Non Spoken Word
by Kiyong Kim
photo by Johanna Latty
The speaker, who is also the writer, and of course, a poet, squints at the harsh spotlights and lets out a nervous, muffled cough into the smoke-filled bar or coffeehouse or school cafeteria. He leans into the mic and starts to read the words that he’s scrawled into some tattered notebook he carries. It is a notebook carried around solely for the single-minded purpose of recording abstract thoughts before they escape him as they were meant to. Every once in a while he’d check up on the words to see if they’d soured like milk or blossomed into flowers. He dumps the cheese and picks the flowers from his notebook, tossing them via mic into the dim shadows collectively referred to as “the audience.”
He is very self-conscious because he knows it’s arrogant of him to think that others care to hear his words, the words that don’t concern anybody other than himself, if even that. Yet he reads, neverminding the importance of the words, or lack thereof, and concentrates on reading carefully so as to elicit the maximum emotional response from the audience. He changes the pitch of his voice up and down and frequently adjusts the volume, whispering at times so the audience leans forward; shouting at times so they shut their eyes to block out the noise.
He repeats again and again some words that he repeats just for the sake of repetition because spoken word, unlike other forms of communication, needs not have a point. And he cannot help but smile inwardly when he reads some words that rhyme, because he is proud to have discovered a word that sounds like another one. My what fun.
He looks up every once in a while and tries to make eye contact with someone, hopefully an attractive single female who is as much of a beatnik as he is, but instead catches the eyes of a bored, restless college slacker chick who thinks it’s cool to go to coffee houses even though she doesn’t like coffee.
What does she know of true art? How may French words has she incorporated into her everyday vocabulary? Has she ever been a slave to the master named Inspiration? Of course not, because she is bourgeoisie while he is one of the artistic elite. So he continues to read, trying to ignore all the other voices that threaten to drown his, and he wonders what could be more interesting than the words he speaks.
He reads long, tired sentences that go on and on without a period in sight, nor a point, and he reads while making strange, artificial gestures with his arms as if they were those novel dancing plastic plants from the ’80s, and his voice the music that fueled them. He paces while he reads because an object in motion is more interesting than an object at rest, and he holds a flaming cigarette, though he doesn’t really smoke. No, this cigarette is nothing more than a prop, like a wand to a magician. And like the magician, he uses it to distract, misdirect, and confuse the audience, the audience that is willing to be fooled in order to be dazzled.
He is still reading the monster sentence that he started nearly 10 minutes ago, the sentence that just goes on and on, and he reads faster and faster, building momentum until he can go no faster due to Einstein’s theory of Relativity because if he reads faster, his words would actually slow down in space-time, and he does not want that because he doesn’t want the audience to see what’s coming; it’s coming, it’s coming… the PAUSE.
Although he is no longer speaking, the inertia from his speeding words continues to jet forth and a deafening crash isn’t heard but felt as his non-words slam themselves into the mind of the audience. The desired impact is made. The silence is powerful, and all fear true power, so they try to kill it with whatever noise they can generate.
He uses this PAUSE, this moment of subtle panic to turn the page and take a long sip of water that the generous establishment has provided him, free of charge along with the mic and spotlight. The PAUSE is over and the words flow again, stronger, as if the PAUSE was a dam that held back the ever forceful stream of words that were eager to find their way to the ocean of shadows that is the crowd.
He is almost finished now. There are only a few more lines in his notebook left to read. He feels the audience listening to him. If he looks up, he is confident he will not see people clipping their nails. He knows the eyes of the audience will be focused upon him (or at least within five feet of him). He knows this, and he feels power over them. His mastery over simple words creates the mood and images and metaphors that seduce an audience. He weaves a magic carpet with his words, one that transports people to some magical, faraway place, yet at the same time, brings them closer to their own inner selves. He does all this, while others less skillful use words merely to knit scarves that will never be worn, and this is why the audience applauds as he walks away.
