the shore
A face would whinny and wheedle, A face would bellow and roar
I could picture it flushed and sweating, I pictured it tense
and white,
I said "And I wouldnt mind betting It's just what he said
last night"
A hundred vehement faces, sallow and flushed and fat, Telling
you what the case is For this and the other and that.....
And every night at eleven,
As sound streams up to the skies,
truth listens-in from Heaven And climbs on her cross, and dies.



-S.