RADIO MARRAKESH

Even in the fifties it looked antique –
Bisto varnish, a fan-vaulted speaker,
valves that took an age to warm up
before the fireside voices could come through.

Yet the dial offered so much – Hilversum,
Stuttgart, Berlin, stations that seem forbidden
as though Lord Haw Haw was still wheedling there.
Strange tongues cackled in and out of focus

And if the wind was right and the house empty
You could surf the wavelengths of desire
To catch wailing cadences drifting off course,

Drifting north, north with a scent of cardamom,
Songs of love from Marrakesh or Algiers
Invading our meat-and-two-veg terraces.

Duncan Tweedale