Subtitles on/off (Poetry)

I don’t know what they’re saying —
the sounds they make fall meaningless —
a curiously disconnected outpouring
my ear rejects and won’t translate.

I don’t recognise the language — a lilt suggests
maybe it is beyond the simply foreign —
mumble — whispered stuttering effect —
I flick the switch for subtitles

and while I’m reading — squinting
at a text so obviously abridged
I lose the action — miss the accent’s clue.
Sound wavers — almost on the point of being visible

their gibber streams away — exits like bubbles —
I’m adrift in vowels and gutteral excess —
odd inflections and then the sudden breakthrough sense
of levels —

a layered understanding — noise on prehistoric noise —
and a kind of comprehension comes
swimming up — the strand of an idea caught
in its teeth.