Tongues of Clout
(for Geoffrey Philp)

These images our sleep
has given to the poets. Images
the mouth turns round and
spits out, clean as pits sucked off,
the raw tongue finding the texture
awright. Poets are always talkin’
about heaven, the pain of
the four seasons, countless
lucky stars at night, winking;

some poets write even hell
though none can pave the way back:
what happens when a child
loses its soul, caught
in earth’s dry anger,
a soul painted in such a way
you could not tell
where the child ended and

the tree with its blossom began:
two handfuls of a clear possibility;
some with prickles, others
with bunches of a red berry
hungry as jewels for Sheba’s earlobes
(but all with cheeky freckles).
Mounds of buried treasure
grow like Quthing molehills
in a clearing, and remove

the world from the face of itself.
As you listen, hear now how language
in words can be home-bound,
crossing a page. Even as night
lifts its mercury, and we keep
coughing our lungs out,
the poet through the rift speaks
in faceless tongues of clout.

Tagged as: Poetry