Radio Voices

RADIO VOICES Thirty-three and a half minutes listening to the static; I'm one big ear! hoping to hear a message from the other side... Beethoven has an unfinished symphony he wants completed, Arthur Conan Doyle complains fiction today is all detective work, Joan of Arc loves Mel Brooks. Thirty-four and a half minutes and my patience snaps; I turn to RTE, the writer Derek Mahon Is being discussed by a panel. They've detected importance in his poem 'A Disused Shed in Co. Wexford'. Mushrooms decaying in the dark, Holy Joes adrift in a Godless cellar, Sweethearts who've missed the boat, Bollards moored in misery, Death-pale and ghostly. I would store this poem in a cool dark place and only bring it out into the light of day for a bookish friend, a literature hound; it merits close inspection.