How delightful, in these image-driven times, to find oneself sitting in a theater and listening, really listening, to words. Especially the kind of fresh, quick-swerving linguistic riffs that fuel “Nine Years” and “Two Songs,” two small but big-hearted shows playing at the Public Theater as part of its third annual Under the Radar Festival.

To be fair, “Nine Years” is a two-man show conducted in front of a giant video screen. But for the most part, its soundless video might as well be wallpaper. The show’s chief interest doesn’t lie in watching jumpy footage of its stars backpacking through foreign countries, but in the men’s sly, often melancholy observations about modern life.

The story goes like this: Two 30ish, nondescript British blokes, Gary Winters and Gregg Whelan, travel on the cheap through Europe, North America, and Australia. When they get to a town, they unpack their collapsible bicycles and spend the day cruising around in search of material. Each night, they present the day’s events (along with some earlier bits) to a local audience, reading from legal pads.

The duo’s style is simple: alternating monologues, read with deadpan inflections. The tone is set immediately, as Gary (in baseball cap and high-tech cycling outfit) reads a long monologue off a clipboard. It’s a kind of office drone’s manifesto, hilarious and aching at the same time. “Look at me!” he reads flatly, in a “See Spot Run” voice. “Have a great big look at me. Do I look happy?” he asks. The crowd giggles, anticipating the next word: “No.”

The clipboard monologue returns periodically, expanding each time to disclose new, more poignant information. The writer longs to get out of his cubicle, into the real world — “there’s more than this job, more than this half-life.” He longs to be where people “bump into each other, say, ‘Hey, let’s go for coffee,’ and then get married.”

This longing for contact prompts the two mates to spend nine years on the road, staging performance happenings from Brussels to Sydney to Philadelphia. On one occasion, they stroll back and forth across a bridge all day long, and locals join them for part of the journey. In a handful of cities they dress up like cowboys, blindfold themselves, and embark on a wordless, line-dancing marathon; curious passers-by join them for stretches. Between stunts, the two mates cycle around town, chatting with anyone they meet: a homesick waiter in a café, a pair of skydivers, a grocery-store cashier.

But these stories aren’t told in everyday language. Theirs is a stylized, poetic language, calibrated to express a fundamental loneliness. The distance between modern man and his fellow man haunts them; even as they succeed in breaking it down for a moment, they recognize its formidable strength.

The show works so well because Gary and Glenn are also party to this isolationism. They are warm but laconic; they connect with people, but then they take the next train out of town.

“Who said this is right?” one refrain from Gary’s monologue goes. “Who said I should live like this?” By the end, he’s shouting, “Come on, silly old world — try harder!” It’s a memorable line, like many in this funny but heartbreaking show. It’s unexpectedly powerful to encounter a guy in bicycle shorts who genuinely believes poetry can help heal the world.

***

In “Two Songs” John O’Keefe fashions a theater experience from pure spoken word. The middle-aged Mr. O’Keefe, however, is a veteran actor, and he delivers his two contrasting monologues with a classical actor’s bravura self-assurance.

The first, “The Sunshine’s a Glorious Bird,” is performed seated at a music stand, with Mr. O’Keefe reading from a script to the ticking of a metronome. A repetitious, rhythmic word poem, “The Sunshine’s a Glorious Bird,” written by Mr. O’Keefe, falls somewhere between Gertrude Stein and John Cage, zigzagging whimsically between sense and nonsense.

Mr. O’Keefe uses every vocal device at his disposal and puts forth a dizzying array of inflections, gestures, tics, voices, laughs, facial expressions, and noises. He comes off as a cross between a homeless man and a scat singer; in both modes, he’s fascinating.

The metronome shut off, the stage cleared, Mr. O’Keefe returns to perform his own adaptation of Walt Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass.” With its American cadences and plentiful asides, “Leaves of Grass” is wonderful material for the stage. There are lovely surprises in this Shakespearean rendering of Whitman’s classic — not least how resonant and clear the phrases are as they come pouring forth.

Mr. O’Keefe’s adaptation makes some missteps, but he keeps the phrasing melodic, punctuating the music with Whitman’s questions and answers. And he maintains a vital, tensile connection to the audience, right down to the last potent image, of his outstretched arms in the fading light. His “Leaves of Grass” may not be perfect, but it’s a captivating, invigorating experiment.

“Nine Years” is now closed.

“Two Songs” until January 27 (425 Lafayette St., at Astor Place, 212-967-7555).