“Contact”
CONTACT
The old blues, piped on the radio
From Memphis, filters down to me –
I’m not high — like some face
Or photograph I galleried
Many months ago. Big Mama
Thornton reaches out for me
With her sharp laughter tonight.
I have wandered far from home.
I want to smile, now — you know
I’ll send you my urgent SOS
2 or 3 minutes after shutdown
When the mainlines (you know) close.
[1972]
Posted by
at
04:54:53
Hmmm…nice but a bit sad. Sort of a ’song for the displaced,’ isn’t it? Fits my mood perfectly (today, at least). Like it — Trish
Thank you, Trish. Yes, displaced, in a way. In the years I lived in Dublin, when this poem was written, much of the music I listened to came via the radio — Radio Caroline (the pirate!), Radio Luxembourg, and AFR from Frankfurt, Germany (the Armed Forces Network, for our servicemen and -women stationed in Europe). Ah, the days and nights when a transistor radio connected us to the rest of it all.
Don’t tell anyone…but I still have a transitor rado, hidden away in a safe place–next to my manual typewriter and 8-tract player. Luddites 4-ever! –Trish
I still sometimes try to remember things instead of using Google.