The People's Language

Everybody is talking
in another tongue,
A gibberish that
I can't understand.
It's a chronic affliction -
Ignorance.

This steaks tastes good, though.
While I'm chewing,
and staring despondently at
the thoughtful faces seated around table,
romantically swathed in the richness
of candlelit extravagance,
I can appreciate the cow
that sits feebly on my plate.
Despite the bitter end,
its flavour is sweet.
Aromatic.

Voices rise and fall,
Like waves across the table.
Washing over my head
in rhythmic tongue lashings
and singing words.
Hissing, crashing, seething
against the shore.
I stand on the beach,
unable to reach the water,
yet I am not blind to it's beauty.
A liquid life vibrating.
I'm not bored,
Just inadequate,
Seated at a table with foreigners.
Like a pirate
in a bank,
I don't quite fit in.

I'm lost for a moment
In the nonsensical hum
Of stories lost in my ears.
Only to be drawn out of
My personal reverie.

That sound,
Bubbling and erupting -
A geyser out of control,
A spring bursting between
rocks and waterfall
dripping ecstatically
Between exuberant lips.
Infectious disease
A flu of the funny bone.
I can't help but chuckle
as laugh lines form great canyons
on the planes of glowing faces...
You don't have to be a genius,
To realise when somebody's told a joke.