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VOICE 1| ODYSSEUS IN A PHONE BOX 1943
Wax! You ears! Now!
It’s Christmas Eve it rains tin shimmers And oil burns the black streets blacker. Waves of fire lap the wet sky dry
And while the V-2 the doodlebug and the Heinkel play death metal toons I hide in here strapped to my fear.
This is my sail ship against the sirens.
My red-ribbed raft oars in a blitz of white surf smoke Through sinks and shoes and Brooke Bond tips
And the dead and nearly dead that fry and lie like frankfurters.
You, a phone, and I dial 999.
“Operator, which service do you require?” Ambulance, fire, police and a storm Strong enough to blow me
Past the seducing songstress birds That curl the air’s steel hair.
Not available? Then send me a lifeboat,
A bold crew from Cornwall, a bird catcher and a net That I may catch one and keep it in a basket
To sing later on, or wot not.
VOICE 2| ODY (A BARROW BOY)
Meanwhile Duck It sucks
Clean out of luck Stuck
In a phone box and you.
And them birds outside that sing To my nightmare’s muse.
Best we keep talking, drown out the drowners.
“Is the call an emergency or of national importance?”
Well, I am sailing the London sea When the sky filled and fell Seven raven-winged ladies
Who did tell A ditty
In my shell
Like that was an itty bitty Well
Good.
These ladies had ginger Locks and were sort
Of lookers.
So much I thought
I might drop my anchor In a non-naught
Ical manner
And jump overboard For good.
Sorry to be flip But I need to keep
My pecker up and not sink Down so deep
To lie
Where the starfish sleep In a sea sand sky.
So for pity’s sake talk to me.
VOICE 3| DUCK
“Ody ody oh dear, what a pickle you’re in Up to your neck in the briny and birds.
I tell you what…
You are through to Siren Sue But in a queue
For whatever it is you want to do You are through to Siren Sue But in a queue
For whatever it is you want to do You are through to Siren Sue But in a queue
For whatever it is you want to do.
Hello Caller I am Carol
Christmas Carol – ha ha
While waiting for Siren Sue today Why not hang your Christmas balls And fill my chocolate log
Stick in my big red box With windows
And a door
Where you can get your rocks off. Press button ‘A’ or say “take me”
If you want Carol to make your Christmas.
Aaaaaahhhhhh (she sings)
Did you say say it? Alright
Hold tight As you might
Get a rush on and that won’t do My libido
Oh nooooo…goooo… (she sings)
Now we can waffle as much as we like Make my tinsel tonsils tingle and… Jump in.
VOICE 1| ODYSSEUS DROWNED
So here I am Down here
Once
It is voices Just voices
Bodies long gone to pot.
Loads, labelled
on sand shelves fifty million high. An hallelujah of headless speakers
Each one a pink marbled ear and a mouth
A single membrane that hears and speaks at once Hangs like an overfed flower.
These feathered waves of words wash a shoreless world.
This is me, it turns out. And this is where I live.
I am ok like this, not bothered Happy to mouth like fish Happy to listen like shells.
A bubble floats by and listen.
It’s me still a moon drop pop
and my words flow.
“Once we had feet, now we can only float.
Our voices sea-soaked drift to one and then another Family, friend or unfamiliar equally happily lost.
We can cross the line,
then and now and never are all one splash. Dreams swim by
And stories grow like weeds One wrapped within another. This is the soup we all sup.”
May 8, 2015