By the Sound of a Voice After a long silence that seemed An eternity, There came a turbulent noise, A spirited noise. No, it was a voice, A loud voice Lashing up a storm, Singing intense, singing hot. And in the violence Of that voice, Whirled seeds of sound, Fragments of sense, Half-words, Commas & accents, Rhythm & image, Inclining towards poetry. And the LORD bent His ear To hear spoken The moon & sun & stars – & there was a dark saying too, Sung by

# LanguageSpeaks ! A man carrying a voice recorder pauses at the door, enters. He looks a lot like Kafka but has the eyes of Tennyson. He possesses a picture of Saturn, and you don’t. It is green. If you like you can say the same. You can’t blame me for this. I am merely the host. The party has just begun. Enjoy yourself. He should have brought wine instead. Some people like voice recorders, some don’t. It’s not an issue. ‘Turn it down,’ he shouts. ‘I can’t

Words like mosquitoes swarming / Around me, pestering

A Code of Nature with a Subject Once a code of nature without a subject. Now: language tongue, la, signifying Illness, la, a foreign verb linked to other verbs, Other selves. Larynx a tool of ancient Life-form's unearthly rhetoric. I cannot Speak! Ancient virus speak! with alien joy About control& replication& money. Lalangue is master to my slave. The pest Clings to me, through me. I am overcoded& Yet the words I use are not the things I want to talk about

Shouting in Brackets I here we are (1) sitting in a circle transmitting silences to each other and waiting (+1) for beginning to announce its ending (= 2) yesterday a mouth declared: “I am starving” (-1) but tomorrow was found wanting (-1) (= 0) II Bracketed, subjects recede into concealment & a clearing presents itself in which speech is revealed via objects III “What’s to understand but a bunch of nerves?” “A plastic oesophagus is a canal in an unusual context.