When Language is Affordance Enough
It began with a hand
clenched experimentally to ear
not so much a fist
as a makeshift mouthpiece
designed to broadcast miracles
speaking in tongues:
‘habari,kangarooshni ,slapit
nego,nego,unulti possum!
craaghi ipsit cunnilingo ?
es krampit todo kwa heri ‘
a polyglot mother tongue
Nordic vowels, Slavic consonants
Swahili syntax,Latin verse
and just a touch of Lewis Carroll
to stitch into proper nonsense
all in the hope some passers by
might stop and listen,
become alarmed,
and call an ambulance,
take me to a ’place of safety’
where the only voices heard
are in my head.
But all they see
is a middle aged gent
clutching his smart phone
doing foreign dumb talk
to someone just like them
in Karachi , Prague or Timbuktu
Once upon a time
before we crossed the emoticon
I lived in another country
where language was affordance enough .
One day , tuned to a secret station
on my very own pirate radio
I was talking to my imaginary friend
when suddenly he grabbed a fistful of vowels
aieeooooooooooooooyaaah
and cartwheeled down the street
shouting look, look, no hands….
