Tripping of the Tongue

A poem about the love and joy of words.

Oh words, I love the feel of you on my tongue, as you roll around my mouth like a luscious lollipop, your magic spell, do I,

         fall under.

 

I love how your adjectives drip, raising people from the depths of anguish to inspired insolence in but a moment, 

         like thunder.

 

And how those expressive attributes pepper the page, take me to a destination translucent I never knew it even existed, 

         in wonder.

 

I love how you can be used softly, calming verbs, to be made well, something to which I can surrender myself gladly, making

         my heart stir.

 

Oh words, I love your nuances, spoken with inflections, enunciation, and accents that offer innumerable meanings, 

         such plunder.

 

And I am in awe of how you envelop even the narcissist, enraptured self, lens turned ever inward, with those subject "I's" and "me's,"

sad in lure.

I love you for your truth, your insinuation, your lies, and your subtle intent, when wrapped around gnarly nouns,

         'neath cover.

 

And it is how you grace me with your flowing adverbs, still the precipitous qualifier, sweeping warm summer sand,

         heat ensured.

 

I love how you can create, concurrently, consensus and chaos midst rousing prose, across a crowd of oblivious dwellers, 

         whys inferred.

 

And it is how you release sensuality, when spoken in a sweetheart's ear, you caress and confound with your heady superlatives, 

         love's allure.

 

I even love you for the way you lash out as a whip, in a vicious and bloody swath of rages, when least expected, clauses aligned,

         hurts assured. 

 

I love the way you course through my veins, on a rough and gusty river of fire and lust, bursting at the character-baked seams,

         raw and pure.

I love how you can bring the strongest of men to their knees within a phrased battle, begging to God, "take me," and then unto,

        that endure.

 

Words, I relish and devour, breathing you in and out, even as life tears me apart, you are all parts mine to choose, to make whole, oh,

         splendid cure.