Donal Calls Home

A Work in Progress
123

Once upon a time in 1969

if you wanted to call London 

you asked the Operator in New York

to connect you and you were passed to an operator 

at London’s International Phone Exchange

When connected Donal asked 

if his mother happened to be on shift

they weren’t on the best terms

because when Donal came back home from Nigeria

he’d left home to be a volunteer in Nigeria

he found himself barred at the door by Bill

his mother’s suitor

his friend Colin witnessed the door slam

Donal didn’t see his mother again

except once years later after he was married

he took his wife to meet her

long before the Londoner had tramped the Street...

listened to her many tales

who knew so many by their feet

Doris married Bill an accountant

A careful man who wore gloves to drive into town

She came to see Donal act in the school play

His mother couldn’t come working on night shift 

His mother never did see him act in plays

Doris lurked outside their curtained windows

Bill inside in the front room with Donal’s mother

Imagine the tableau

Donal doing homework in his bedroom

His sister off by herself

Mother and Bill in the front room

 behind closed doors

Doris outside the curtained windows of No. 9

Donal could write a screenplay

*

Sing to me muse as once you sang 

you who love me don’t let me hang

sing to me now don’t let the door bang

tell of Penelope in a nightie telling Donal her son

he never slept 

Odysseus

he never slept

with pajama bottoms on

a diffident child 

lustrous Penelope 

Odysseus’ son

unhugged

unheard 

Sing to me muse as once you sang 

you who love me don’t let me hang

sing to me now don’t let the door bang

*

Abigail Morris in front of Last Dinner Party dancing on stage

inspired by Mick with a hand-held mic

she’d watched him when they opened for the Stones

Briseis opened that link for Donal

He’d logged on again to rejoin the resistance

Dick Russell © Richard M Russell

                        2026