Alien parlance



When
There should have been no place left for commonplaces
There was no space left for separate spaces
In our Tower of Babel’s windowless conversation
Only a few neglected words still gabbling on its doorstep

You
Spoke to me as if
I swallowed as if
I could hear
And take
And filter
And understand
And change
And adapt
And distribute
And listen
And translate
And speak
 From the moving center of our disparity

Beneath
What underlying axioms could have leapt up?
This will forever stay mute under the surface
In a few seconds, a few words
Changed the apparently
 Two-dimensional levity of language
Into the unplumbed failure
Of some other things

Things?
In each language
A few things are left for ever with no name
Let’s step back into the acoustic limits of our flat screens
Shallowness will soon join in
The barbershop quartet of our indifference
      Doesn’t one blather anywhere?



October 2010