Tongues lost in me Yours be the sharp and the vile Glide neath my skin Storm through my nerves I bury the nomad years Hours in the earth Couldn't exorcise these searing Pecking tongues Immune you say Yet venom strikes In strangest guises As the viper in our eyes Tongue, throat, tongue Slayer of the word And stealer of vision A monumental reign of terrors Throats slit up to stain the target We're food for the hounds of trauma Prey to the crows of stress No power left to retrieve My stolen language Filtered through the illiterate Fingers of d**h Flies let sickness be poured From the cupped hands of bedlam On account of their brightness I made friends with the word and the moon Went with the tide and left for the sound Of dead instruments thrown out of tune The red square patterns Dragonrise and even claw Decoying from pandemonic symmetry Let ring a dissonant note In the music of the spheres The streak of promise in the nuclear sky These whipping black tongues Aching to lick me back to life To inject their truths within me