They might look like big cats from way up here,

Kings of the jungle, the lords of all they survey,

a roar so loud that it can be heard across five miles of open

scrubland and all who perch by the dwindling pool,

sucking up

precious water, live in fear of the noise that travels far

and in terror of what lurks beneath the stillness.

 

They are not Kings, lords, unless of misrule,

they are though beasts, savage and bloodthirsty

cock-sure and baying for the blood of an innocent,

they are the ones who crow and giggle with the plastic whim

of the Hyena, sniggering, giggling like school children

who find throwing stones at ducks on the river

such tremendous sport, tittering and posting videos

of their latest victim as they stand one small step from…

 

Jump

they cry, egging the faceless one on, the mentality of the keyboard

warrior transferred free of charge and with no moral backbone

to point them away from senseless occupation, a reversed Hindu

sign of peace in their decaying, mouldering, semi-breathing souls

takes root and the Hyena lives free.

So disconnected

from reality

they are, that they are the ones who find

joy in being both the incubus and the succubus,

the type who snarls under their snapping, simpering, jaw line

when they shake your paw and ask

who you are again as they piss on your shoes.

 

The Hyena though is easily dealt with as for every Hyena

loves being the centre of attention as they pick on the one

whose life is now so distraught that he will take the

word of the four-legged gibbering fuck and live with it for a while

rather than ever go back to the pool

and deal with what lives below the surface, for some monsters

some demons, cannot be controlled like the Hyena

with cages and contempt.

 

Far below me they looked like lions

until

I heard them laugh.

 

Ian D. Hall 2015.