in the valley of the bones there was a tribe, the men of stone mutes who none could name there tongue was oracle, their babble, crone who recoiled from the truth like shadow from the flame so that hard barbed errors, in their legions arise like some terrors, full of demons to creep up like old wounds, covered in lesions and snatch you in the night the empty belly of the dark with laughter like a lion and a hunger that croons raises all the hackles on the ravenous jackals beneath a howling moon. in the midst of cyclopean wonder the titan silence of the lost tribe the man eaters, the hunters and cheaters another willing sacrifice. Into the lions den. Negev