Speech Poem by Ravi Kopra

When she speaks
vowels become consonants
consonants, vowels.
No clauses, no phrases, no pauses
No commas, no periods. no paras.

Constant chatter like parrots
Or horses neighing.
Not even them. They stop for a breath.
She does not but hesitates at every other word
it seems they get stuck behind her teeth
and she has to use her tongue
to push them out of her mouth.

Poor words come out beaten black and blue
slithered with slimy saliva not knowing
where to land. They roll over one another
and make some haphazard clauses, phrases,
and I spend minutes to make a sentence out of them
while she keeps on pouring heaps of one word,
two word, three word sentences I cannot figure out
what they stand for and ask her to please do not
muddle with the sounds of the words from the
XLZY Fifty galaxy of this universe -
Unexpected word intensities, timing of utterances,
with no rhythm, no cadence, no intonation, no nothing.

Yet she does not stutter but no tone no inflections.
My tortured ears have revolted against me now
and I am learning to hear rolling my eyes, my tongue
and moving my fingers up and down, left and right
at all angles in squares, rectangles and circles...

Could you imagine what would it be like
were you her lover?