My Radio

rhythms hiss within a brushed chrome
casing, feels more like a casket,
branded nearly departed.
it’s a fickle and contrary machine, the
circuit board is one big,
glorious design fault and
the aerial is
at best temperamental with
a reception that shrieks
a hormonal staccato,
A fiend resembling nothing so much
as a clockwork sibling, that emits
-Rat Pack Hits-
in rose-tinted glasses of course, Chanel I think
or Steve McQueen I fancy once charmed
with their vintage pedigree.
Now by means of an arcane tuning system
-no dial, why no dial-
My radio has connived with commercial
platforms, to wind me up by degrees, it
persists
in enlightening me:
Seems you can tune an ear, to a tasteless
bandwidth, eloquent in its irony – unashamed
it wallows, baiting your patience,
meandering through the tracklist;
Oh the mindless indulgence.
More music – less talk is very well and that,
and I don’t want to bring up quality quantity
that canard
but Roy Orbison lilts on and presently
I’m tired of DAB and digital and FM and
-what the fuck is going on-
decades since California dreamed, that
band plays on – unaware
that I’m still waiting for my favourite song.