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Jul 2021
SOUND OF BREAKING GLASS

"So..." smirks my reflection
stepping out of the mirror
glad to be its own man

"It was getting mighty crowded!"
it shock its curly locks
"Too many faces in there!"

I gazed at the Nagant
it now levelled at me
a rather hefty gun for a reflection

"How come I'm Irish and
my reflection is Russian?!"
"Заткнись!" it yelled

"I have been working
undercover for 64 years
it was hell being your reflection!"

"So comrade...move it!."
the muzzle in my ear
had me convinced

I stepped into the mirror
its glass freezing me into
the world of reflections

it was like being buried
under ice strange to be
on the other side

my reflection threw a hearty
"на прощание!" over its shoulder
left in my Lamborghini Reventón

I could see the reflection of my
Amazon Echo Dot (4th Generation),
Smart Speaker with Alexa

"Alexa...play Nick Lowe!"
I commanded it
"I love the sound of breaking glass!"

I was shattered
"Thanks Nick...thanks Alexa!"
now to hunt Down Home

my traitor reflection
where ever it may
have gotten to

"Oh oh safe
at last
sound of breaking glass!"

I sang loudly as
my Bugatti Veyron EB 16.4
hurtled through the night. . .



*


"Заткнись!" ( "Zatknis'!" ) is of course "Shut up!" in Russian and  "на прощание!" ( "Na proshchaniye!" )is "Goodbye."
Telefon is a 1977 spy film starring Charles Bronson based on the 1975 novel by Walter Wager.
After the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Soviet Union planted a number of long-term, deep-cover sleeper agents all over the United States, spies so thoroughly brainwashed that even they did not know they were agents and can be activated only by a special code phrase. (The phrase is a line from the Robert Frost poem "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening", followed by the agent's real first name. It is spoken into the phone by one Donald Pleasence ). Their mission was to sabotage crucial parts of the civil and military infrastructure in the event of conflict.
More than 20 years pass, and the Cold War gradually gives way to détente. Narrowly escaping a relentless purge of old Stalinism loyalists, Nikolai Dalchimsky (Donald Pleasence), a rogue KGB headquarters clerk, travels to America, taking with him the Telefon Book which contains the names, addresses and telephone numbers of all the sleeper agents. He starts activating them, one by one. American counterintelligence is thrown into confusion when seemingly ordinary citizens blow up what were formerly top secret facilities that have since become relatively inconsequential, and then either commit suicide or die in the act itself.
The KGB dares not tell its political leaders, much less the Americans, about its negligence in not deactivating the spy network. KGB Major Grigori Borzov (Charles Bronson), who is selected for his photographic memory, memorizes the contents of the only other copy of the Telefon Book. He is then sent to find and stop Dalchimsky quietly, before either side learns what is happening, which would greatly embarrass the KGB and possibly even start a war between the powers. Borzov is given the assistance of only a single agent, Barbara (Lee Remick), planted in America years before.
So I thought that a deep undercover would be to pose as someone's reflection...hence this unlikely tall tale.
Donall Dempsey
Written by
Donall Dempsey  Guildford
(Guildford)   
49
 
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