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Odysseus

radio ghosts

By Timothy James LanePublished 2 years ago 1 min read
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There's a tipsy folk band in the last sticky light

I'm out in the field gazing up at the plenum

waiting

[ KB1JLA do you copy ]

when I was younger it was something to be used to

the ritual of always saying goodbye

you always had somewhere to be

even then there was always a next time

[radio static]

all of your life spent leaving

I was hiding between the tables

in that room full of flickering screens

linked to radio telescopes

triangulating decoding

refracting the bits of collapsed signals

across the canvas of the afterlife

far past where the last beacon ends

past the words for blackmail

indiscipline renouncement

[KB1JLA are you there? Over.]

(The only answer is my voice radiating into sea-black night)

the memory replays

"that's the thing about kids, you never know what you're going to get"

bird bones cracking inside the radio

You're still there in dreams

Where it was all some mistake

In the dream the air was so serene

I was already old

I saw the last of the giant stars rising

[Dad, can you hear me?]

"you never know when your number's going to be up"

haunted by the specters of language

locked in by what I have forgotten

I feel the fallout of the imploding star

& all my ghosts sit beside me

It's ok to come home

[ KB1JLA please respond ]

sad poetry
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About the Creator

Timothy James Lane

Sea Ghost

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