The Tongue's Purpose / by Tyler Wood

 

A handful of water – intrinsic, poetic -

like it molded its wet form for millennia

there. Only certain senses can detect it

like a whisper

A distant hum you feel, but its across the galaxy

a sway of the tall cedars or pine,

or something of the kind, that slowly

etched an echo through the landscape; claimed

battleground backbones had scoliosis.

Our toes itched to meet the hyacinth faces.

The water slipped from our ravens dish

into the faults and spaces of the bone core.

We had voices then – louder than whispers

but the rising tide drowned them out.

The caverns of eyes inspect

the ravens breath – abyss spreads.

They are ghosts – trapped in space/time -

heads arched back like sparrow wings -

appendages felled revealing metallic

consistency. Fleshy yellow intent

with radio obtuseness.

Clouds begin to look like roads

to the distance, acute triangular visuals.

Bodies rest next to their missing limbs.

Pseudo-hypnotic impulse like

the semblance of biomorphic concurrences,

the currency of motion, charged particles

react without consciousness. Surreal

reflectivity in a mass of conscious detachment.

The weight is weightless there

but the souls are labored.

We see surrounding and form

through a prism of shapelessness.

Souls react, faces just monitor.

We begin to see 1’s and 0’s.

The program is nearly complete.

The buzz begins to hiss, the radio

frequency is watery and weak;

It sounds more and more like a swaying

sycamore, dancing in the wind

but no one pays any attention anymore.

It falls to the ground floor, silent songs

remind no one of loss. The tongue

absent in its absolute purpose