In The Sanitarium

In the Sanitarium, the voices grate
with harsh laughter un-comforted
as the hyena’s howls at night.
The garbled tongue of indifference
to the ears of civilized men,
ricocheting off concrete walls,
delivers nonsense and shame.
To belong to such an affront
to conscience is to pull teeth
without anesthetics,
without pleasantries,
without consideration
of the slow impalement
of all mankind that we must,
all of us, endure with smiles
as white as drifting snow.

Do the hyenas howl
to the tops of Kilimanjaro?

And how we clean our white teeth
with the corpse’s bones
leftover from the chase
that has ended, exhausted,
in the nourishment of the Demonic!
These bones are our bones,
as we chew our own legs
knowing the fear, the exhaustion,
the damnable despair of running,
always, always,
from our cruel stalkers,
so determined to stake us down
on to the map, oblivious to locations.