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“LETTERS FROM MY FRIENDS”

PART II: POEMS & SONGS 

When I was a child in Italy, on nights when my mother was out and our home troubled me with its stillness so that I couldn’t fall asleep, I would pick up the telephone and dial 1664 for a goodnight fairytale, recorded and available to anyone, anytime, anywhere.

I held the receiver, my anchored point of departure full of other people and other places, and listened to the voice coming through, leaning my cheek on it as on a soft bosom, the phone’s signal a pulse, its stale aroma like warm breath whispering to me, softening my wakefulness, shepherding me towards sleep as the story came to an end.

Like a deep sea diver heading into dream, the telephone kept me tethered to a place of safety and warmth, one where I could let myself go and breathe, without resistance or fear, held by the voice emerging from another time and another place, so alive and alert to my need.

The nights are back, now that the milky skies have remembered their darker shades. So is the stillness, without arrival or departure. And once again, I cannot fall asleep. 

The telephone is unmoored, and the fairy tales threadbare. But the voices, so alive and alert to my need, are still reaching out to me from another time and another place, and they speak to me of another kind of dream.

I am listening… 

… once upon a time…

“LETTERS FROM MY FRIENDS”- PART II features, in order of appearance:

John Bently/ Joanna Ebenstein/ Jeremy Reed & Bird Radio/ Eleanor Crook/  U’mau Otuokon/ Brian Catling*/ Ruth Somalo/ Marcello Colasurdo.

*”Mayday”, written and performed by Brian Catling is published in the current issue of the RA Magazine.