Dorothy Lehane

JARGON APHASIA

 
in the spacial limitations of love
we favour disfluency
how human-abstract this study is
in the soundboard of profundo--
                      the void in widow
                               the void in mother

some lesions run deeper
than can be screened for
         in the right hemisphere
witness this superarrangement
sound blurring into auditory & pictorial
a final shaping flowing backwards
from the alveolar ridge
         what excites my cortex is often
exposure to another lexicon--
you hang up another new jargon      
neologisms oscillating
            between spectator
& verisimilitude          my nerve is on probation

 

 
                                   LAUTBILDER / SOUND PICTURES
 

                                       motor theory out of fashion for now
                                       as is the female unreadable muscle spasm
                                       sectarian tongue-song & clinical afters
                                       such a fine line between lust & echopraxia
                                       a dozen neural engrams for the gulf
                                       between my psychomania & my englishness,
                                       so long as this performance lasts, tearing &
                                       redefining my love, abolish dandelion syntax,
                                       traffic-in motor/phonic balance, the thinnest line
                                       between the pictures & the limits of linguistic
                                       reasoning, love me & leave me w/ lautbilder

 
 

CLINICAL MOTHERS

 
the testing is psycho-dynamic
62 non-stuttering orphans
loss of thoracic breathing
& with heavy trunk attack
483 records of stuttering
seeking vocalization
of inferior endocrine environments
or the crowded number 39
Cold-Harborough Lane
in the offspring of the skilled
& unskilled under observation
120 clinical mothers crooning
ba-ba-baby, 30 of these mothers
do not rate hypertonic severity
avoidance in the subgroups
co-existing and holding good

 
 
 
ISOGLOSSES

 
send the isogloss of lovers
during those intimate hours
to parallel fibres, hyperastronomical
numbers of neurons, so much
down to target or gene expression
we skirt the issue; dualism versus
triadic love, culture against culture
core activity as causal & faithful
in the first & second moment
of transgression, incite the end
of innocence; upriver a pseudo-
word to describe absence




BROCA'S APHASIA WITH CONCOMITANT AGRAMMATISM


it's neoclassic
multifocal episodes
unfolding at the dinner table
verbs in abeyance
bypass error
the skill of circumlocation
after much labour
after much correction
& lest we forget
your pre-morbid brilliance
-- whiling away time with
Greek epigrams--
the detriment goes deeper
at night the words fall
indigestible & erudite
this solo is a rest        
metabolically vital          
my my, so many ways
to croon over erosion

Copyright © Dorothy Lehane 2015

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Dorothy Lehane is a PhD candidate in Poetry Text as Practice and Assistant Lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Kent. Her research explores the perceptual and social experiences of neurological speech conditions, and examines questions concerning cultural encounters and embodied responses within poetic practice. She is the author of Ephemeris (Nine Arches Press, 2014) and Places of Articulation (dancing girl press, 2014). She is the founding editor of Litmus Publishing, an Arts Council England funded press exploring the intersection of poetry and science. Her work has previously appeared in Molly Bloom 2.