Myth
Winter, 2005
Brendan Constantine
Hyenas in the Temples of Pleasure
---------(for my poems)
"...Wild beasts shall lie there, and owls shall call there, and satres shall dance
there and hyenas shall cry in the temples of pleasure."
Isaiah 13:21 - 22
I
Great feet. Spectacular teeth. Eyes
that are sideways to everyone
but God.
I sing and they laugh. I make them
partners and they dance. I feed them
my city's dead
and they stay.
II
Only their sleep disturbs me. When
they are not laughing
or killing
but piled ear and testicle in marble
corners, breathing a decibel beneath
the fountain's purl,
I am eaten alive.
III
Dawn the owls call themselves
to rest. Quickly, for nothing
fanged is slow,
my gray animals rise and flicker.
And together we go, each
barefoot thief