Turn on the radio,
a drama plays
while dancers move
with an alien grace.
Simple props
carry a world of meaning.
One dancer wears
a backpack loaded
with the odds and sods
of our humanity,
a ragbag
of peculiarity,
differences
and similarity,
scraps picked up
along the way,
the stuff that makes us strong
and needy,
our hopes and foibles,
mislaid plans,
and forgotten dreams,
the commonplace
transplanted and transformed
into treasure.
The other dancer wears
a weightless shell:
balloons formed
into an alien shape.
It takes you back
to your childhood
when the missionaries
tried to save you
with biscuits and slideshows,
turning your home
into an alien cage.
Turn on the radio,
a drama plays
for you alone
and two million other
listening ears,
nourishing you
with talk,
while your homework
bores you
and the future
scares you
like an alien gaze.
Two voices you hear:
one human,
one alien.
But who is the alien
in an alien place?
It all depends
on your point of view.
If the world’s
out of joint
then, know,
it isn’t you.
Life is
the choices you make,
the steps that you plant,
the stories you pull from the air,
while freighted with wonder
you weave through an alien space.
Roger Morris
Find out more about the performance of Radio Neighbourhood at Bloomsbury Festival