Radio Silence

The transmitters have fallen silent:
all you can hear is the static
as you tune across the band.
You tell yourself there are voices there,
buried in the starlight,
if only you could make them out, but no,

all you can hear is the static,
a smooth surface stripped of all irregularities.
You tell yourself there are voices there,
like words whispered on the edge of sleep
if only you could make them out, but no,
there are neither questions nor answers here,

only a smooth surface stripped of all irregularities
that extends indefinitely in every direction.
Like words whispered on the edge of sleep,
all else that you hear is merely imagined.
There are neither questions nor answers here,
not even the conversation of the machines that outlived us

and all this extends indefinitely in every direction.
The transmitters have fallen silent:
all else that you hear is merely imagined
as you tune across the band.
Even the conversation of the machines that outlived us
is buried in the starlight.

Dominic Rivron
Picture Nick Victor

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