The Lonesome Part

I.

Tongue has of late fostered
The irrational urge to abandon
Its dwelling place and swim
Beyond the hunger salted
Ocean where it floats.
It longs to reach some castaway shore
And watch its pitted skin smooth under the sun.

II.
In moments of desperation, the head of Tongue
Slams against the fence of bleached rapier rocks,
That make no secret of their purpose:
“Touch and be cut”, the meat is warned,
Few seconds before the frenzy.
Tongue splashes saliva to drown the corpses.

At times it fights against the body
By acting the part of
A double bluffing spy,
Feigning slippage to make a lover cry.
Other times, it plays the fool,
Going from bad to verse
And in the mouth of Gypsies,
Shapes a deadly curse.
At night time when all is silent,
And the rest of the body rests a while,
Tongue spends hours contemplating
Its underside,
Wondering why it has the colour
Of a full milk pail pregnant with flies,
Why it looks filthy and veined like a porno star.

III.
Unhappy,
Steaming with jealousy,
Tongue questions the granting of the heart’s
Four chambers, the answered prayer of the kidneys to be paired
(their elegant heads bent like shy lovers).
Yet no ancient manuscript has ever reported, no cable news
Mentioned in closing, a story about two tongues
Tied to one another at the base, gibbering from a single gob.


“I’m lonesome, God” Tongue pleads in darkness
“And you have given me too much work”.

Hassan Abdulrazzak

If you've any comments on this poem, Hassan Abdulrazzak would be pleased to hear from you.