In The Land Of Deaf-Mutes Poem by Michael Roes

In the beginning using language was
child's play, an art of slips and promises

Not sentences alone could be true or false
From grammars we built small ships

and let them sail across the sky-sea
until the discord soaked through. They

didn't help us sort the poisonous words
from the wholesome ones, nor to

ignite a poem without phosphorous and stone
Your description of utopia was a mistake

For you were only teaching us because the future
Was more frightening to you than the past

I would have choked on my own childhood
if I had trusted your lessons

Without rage they're infertile lessons
I left the books behind, the asylum

of your truths. My toes are more likely to find
my mouth than your latex metaphors

The seam of dirt under my toenails
feeds my word fever more than the one under the

clean foreskin of fathers. My retching
is not just a gesture, not just a dance

It's also a stigma in the land of my choice
I won't get older, born old

Among the herds of deaf-mutes
I make up for my childhood

Translated by Richard Millington