(at ‘Raw Materials’ – Bruce Nauman sound installation, Turbine Hall, Tate Modern)

At first
             we can hardly tell
it apart

             from the background
Friday night chatter

just a few loudspeakers
looping voices

in an empty hall


Then further in
                        down
                                   the slope

more of them

spirits jammed
in the pine         repeating
repeating

               their words
their last words
lasting words

A zoo of voices
                        the speakers’ cages

where we press
ears like eyes

to darkness
to pick out
                  words

shuffling forwards
scuffling back
chasing
             their tails

here’s one we recognise
                                     work! work! work! work! work!

listen to this one! so sweet so funny so strange

A playground of phrases
we walk          through
                            swing
from     climb
                       up
slide
down
peek     through
                        hide
in

You brought me here
                                     “because you are poet
you are interested in language”

we play with it
                      swim in it
                                     laugh at it

then leave

back into rain

into Babel
  
                  where voices

circle
           chatter
                        flicker

where we kiss
through a crisscross mesh

of letters
raindrops
kanji

catching
             odd phrases

listening
             to pick out

one voice
from all others