Tuesday Poem - 'Standing Orders' by Jennifer Compton

Standing Orders

They issued me with my identity

drilled me in the finer points of usage

shipped me in then — nothing.

The radio transmitter — silent

in the attic

these fifty years.

Awaiting orders

I vanish into a life very like

my life.

I catch the 92 or 94 from the corner

ready to counter — Top-hole morning!

with — Whizz-bang!

But my contact hasn't

made contact

yet.

Tonight, listening to the News at eleven o'clock

I hear a noise I can't place.

A valve about to blow?

Ticking

like a clock about to strike.

But we don't have a striking clock.

I go up to the attic

switch the gizmo on to green alert.

Recalled!

Sent here for no reason

to do

nothing.

I will be away for a bit up in Sydney and Newcastle and I am struggling to get 

to the end of something before I go, so quickly and lazily I pop up an old poem 

of mine. 

I am starting to consider a Selected. If not now, then when?  

So I am mostly reading old stuff when I go out to poetry readings, just to check 

how it stands up.

Someone did say to me - 'Don't be unkind to young Jennifer'. Which is something 

to keep in mind.

This poem I am in two minds about. I got it from a BBC TV play about two

Russian sleeper spies settled in England. They married, got jobs, waited, and 

waited for orders, their radio sets stowed up in their attics.

Met once a week during the season in the stands at the football match.

'Anything?' - out of the corner of a mouth. 'No, nothing.'

And then they would enjoy the football match.

But one day they got a message when they went up to the attic to check their sets.

I am in two minds about the poem. I don't think it has enough life of its own without

the explication.

And also, who now knows what 'standing orders' are? Or 'gizmo'. Or how radio

valves would need to be replaced. It's all a bit musty I think.