Radio Silence

Sliver of sundown, glimmer of daylight

Running in place with trembling knees

Vision of lightning, vision of sunrise

Overlay worlds

on the grid of our dreams

And knock ’em all down

With a last looming wave

Black as old blood

With a warm, steady rage

And the crack of old bones

Yankee, go home.

Choking on signal, sucking on silence

Sodium lights on the monument’s face

Radio London, Radio Cyprus,

Where the Lincolnshire poacher’s

shaking his cage

He’s sold for a lifeline,

sold for a crown

Singing an old lie

down the repeater—

But the radio lapses, the radio dies,

The sky is a blank screen,

an open receiver;

Summon an old sound, rattle to life

Spin on an axis, fly into pieces

In disarray