Death's Radio
Aug 2 2002
Michael wrote. The stick began to move. He applied it to the dirt and was pleased with the old, familiar feeling of tapping Death's Radio, the source of poetry.
In Orphee, a film he had first seen at age thirteen, Death had come for the modern beat poet Orpheus in the form of a woman in a large black limousine. The limousine's radio played nothing but provocative nonsense phrases... which impressed Orpheus with their purity and poetic essence.
Michael sometimes felt he was tuned in to Death's Radio when the poetry came pure and clean.
Here she comes Bottle in hand To the mike Swaying now Gravel voice filmy gown She will die Her singing Will kill her We will all Listen, her Blood and boozy breath On our savage ears.
The wood came to a halt and he tapped it on the final period, the tiny hole in the dirt which concluded the poem.
(From The Infinity Concerto, Greg Bear, Ace Books 1984, p 156/340.)