Some poems derive their sense of themselves
as poems in opposition to what poems should sound like.
They're anti-poetic in some sense,
and this poem probably is that way.
It's titled "To No One in Particular."
"Whether you sing or scream, the process is the same.
You start inside yourself, a small explosion.
The difference being that in the scream,
the throat is squeezed so that the back of the tongue
can taste the brain's fear.
Also, spittle and phlegm are components of the instrument.
I guess it would be possible to take someone by the throat
and give him a good beating.
All the while though, some fool would be writing down
the notes of the victim, underscoring
this phrase, lightning this one, adding a grace note and a trill
and instructions in one of those languages revered
for its vowels.
But all the time, it's consonants
coming from the throat.
Here's the one you were throttling, still
gagging at the guttural C-H, the throat-clearing Yiddish C-H,
and other consonants spurned by opera singers
and English teachers.
He won't bother you again.
He'll scrape home to take it out on his wife, more bestial
consonants rising in pitch until spent.
Then he'll lock a leg over her and snore,
and all the time he hasn't said a word
we can repeat, even though we all speak his language,
even though the toast in our throats in the morning
has a word for us, not at all like bread and rain.
But something grittier and something
thicker, going through what we are.
Even though we snort and sniffle,
cough, hiccup, cry, and come, and laugh
until our stomachs turn.
Who will write down this language?
Who will do the work necessary?
Who will gag on a chicken bone for observation?
Who will breathe perfectly underwater?
Whose slow murder will disprove for all time
an alphabet meant to make sense?
Listen.
I speak to you in one tongue but every moment
that ever mattered to me occurred in another language,
starting with my first word to no one in particular."
[APPLAUSE]