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Radio Free Hell

from Kill Starlings by Christian Drake

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lyrics

Good morning,
suicides.
Good morning, unloved lovers.
Mothers who never wanted children.
The factory workers with hands
mangled by the machine, who still work the machine.
The prison guards with murderers inside.
Rise and shine.

You are listening to Radio Free Hell,
bringing you the sounds from the underground.
I can't answer your prayers, but I play requests.
I'm alone and listening for you, too.

This song goes out to the girls in their bathrooms
letting their blood with x-actos
to make sure they are deeper than the mirror,
and to the machete-scarred girls in coffee country
who cannot possibly imagine them.
This song is dedicated to the innocent prisoners,
the starving children whose parents steal food from them,
the first-time heartbroken.
Twist the speaker dial like a knife in your ribs,
listen closely.

We are Radio Free Hell.
We are the resistance.
We send blues from the tenement trash fires
to the heights of the Golden Gate.
This place does have borders,
though you may never reach them,
and we bring you lullabies from the other side.
I am not preaching the gospel;
I am here in the crowded fire with you,
broadcasting at whisper range.
I am not here to tell you the cavalry is coming.
The cavalry is not coming.
I'm here to bring you music on the killing fields.

For the woman who daily binds her breasts
so they never again invite a rapist's stare,
here's Rhapsody in Blue.
Here's a dance beat for you slaves in the diamond mines
x-rayed daily so you cannot eat even the stones.
For the suicidal astronaut considering cutting your umbilicus
when you see the true nature of the stars:
here's your mother's piano.
Come home.

Last night, your tears sparkled like an ambulance.
Last night, you felt the phone go limp in your hand
like a wounded bird. You had the dream again,
you pissed the sheets in fear.
But today you will put your hands under cold water on purpose.
Today you will divine our signal,
a lonely tapping in the pipes
trying to reach you after so long.

When you are lost in the desert of salt,
turn your radio on.
When the ceiling at night
is busy with the traffic of headlight ghosts,
when the sun will not help push
your broken-down heart, turn your radio on.
Wave your antenna from the top of the roof
like a man in a flooded house
and listen through the static.
There is good news coming, maybe.
I don't know how to save you yet.
I'm burning, too.
But turn your radio on.
Because if the day ever comes to escape this place,
we will be broadcasting instructions.
We will read the list of the names of found souls
over the new national anthem,
with its guitar sobbing triumphantly,
and you will finally realize that this voice
has always been your own,
and then you will hear yourself
read your name.

credits

from Kill Starlings, track released January 26, 2012

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about

Christian Drake Dhaka Division, Bangladesh

Christian Drake is a six-time National Poetry Slam team member and has performed on three National Poetry Slam Finals stages. Originally from New England, he bas been a host of popular slams, poetry shows and burlesques in San Francisco, CA and Albuquerque, NM. He's best known for his often loud, erotic, and political nature poetry. He currently a science teacher in the New England wilderness. ... more

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